title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Trying to follow the method of starting with approximate things gentlemen can agree on, and looking at all circumstances, Aristotle says that we can describe virtues as things that are destroyed by deficiency or excess. Someone who runs away becomes a coward, while someone who fears nothing is rash. In this way, the virtue "bravery" can be seen as depending upon a "mean" between two extremes. (For this reason, Aristotle is sometimes considered a proponent of a doctrine of a "golden mean".) People become habituated well by first performing actions that are virtuous, possibly because of the guidance of teachers or experience, and in turn these habitual actions then become real virtue where we choose good actions deliberately.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: According to Aristotle, character properly understood (i.e. one's virtue or vice), is not just any tendency or habit but something that affects when we feel pleasure or pain. A virtuous person feels pleasure when they perform the most beautiful or noble () actions. A person who is not virtuous will often find his or her perceptions of what is most pleasant to be misleading. For this reason, any concern with virtue or politics requires consideration of pleasure and pain. When a person does virtuous actions, for example by chance, or under advice, they are not yet necessarily a virtuous person. It is not like in the productive arts, where the thing being made is what is judged as well made or not. To truly be a virtuous person, one's virtuous actions must meet three conditions: (a) they are done knowingly, (b) they are chosen for their own sakes, and (c) they are chosen according to a stable disposition (not at a whim, or in any way that the acting person might easily change his choice about). And just knowing what would be virtuous is not enough. According to Aristotle's analysis, three kinds of things come to be present in the soul that virtue is: a feeling (), an inborn predisposition or capacity (dunamis), or a stable disposition that has been acquired (hexis). In fact, it has already been mentioned that virtue is made up of , but on this occasion, the contrast with feelings and capacities is made clearer—neither is chosen, and neither is praiseworthy in the way that virtue is.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Comparing virtue to productive arts () as with arts, virtue of character must not only be the making of a good human, but also the way humans do their own work well. Being skilled in an art can also be described as a mean between excess and deficiency: when they are well done we say that we would not want to take away or add anything from them. But Aristotle points to a simplification in this idea of hitting a "mean". In terms of what is best, we aim at an extreme, not a mean, and in terms of what is base, the opposite.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 7 turns from general comments to specifics. Aristotle gives a list of character virtues and vices that he later discusses in Books II and III. As Sachs points out, (2002, p. 30) it appears the list is not especially fixed, because it differs between the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, and also because Aristotle repeats several times that this is a rough outline.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle also mentions some "mean conditions" involving feelings: a sense of shame is sometimes praised, or said to be in excess or deficiency. Righteous indignation (Greek: ) is a sort of mean between joy at the misfortunes of others and envy. Aristotle says that such cases will need to be discussed later, before the discussion of Justice in Book V, which will also require special discussion. But the "Nicomachean Ethics" only discusses the sense of shame at that point, and not righteous indignation (which is however discussed in the Eudemian Ethics Book VIII).


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: In practice Aristotle explains that people tend more by nature towards pleasures, and therefore see virtues as being relatively closer to the less obviously pleasant extremes. While every case can be different, given the difficulty of getting the mean perfectly right it is indeed often most important to guard against going the pleasant and easy way. However this rule of thumb is shown in later parts of the Ethics to apply mainly to some bodily pleasures, and is shown to be wrong as an accurate general rule in Book X.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 1 distinguishes actions chosen as relevant to virtue, and whether actions are to be blamed, forgiven, or even pitied.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: It is concerning this third class of actions that there is doubt about whether they should be praised or blamed or condoned in different cases.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 5 considers choice, willingness and deliberation in cases that exemplify not only virtue, but vice. Virtue and vice according to Aristotle are "up to us". This means that although no one is willingly unhappy, vice by definition always involves actions decided on willingly. (As discussed earlier, vice comes from bad habits and aiming at the wrong things, not deliberately aiming to be unhappy.) Lawmakers also work in this way, trying to encourage and discourage the right voluntary actions, but don't concern themselves with involuntary actions. They also tend not to be lenient to people for anything they could have chosen to avoid, such as being drunk, or being ignorant of things easy to know, or even of having allowed themselves to develop bad habits and a bad character. Concerning this point, Aristotle asserts that even though people with a bad character may be ignorant and even seem unable to choose the right things, this condition stems from decisions that were originally voluntary, the same as poor health can develop from past choices—and, "While no one blames those who are ill-formed by nature, people do censure those who are that way through lack of exercise and neglect."


