Civilization?

Near the beginning of the The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's treatise on human character, he makes a sharp break from his teacher Plato's view of what constitutes "the good." Plato sees "the good" as being defined in strictly metaphysical terms: it is the ideal that can only be percieved through the use of abstract reasoning. Aristotle doesn't entirely reject this, but he certainly disputes that it is the one and "true" good. In his view, it would be "difficult to say what is meant by the 'absolute' in anything" (I:IV). There is no "good": the "absolute," Platonic good, and the "secondary," practicable good (I:IV).

Aristotle emphasizes practical reasoning over abstraction, and the questions driving the Ethics are eminently practical, namely, what is the "good" life, and how does one live it? He interrogates his subjects in a manner that's somewhat milder than Plato's Socratic dialectic; he isn't looking for a contradiction that undermines the entire premise of what's being put forth, and he isn't attempting to tease out basic assumptions with repeated questions. Instead, he sets forth a proposition or a question, and he then outlines related answers or responses that he identifies as being wrong in some way. Ultimately, he arrives at an appropriate answer to the issue he's posing. The subjects if the first three books of The Nicomachean Ethics-- the nature of the "good" and happiness, the definition of virtue and vice, and the questions of relative virtue and morality--are all examined in this way.

Character is defined by virtue, and virtue enable one to discriminate between the poles of vice and find the golden mean, whether it is finding courage in between foolhardiness or timidity, or temperance in between licentiousness and asceticism. A major aspect of happiness is finding the balance in one's life.