What exactly is Aristotle’s “function argument” in Nicomachean Ethics I.7?

Question

I teach this every year and I always feel I fumble it. My summary for students goes roughly like this:
the good of anything that has a function lies in performing that function wellhuman beings have a functionit isn't nutrition and growth (plants share that) or perception (animals share that)so it is an activity of the soul in accordance with reasonso the human good is that activity done well, that is, with virtue, over a complete life
Two things trouble me. Why should we assume humans have a function at all, the way a flute-player or an eye does? And why must the function be something unique to us? Being distinctive doesn't obviously make something good. I'd welcome a clearer account than the one I give.

Layla Haddad · Accepted Answer

Here is how I usually explain it.
Ergon is better rendered "characteristic activity" than "function" in the engineering sense. Aristotle isn't saying someone designed us for a purpose. He is asking what activity makes a human life the kind of life it is, the way seeing makes an eye an eye.
Uniqueness is not an argument from distinctiveness to value. It is a way of specifying the kind. If you want to know what a good knife is, you look at what knives do, not at what knives share with spoons. Once the characteristic activity is fixed, "good" means doing that activity well. That's why the next step goes straight to virtue (aretē, excellence).
The standard objection is that this smuggles in an Aristotelian biology most of us don't accept. That's fair, but notice how little biology it needs: only that rational activity is central to human life.
Finally, "in a complete life" matters. He adds the proverb that one swallow doesn't make a spring. Eudaimonia is a property of a whole life, not a mood.

Tomasz Wójcik · Answer

On structure only: the argument leans on analogy (flute-player, sculptor, eye, hand) to get the premise that humans have an ergon. If you reject the analogy, the argument doesn't start. The uniqueness clause is doing definitional work, picking out what is idion, proper, to a kind.

Giulia Ferrante · Answer

Thank you both. The knife and spoon example is exactly what my students need, and I'll steal it on Monday.

Elin Lindqvist · Answer

A worry from where I work. Many of my patients can no longer reason: advanced dementia, severe brain injury. Does the function argument imply their lives can't go well? I don't think Aristotle meant to say that, but I'm not sure what stops the inference.

Giulia Ferrante · Answer

It's a real worry, Elin, and Aristotle doesn't address it head on. He does acknowledge in I.9–10 that luck can ruin even a virtuous life, with Priam as his example. I'd say his account explains what flourishing is, not who deserves care. Those are different questions, though I admit he doesn't always keep them apart.

What exactly is Aristotle’s “function argument” in Nicomachean Ethics I.7?

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