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: The vices then, are voluntary just as the virtues are. He states that people would have to be unconscious not to realize the importance of allowing themselves to live badly, and he dismisses any idea that different people have different innate visions of what is good.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle now deals separately with some of the specific character virtues, in a form similar to the listing at the end of Book II, starting with courage and temperance.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Courage means holding a mean position in one's feelings of confidence and fear. For Aristotle, a courageous person must feel fear. Courage, however, is not thought to relate to fear of evil things it is right to fear, like disgrace—and courage is not the word for a man who does not fear danger to his wife and children, or punishment for breaking the law. Instead, courage usually refers to confidence and fear concerning the most fearful thing, death, and specifically the most potentially beautiful form of death, death in battle. In Book III, Aristotle stated that feeling fear for one's death is particularly pronounced when one has lived a life that is both happy and virtuous, hence, life for this agent is worth living.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: The courageous man, says Aristotle, sometimes fears even terrors that not everyone feels the need to fear, but he endures fears and feels confident in a rational way, for the sake of what is beautiful ()—because this is what virtue aims at. This is described beautiful because the "sophia" or wisdom in the courageous person makes the virtue of courage valuable. Beautiful action comes from a beautiful character and aims at beauty. The vices opposed to courage were discussed at the end of Book II. Although there is no special name for it, people who have excessive fearlessness would be mad, which Aristotle remarks that some describe Celts as being in his time. Aristotle also remarks that "rash" people (), those with excessive confidence, are generally cowards putting on a brave face.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Apart from the correct usage above, the word courage is applied to five other types of character according to Aristotle:


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 9. As discussed in Book II already, courage might be described as achieving a mean in confidence and fear, but these means are not normally in the middle between the two extremes. Avoiding fear is more important in aiming at courage than avoiding overconfidence. As in the examples above, overconfident people are likely to be called courageous, or considered close to courageous. Aristotle said in Book II that—with the moral virtues such as courage—the extreme one's normal desires tend away from are the most important to aim towards.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: When it comes to courage, it heads people towards pain in some circumstances, and therefore away from what they would otherwise desire. Men are sometimes even called courageous just for enduring pain. There can be a pleasant end of courageous actions but it is obscured by the circumstances. Death is, by definition, always a possibility—so this is one example of a virtue that does not bring a pleasant result.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle's treatment of the subject is often compared to Plato's. Courage was dealt with by Plato in his Socratic dialogue named the Laches.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Temperance (Sophrosyne, also translated as soundness of mind, moderation, discretion) is a mean with regards to pleasure. He adds that it is only concerned with pains in a lesser and different way. The vice that occurs most often in the same situations is excess with regards to pleasure (, translated licentiousness, intemperance, profligacy, dissipation etc.). Pleasures can be divided into those of the soul and of the body. But those who are concerned with pleasures of the soul, honor, learning, for example, or even excessive pleasure in talking, are not usually referred to as the objects of being temperate or dissipate. Also, not all bodily pleasures are relevant, for example delighting in sights or sounds or smells are not things we are temperate or profligate about, unless it is the smell of food or perfume that triggers another yearning. Temperance and dissipation concern the animal-like, Aphrodisiac, pleasures of touch and taste, and indeed especially a certain type of touch, because dissipated people do not delight in refined distinguishing of flavors, and nor indeed do they delight in feelings one gets during a workout or massage in a gymnasium.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 11. Some desires like that of food and drink, and indeed sex, are shared by everyone in a certain way. But not everyone has the same particular manifestations of these desires. In the "natural desires" says Aristotle, few people go wrong, and then normally in one direction, towards too much. What is just to fulfill one's need, whereas people err by either desiring beyond this need, or else desiring what they ought not desire. But regarding pains, temperance is different from courage. A temperate person does not need to endure pains, but rather the intemperate person feels pain even with his pleasures, but also by his excess longing.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: The opposite is rare, and therefore there is no special name for a person insensitive to pleasures and delight. The temperate person desires the things that are not impediments to health, nor contrary to what is beautiful, nor beyond that person's resources. Such a person judges according to right reason ().


