In NE, proairesis (choice) is a fundamental moral and political concept that allows Aristotle to weave together his “art of politics” (politike) with a theory of moral action that makes individual responsibility fundamental to “good order”. Thus Aristotle can say quite succinctly in the midst of his famous “functional argument” (that the special purpose of the human being is to pursue its own eudaemonia) that the “end of the political art” is that “it exercises a very great care to make citizens of a specific sort — good and apt to do the noble things” (1.9 1099b30-32)

The making of moral citizens is thus the end (telos) of politike. Therefore, NE has to articulate a moral psychology of action that places the individual at the center of the discussion, and at the heart of this individual must be the capacity to choose. Without this capacity, we simply cannot make judgments about virtuous and vicious actions, which as a matter of being human we do all the time. Without this capacity, we are left with pure determinism — moral character would be, for any given individual, something that “cannot be otherwise” and thus not open to judgment.

Yet, common experience certainly indicates to us that different people have different dispositions to virtue and vice. Some are cowardly, some are courageous; some are just, others are unjust; some are moderate, some are licentious. But Aristotle’s politike would make no sense if he had to rely on some form of determinism to explain individual characters. How could we make judgments about good and bad actions if our moral qualities are the result of “divine allotment” or “chance.”

At this point, we can understand why “habituation” plays such a central role for Aristotle. It is the concept that allows him to negotiate the incompatibility of two observable facts of human existence:

1. That some people just seem to be determined by forces beyond their control to make either good or bad choices

2. That we make moral judgments about people and their behaviors all the time, as if we believe that their choices are truly up to them

If #1 is true, meaning that individual behavior is determined by “divine allotment” or “chance” (1099b10), then our judgments (#2) are utterly useless if not actually insane. Proairesis and habituation are the indispensable concepts that allow Aristotle to reconcile #1 and #2.

As for what concerns the virtues taken together, then, their genus was stated in outline: that they are means and that they are characteristics; that they are in themselves productive of the actions out of which they come to be; that they are up to us and voluntary; and that [they prompt us to act] in the way correct reason commands. But actions and characteristics are not voluntary in a similar way. For in the case of actions, from the beginning up to the end we exercise authoritative control over them, knowing the particulars involved; whereas in the case of the characteristics, we are in control of the beginning of them, but at each moment, the growth [that develops from the relevant activity] is not noticed, just as in the case of illnesses. But because it was once in our power to make use of [the characteristics] in this or that way, they are voluntary. (3.5 1114b26-1115a3)

To summarize (and possibly oversimplify) this complex passage, we are always in control of particular actions “from the beginning up to the end” through reason and choice; but over time and repetition, habits form such that what we experience as “control” in our youth solidifies unnoticed into our characteristics (hexes). The licentious person does not start out as such, but through repetition of licentious choices, he becomes so. In the process, his ability to control his responses by choosing more virtuous actions is weakened. He thus becomes more and more habituated to chose licentious things automatically.

This does not exonerate him from his vices, however. Nor does it make his morality completely up to him either. He remains responsible insofar as every action is particular and thus has an element of choice. The polis, however, bears a great deal of responsibility for how habituation gets started. Intervening early and often is essential to good governance as the making of good citizens:

And so, in a word, the characteristics come into being as a result of the activities akin to them. Hence we must make our activities be of a certain quality, for the characteristics correspond to the differences among the activities. It makes no small difference, then, whether one is habituated in this or that way straight from childhood but a very great difference — or rather the whole difference. (2.1 1103b21-25)

How we choose is the heart of morality because our choices drive the actions that make us who we are. This process is of both social and individual importance. The entanglement cannot be undone. Habituation and choice do not have original conditions that could be described as “will,” free or otherwise, separate from one’s membership in a polis. For an individual to become licentious, both the city and himself are to blame. Children are not in charge of their choices but must be raised to make the right choices. Thus virtuous or vicious habits are passed on to the individual through the social structures in which she resides.

Doxa (opinions) and endoxa (received wisdom) — which are so important to Aristotle’s NE, Politics and Rhetoric — are not just indicators of the content of our virtues and vices. They are the mechanisms that pass them on to the inhabitants of the city. Virtues (as well as vices) are brought into being by the actions we take and the stories we tell to valorize or vilify those actions.

The foundation of a good society, then, is the embrace and reinforcement of its chosen virtues. The citizens cannot chose eudaemonia just as a doctor cannot chose health for his patients. Rather eudaemonia, like health, is an effect of the actions we take and therefore the choices we make. By habituating ourselves and others to accept and enact our collective values, we create individual and collective eudaemonia. But final eudaemonia can never arrive once and for all. It is the product and outcome of virtuous action which must be continually reactivated by the citizenry.

This is a very pragmatic view of society insofar as it embraces a circular logic: “they [virtues] are in themselves productive of the actions out of which they come to be.” The virtues and values we live by are themselves both means and ends. By pursuing them we create the society we want to live in because the virtues are the substance of the society itself. There is no “end of history” here; there is no final appearance of human eudaemonia that our pursuit of courage, moderation, justice, friendship, et cetera finally brings about. If these virtues are the means to the end of eudaemonia, it’s because eudaemonia can only be experienced through the enacting of the virtues.

Thus an Aristotelian polis is defined by its collective commitment to its values. These values (as virtues) don’t exist in a stable form. They only exist and are strengthened through repeated renewal and reuse. Nor are the virtues themselves eudaemonia, which cannot be pursued directly. Rather, eudaemonia can only be described as the excess or byproduct of the activation of virtues. As Aristotle argues in 1.7 and 1.8, eudaemonia results from actions and cannot be reduced to mere possession as if it were a characteristic.

We thus have in NE a society where individual responsibility is essential to good order — the individual is an “origin of his actions” — but the “choice” and “habituation” that determine one’s actions are not fully and completely given to oneself by oneself. They are informed by the values of the polis in which one lives.

Yet, the individual’s choice is not wholly given to her by the polis. The individual is not an automaton whose power to choose has been wholly given over to the state. Nothing happens in Aristotle’s world without the individual ultimately being accountable for the action. John Dewey would echo this 2400 years later in The Public and Its Problems:

Individual human beings may lose their identity in a mob or in a political convention or in a joint-stock corporation or at the polls. But this does not mean that some mysterious collective agency is making decisions…. When the public or state is involved in making social arrangements like passing laws, enforcing a contract, conferring a franchise, it still acts through concrete persons. The persons are now officers, representatives of a public and shared interest. (The Essential Dewey, Volume 1, 286)

The echos of Aristotle’s NE are unmistakeable. Like Aristotle, Dewey is writing directly to and for a body of citizens. Some of these citizens will be aspiring or actual “politicians” or “officials” in charge of optimizing the outcomes for the broader society. For Dewey, “the Public” and government must be understood as being concerned with “consequences” — in Aristotle’s translator’s phrase “things that can be otherwise.”