aretê

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics advances an understanding of ethics known as virtue ethics because of its reliance on the concept of virtue. The word we translate as virtue is aretê, and it could equally be translated as “excellence.” Moral virtue, therefore, is a matter of excellence in the function of being human.

The Greek word ethos, from which we derive the word ethics, literally means “character,” and Aristotle’s goal is to describe what qualities constitute excellent character.