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 12. Intemperance is a more willingly chosen vice than cowardice, because it positively seeks pleasure, while cowardice avoids pain, and pain can derange a person's choice. So we reproach intemperance more, because it is easier to habituate oneself so as to avoid this problem. The way children act also has some likeness to the vice of . Just as a child needs to live by instructions, the desiring part of the human soul must be in harmony with the rational part. Desire without understanding can become insatiable, and can even impair reason.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Plato's treatment of the same subject is once again frequently compared to Aristotle's, as was apparently Aristotle's intention (see Book I, as explained above):


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: The set of moral virtues discussed here involves getting the balance of one's behavior right in social or political situations, leading to themes that become critical to the development of some of the most important themes.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV is sometimes described as being very bound to the norms of an Athenian gentleman in Aristotle's time. While this is consistent with the approach Aristotle said he would take in Book I, in contrast to the approach of Plato, there is long running disagreement concerning whether this immersion within the viewpoint of his probable intended readership is just a starting point to build up to more general conclusions, for example in Book VI, or else shows that Aristotle failed to successfully generalize, and that his ethical thinking was truly based upon the beliefs of a Greek gentleman of his time.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: This is a virtue we observe when we see how people act with regards to giving money, and things whose worth is thought of in terms of money. The two un-virtuous extremes are wastefulness and stinginess (or meanness). Stinginess is most obviously taking money too seriously, but wastefulness, less strictly speaking, is not always the opposite (an under estimation of the importance of money) because it is also often caused by being unrestrained. A wasteful person is destroyed by their own acts, and has many vices at once. Aristotle's approach to defining the correct balance is to treat money like any other useful thing, and say that the virtue is to know how to use money: giving to the right people, the right amount at the right time. Also, as with each of the ethical virtues, Aristotle emphasizes that such a person gets pleasures and pains at doing the virtuous and beautiful thing. Aristotle goes slightly out of his way to emphasize that generosity is not a virtue associated with making money, because, he points out, a virtuous person is normally someone who causes beautiful things, rather than just being a recipient. Aristotle also points out that we do not give much gratitude and praise at all to someone simply for not taking (which might however earn praise for being just). Aristotle also points out that "generous people are loved practically the most of those who are recognized for virtue, since they confer benefits, and this consists in giving" and he does not deny that generous people often won't be good at maintaining their wealth, and are often easy to cheat. Aristotle goes further in this direction by saying that it might seem that it is better to be wasteful than to be stingy: a wasteful person is cured by age, and by running out of resources, and if they are not merely unrestrained people then they are foolish rather than vicious and badly brought-up. Also, a wasteful person at least benefits someone. Aristotle points out also that a person with this virtue would not get money from someone he should not get it, in order to give "for a decent sort of taking goes along with a decent sort of giving." Having said this however, most people we call wasteful are not only wasteful in the sense opposed to being generous, but also actually unrestrained and have many vices at once. Such people are actually often wasteful and stingy at the same time, and when trying to be generous they often take from sources whence they should not (for example pimps, loan sharks, gamblers, thieves), and they give to the wrong people. Such people can be helped by guidance, unlike stingy people, and most people are somewhat stingy. In fact, ends Aristotle, stinginess is reasonably called the opposite of generosity, "both because it is a greater evil than wastefulness, and because people go wrong more often with it than from the sort of wastefulness described".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Magnificence is described as a virtue similar to generosity except that it deals with spending large amounts of wealth. Aristotle says that while "the magnificent man is liberal, the liberal man is not necessarily magnificent". The immoderate vices in this case would be concerning "making a great display on the wrong occasions and in the wrong way". The extremes to be avoided in order to achieve this virtue are paltriness (Rackham) or chintziness (Sachs) on the one hand and tastelessness or vulgarity on the other. Aristotle reminds us here that he has already said that moral dispositions (hexeis) are caused by the activities (energeia) we perform, meaning that a magnificent person's virtue can be seen from the way he chooses the correct magnificent acts at the right times. The aim of magnificence, like any virtue, is beautiful action, not for the magnificent man himself but on public things, such that even his private gifts have some resemblance to votive offerings. Because he is aiming at a spectacle, a person with this virtue will not be focusing on doing things cheaply, which would be petty, and he or she may well overspend. So as with liberality, Aristotle sees a potential conflict between some virtues, and being good with money. But he does say that magnificence requires spending according to means, at least in the sense that poor man can not be magnificent. The vices of paltriness and vulgar chintziness "do not bring serious discredit, since they are not injurious to others, nor are they excessively unseemly".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV, Chapter 3. Magnanimity is a latinization of the original Greek used here, which was , which means greatness of soul. Although the word magnanimity has a traditional connection to Aristotelian philosophy, it also has its own tradition in English, which now causes some confusion. This is why some modern translations refer literally to greatness of soul. In particular, the term implied not just greatness, but a person who thought of themselves worthy of great things, or in other words a sort of pride. (Michael Davis translates it as pride.) Although the term could imply a negative insinuation of lofty pride, Aristotle as usual tries to define what the word should mean as a virtue. He says that "not everybody who claims more than he deserves is vain" and indeed "most small-souled of all would seem to be the man who claims less than he deserves when his deserts are great". Being vain, or being small-souled, are the two extremes that fail to achieve the mean of the virtue of magnanimity. The small souled person, according to Aristotle, "seems to have something bad about him".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: To have the virtue of greatness of soul, and be worthy of what is greatest, one must be good in a true sense, and possess what is great in all virtues. As Sachs points out: "Greatness of soul is the first of four virtues that Aristotle will find to require the presence of all the virtues of character." The others are a type of justice (1129b in ), or practical judgment as shown by good leaders (1144b in ), and truly good friends (1157a in ). Aristotle views magnanimity as "a sort of adornment of the moral virtues; for it makes them greater, and it does not arise without them."


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle also focuses on the question of what the greatest things one may be worthy of. At first he says this is spoken of in terms of external goods, but he observes that the greatest of these must be honor, because this is what we assign to gods, and this is what people of the highest standing aim at. But he qualifies this by saying that actually great souled people will hold themselves moderately toward every type of good or bad fortune, even honor. It is being good, and being worthy of honor that is more important. (The disdain of a great souled person towards all kinds of non-human good things can make great souled people seem arrogant, like an un-deserving vain person.)


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Leo Strauss argues that "there is a close kinship between Aristotle's justice and biblical justice, but Aristotle's magnanimity, which means a man's habitual claiming for himself great honors while he deserves these honors, is alien to the Bible". Strauss describes the Bible as rejecting the concept of a gentleman, and that this displays a different approach to the problem of divine law in Greek and Biblical civilization. See also below concerning the sense of shame.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV, Chapter 4. In parallel with the distinction of scale already made between normal generosity and magnificence, Aristotle proposes that there are two types of virtue associated with honors, one concerned with great honors, Magnanimity or "greatness of soul" and one with more normal honors. This latter virtue is a kind of correct respect for honor, which Aristotle had no Greek word for, but which he said is between being ambitious ( honor-loving) and unambitious ( not honor-loving) with respect to honor. It could include a noble and manly person with appropriate ambition, or a less ambitious person who is moderate and temperate. (In other words, Aristotle makes it clear that he does not think being more than average is necessarily inappropriate.) To have the correct balance in this virtue means pursuing the right types of honor from the right types of source of honor. In contrast, the ambitious man would get this balance wrong by seeking excess honor from the inappropriate sources, and the unambitious man would not desire appropriately to be honored for noble reasons.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV Chapter 5. The virtue of is the correct mean concerning anger. In contrast, an excessive tendency or vice concerning anger would be irascibility or quickness to anger. Such a person would be unfair in responses, angry at wrong people, and so on. The deficient vice would be found in people who won't defend themselves. They would lack spirit, and be considered foolish and servile. Aristotle does not deny anger a place in the behavior of a good person, but says it should be "on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time". People can get this wrong in numerous ways, and Aristotle says it is not easy to get right. So in this case as with several others several distinct types of excessive vice possible. One of the worst types amongst these is the type that remains angry for too long.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: According to Aristotle, the virtue with regards to anger would not be led by the emotions (), but by reason (). So according to Aristotle, anger can be virtuous and rational in the right circumstances, and he even says that a small amount of excess is not something worth blaming either, and might even be praised as manly and fit for command. The person with this virtue will however tend to err on the side of forgiveness rather than anger, and the person with a deficiency in this virtue, despite seeming foolish and servile, will be closer to the virtue than someone who gets angry too easily.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV Chapter 6. These characteristics concern the attitude people have towards whether they cause pain to others. The obsequious () person is over-concerned with the pain they cause others, backing down too easily, even when it is dishonorable or harmful to do so, while a surly () or quarrelsome () person objects to everything and does not care what pain they cause others, never compromising. Once again Aristotle says he has no specific Greek word to give to the correct virtuous mean that avoids the vices, but says it resembles friendship ("philia"). The difference is that this friendly virtue concerns behavior towards friends and strangers alike, and does not involve the special emotional bond that friends have. Concerning true friendship see .


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Apart from the vice of obsequiousness, there is also flattery, which is the third vice whereby someone acts in an obsequious way to try to gain some advantage to themselves.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV Chapter 7. In translations such as Rackham's the vice at issue here is sometimes referred to in English as boastfulness (Greek ) and this is contrasted to a virtue concerning truthfulness. The reason is that Aristotle describes two kinds of untruthful pretense vices—one that exaggerates things, boastfulness, and one that under-states things. Aristotle points out that this is a very specific realm of honesty, that which concerns oneself. Other types of dishonesty could involve other virtues and vices, such as justice and injustice.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: This is a similar subject to the last one discussed concerning surliness and obsequiousness, in that it concerns how to interact socially in a community. In that discussion, the question was how much to compromise with others if it would be painful, harmful or dishonorable. Now the discussion turns to how frank one should be concerning one's own qualities. And just as in the previous case concerning flattery, vices that go too far or not far enough might be part of one's character, or they might be performed as if they were in character, with some ulterior motive. Such dishonesty could involve vices of dishonesty other than boastfulness or self-deprecation of course, but the lover of truth, who is truthful even when nothing depends on it, will be praised and expected to avoid being dishonest when it is most disgraceful.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle said that he had no convenient Greek word to give to the virtuous and honest mean in this case, but a person who boasts claims qualities inappropriately, while a person who self-deprecates excessively makes no claim to qualities they have, or even disparages himself. Aristotle therefore names the virtuous man as a person who claims the good qualities he has without exaggeration or understatement. As in many of these examples, Aristotle says the excess (boastfulness) is more blameworthy than the deficiency (being self-disparaging).


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Unlike the treatment of flattery, described simply as a vice, Aristotle describes ways in which a person might be relatively blameless if they were occasionally dishonest about their own qualities, as long as this does not become a fixed disposition to boast. Specifically, according to Aristotle boasting would not be very much blamed if the aim is honor or glory, but it would be blameworthy if the aim is money.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Parts of this section are remarkable because of the implications for the practice of philosophy. At one point Aristotle says that examples of areas where dishonest boasting for gain might go undetected, and be very blameworthy, would be prophecy, philosophy, or medicine, all of which have both pretense and bragging. This appears to be a criticism of contemporary sophists. But even more remarkable is the fact that one of the vices under discussion, self-deprecation (Greek from which modern English "irony") is an adjective that was and is often used to describe Socrates. Aristotle even specifically mentions Socrates as an example, but at the same time mentions (continuing the theme) that the less excessive vice is often less blameworthy.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IV Chapter 8. The subject matter of this discussion is a virtue of being witty, charming and tactful, and generally saying the right things when speaking playfully, at our leisure, which Aristotle says is a necessary part of life. In contrast a buffoon can never resist making any joke, and the deficient vice in this case is an uncultivated person who does not get jokes, and is useless in playful conversation. It is hard to set fixed rules about what is funny and what is appropriate, so a person with this virtue will tend to be like a lawmaker making suitable laws for themselves.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 9. The sense of shame is not a virtue, but more like a feeling than a stable character trait ("hexis"). It is a fear, and it is only fitting in the young, who live by feeling, but are held back by the feeling of shame. We would not praise older people for such a sense of shame according to Aristotle, since shame should concern acts done voluntarily, and a decent person would not voluntarily do something shameful. Aristotle mentions here that self-restraint is also not a virtue, but refers us to a later part of the book (Book VII) for discussion of this.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Leo Strauss notes that this approach, as well as Aristotle's discussion of magnanimity (above), are in contrast to the approach of the Bible.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book V is the same as Book IV of the Eudemian Ethics, the first of three books common to both works. It represents the special discussion on justice () already foreseen in earlier books, which covers some of the same material as Plato's "Republic", though in a strikingly different way.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: As Aristotle points out, his approach is partly because people mean so many different things when they use the word justice. The primary division he observes in what kind of person would be called just is that, on the one hand, it could mean "law abiding" or lawful (), and on the other, it could mean equitable or fair (). Aristotle points out that, "Whatever is unfair is lawless, but not everything lawless is unfair," and, "It would seem that to be a good man is not in every case the same thing as to be a good citizen." These two common meanings of justice coincide, to the extent that any set of laws is itself good, something only lawmakers can affect, and this all-encompassing meaning equates to the justice of a good lawmaker, which becomes Aristotle's point of reference for further discussion. Justice in such a simple and complete and effective sense would according to Aristotle be the same as having a complete ethical virtue, a perfection of character, because this would be someone who is not just virtuous, but also willing and able to put virtue to use amongst their friends and in their community. According to Aristotle, "there are many who can practise virtue in their own private affairs but cannot do so in their relations with another".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle, however, says that—apart from the complete virtue that would encompass not only all types of justice, but all types of excellence of character—there is a partial virtue that gets called justice, which is clearly distinct from other character flaws. Cowardice for example, might specifically cause a soldier to throw away his shield and run. However, not everyone who runs from a battle does so from cowardice. Often, Aristotle observes, these acts are caused by over-reaching or greed ("pleonexia") and are ascribed to injustice. Unlike the virtues discussed so far, an unjust person does not necessarily desire what is bad for himself or herself as an individual, nor does he or she even necessarily desire too much of things, if too much would be bad for him or her. Such "particular injustice" is always greed aimed at particular good things such as honor or money or security.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: To understand how justice aims at what is good, it is necessary to look beyond particular good or bad things we might want or not want a share of as individuals, and this includes considering the viewpoint of a community (the subject of Aristotle's "Politics)". Alone of the virtues, says Aristotle, justice looks like "someone else's good", an argument also confronted by Plato in his "Republic".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Particular justice is however the subject of this book, and it has already been divided into the lawful and the fair, which are two different aspects of universal justice or complete virtue. Concerning areas where being law-abiding might not be the same as being fair, Aristotle says that this should be discussed under the heading of Politics. He then divides particular justice further into two parts: distribution of divisible goods and rectification in private transactions. The first part relates to members of a community in which it is possible for one person to have more or less of a good than another person. The second part of particular justice deals with rectification in transactions and this part is itself divided into two parts: voluntary and involuntary, and the involuntary are divided further into furtive and violent divisions. The following chart showing divisions with Aristotle's discussion of Justice in Book V, based on Appendix 3.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: In trying to describe justice as a mean, as with the other ethical virtues, Aristotle says that justice involves "at least four terms, namely, two persons for whom it is just and two shares which are just."(1131a) The just must fall between what is too much and what is too little and the just requires the distribution to be made between people of equal stature.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: But in many cases, how to judge what is a mean is not clear, because as Aristotle points out, "if the persons are not equal, they will not have equal shares; it is when equals possess or are allotted unequal shares, or persons not equal equal shares, that quarrels and complaints arise." (1131a23-24). What is just in distribution must also take into account some sort of worth. The parties involved will be different concerning what they deserve, and the importance of this is a key difference between distributive justice and rectificatory justice because distribution can only take place among equals. Aristotle does not state how to decide who deserves more, implying that this depends on the principles accepted in each type of community, but rather he states it is some sort of proportion in which the just is an intermediate between all four elements (2 for the goods and 2 for the people). A final point that Aristotle makes in his discussion of distributive justice is that when two evils must be distributed, the lesser of the evils is the more choice worthy and as such is the greater good (1131b21-25).


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: The second part of particular justice is rectificatory and it consists of the voluntary and involuntary. This sort of justice deals with transactions between people who are not equals and looks only at the harm or suffering caused to an individual. This is a sort of blind justice since it treats both parties as if they were equal regardless of their actual worth: "It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man or a bad one a good one". Once again trying to describe justice as a mean, he says that "men require a judge to be a middle term or medium—indeed in some places judges are called mediators—, for they think that if they get the mean they will get what is just. Thus the just is a sort of mean, inasmuch as the judge is a medium between the litigants". To restore both parties to equality, a judge must take the amount that is greater than the equal that the offender possesses and give that part to the victim so that both have no more and no less than the equal. This rule should be applied to rectify both voluntary and involuntary transactions.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Finally, Aristotle turns to the idea that reciprocity ("an eye for an eye") is justice, an idea he associates with the Pythagoreans. The problem with this approach to justice, although it is normal in politics and law-making, is that it ignores the difference between different reasons for doing a crime. For example, it could have been done out of passion or ignorance, and this makes a critical difference when it comes to determining what is the just reaction. This in turn returns Aristotle to mention the fact that laws are not normally exactly the same as what is just: "Political Justice is of two kinds, one natural, the other conventional." In a famous statement, Aristotle makes a point that, like many points in Book 5, is thought to refer us to consideration of Plato's "Republic". "Some people think that all rules of justice are merely conventional, because whereas a law of nature is immutable and has the same validity everywhere, as fire burns both here and in Persia, rules of justice are seen to vary." Aristotle insists that justice is both fixed in nature in a sense, but also variable in a specific way: "the rules of justice ordained not by nature but by man are not the same in all places, since forms of government are not the same, though in all places there is only one form of government that is natural, namely, the best form." He believed people can generally see which types of rules are conventional, and which by nature—and he felt that most important when trying to judge whether someone was just or unjust was determining whether someone did something voluntarily or not. Some people commit crimes by accident or due to vices other than greed or injustice.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics is identical to Book V of the Eudemian Ethics. Earlier in both works, both the Nicomachean Ethics Book IV, and the equivalent book in the Eudemian Ethics (Book III), though different, ended by stating that the next step was to discuss justice. Indeed, in Book I Aristotle set out his justification for beginning with particulars and building up to the highest things. Character virtues (apart from justice perhaps) were already discussed in an approximate way, as like achieving a middle point between two extreme options, but this now raises the question of how we know and recognize the things we aim at or avoid. Recognizing the mean means recognizing the correct boundary-marker () which defines the frontier of the mean. And so practical ethics, having a good character, requires knowledge.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Near the end of Book I Aristotle said that we may follow others in considering the soul () to be divided into a part having reason and a part without it. Until now, he says, discussion has been about one type of virtue or excellence ("aretē") of the soul — that of the character ("ēthos", the virtue of which is , moral virtue). Now he will discuss the other type: that of thought ("dianoia").


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle states that if recognition depends upon likeness and kinship between the things being recognized and the parts of the soul doing the recognizing, then the soul grows naturally into two parts, specialised in these two types of cause.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle enumerates five types of "hexis" (stable dispositions) that the soul can have, and which can disclose truth:


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: In the last chapters of this book (12 and 13) Aristotle compares the importance of practical wisdom () and wisdom (). Although Aristotle describes as more serious than practical judgement, because it is concerned with higher things, he mentions the earlier philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thales, as examples proving that one can be wise, having both knowledge and intellect, and yet devoid of practical judgement. The dependency of upon is described as being like the dependency of health upon medical knowledge. Wisdom is aimed at for its own sake, like health, being a component of that most complete virtue that makes happiness.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle closes by arguing that in any case, when one considers the virtues in their highest form, they would all exist together.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: This book is the last of three books that are identical in both the "Nicomachean Ethics" and the "Eudemian Ethics". It is Book VI in the latter. It extends previously developed discussions, especially from the end of Book II, in relation to vice and the virtue of .


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: According to Aristotle, and self-restraint, are not to "be conceived as identical with Virtue and Vice, nor yet as different in kind from them". Aristotle argues that a simple equation should not be made between the virtue of temperance, and self-restraint, because self-restraint might restrain good desires, or weak unremarkable ones. Furthermore, a truly temperate person would not even have bad desires to restrain.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle reviews various opinions held about self-mastery, most importantly one he associates with Socrates. According to Aristotle, Socrates argued that all unrestrained behavior must be a result of ignorance, whereas it is commonly thought that the unrestrained person does things that they know to be evil, putting aside their own calculations and knowledge under the influence of passion. Aristotle begins by suggesting Socrates must be wrong, but comes to conclude at the end of Chapter 3 that "what Socrates was looking for turns out to be the case". His way of accommodating Socrates relies on the distinction between knowledge that is activated or not, for example in someone drunk or enraged. People in such a state may sound like they have knowledge, like an actor or student reciting a lesson can.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: In chapter 4 Aristotle specifies that when we call someone unrestrained, it is in cases (just in the cases where we say someone has the vice of in Book II) where bodily pleasure or pain, such as those associated with food and sex, has caused someone to act in a shameful way against their own choice and reason. Other types of failure to master oneself are only in a qualified sense, for example "in anger" or "in the pursuit of honor". These he discusses next, under tendencies that are neither vice nor , but more animal-like.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle makes a nature and nurture distinction between different causes of bestial behavior he says occurs "in some cases from natural disposition, and in others from habit, as with those who have been abused from childhood." He refers to these as animal-like and disease-like conditions. Aristotle says that "every sort of senselessness or cowardice or dissipation or harshness that goes to excess is either animal-like or disease-like".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: For Aristotle, , "unrestraint", is distinct from animal-like behavior because it is specific to humans and involves conscious rational thinking about what to do, even though the conclusions of this thinking are not put into practice. When someone behaves in a purely animal-like way, then for better or worse they are not acting based upon any conscious choice.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Returning to the question of anger or spiritedness () then, Aristotle distinguishes it from desires because he says it listens to reason, but often hears wrong, like a hasty servant or a guard dog. He contrasts this with desire, which he says does not obey reason, although it is frequently responsible for the weaving of unjust plots. He also says that a bad temper is more natural and less blamable than desire for excessive unnecessary pleasure. And he claims that acts of "hubris" never result from anger, but always have a connection to pleasure seeking, whereas angry people act from pain, and often regret it.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: So there are two ways that people lose mastery of their own actions and do not act according to their own deliberations. One is through excitability, where a person does not wait for reason but follows the imagination, often having not been prepared for events. The other, worse and less curable case, is that of a weak person who has thought things through, but fails to do as deliberated because they are carried in another direction by a passion. Nevertheless, it is better to have than the true vice of , where intemperate choices are deliberately chosen for their own sake. Such people do not even know they are wrong, and feel no regrets. These are even less curable.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle discusses pleasure in two separate parts of the "Nicomachean Ethics" (book 7 chapters 11-14 and book 10 chapters 1-5). Plato had discussed similar themes in several dialogues, including the Republic and the Philebus and Gorgias.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: In chapter 11 Aristotle goes through some of the things said about pleasure and particularly why it might be bad. But in chapter 12 he says that none of these things show that pleasure is not good, nor even the best thing. First, what is good or bad need not be good or bad simply, but can be good or bad for a certain person at a certain time. Secondly, according to Aristotle's way of analyzing causation, a good or bad thing can either be an activity ("being at work", "energeia"), or else a stable disposition ("hexis"). The pleasures from being restored into a natural are accidental and not natural, for example the temporary pleasure that can come from a bitter taste. Things that are pleasant by nature are activities that are pleasant in themselves and involve no pain or desire. The example Aristotle gives of this is contemplation. Thirdly, such pleasures are ways of being at work, ends themselves, not just a process of coming into being aimed at some higher end. Even if a temperate person avoids excesses of some pleasures, they still have pleasures.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 13 starts from pain, saying it is clearly bad, either in a simple sense or as an impediment to things. He argues that this makes it clear that pleasure is good. He rejects the argument of Speusippus that pleasure and pain are only different in degree because this would still not make pleasure, bad, nor stop it, or at least some pleasure, even from being the best thing. Aristotle focuses from this on to the idea that pleasure is unimpeded, and that while it would make a certain sense for happiness () to be a being at work that is unimpeded in some way, being impeded can hardly be good. Aristotle appeals to popular opinion that pleasure of some type is what people aim at, and suggests that bodily pleasure, while it might be the most obvious type of pleasure, is not the only type of pleasure. He points out that if pleasure is not good then a happy person will not have a more pleasant life than another, and would have no reason to avoid pain.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Chapter 14 first points out that any level of pain is bad, while concerning pleasure it is only excessive bodily pleasures that are bad. Finally, he asks why people are so attracted to bodily pleasures. Apart from natural depravities and cases where a bodily pleasure comes from being restored to health Aristotle asserts a more complex metaphysical reason, which is that for humans change is sweet, but only because of some badness in us, which is that part of every human has a perishable nature, and "a nature that needs change [..] is not simple nor good". God, in contrast, "enjoys a single simple pleasure perpetually".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book II Chapter 6 discussed a virtue like friendship. Aristotle now says that friendship ("philia") itself is a virtue, or involves virtue. It is not only important for living well, as a means, but is also a noble or beautiful end in itself that receives praise in its own right, and being a good friend is sometimes thought to be linked to being a good person.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle says speculations (for example about whether love comes from attractions between like things) are not germane to this discussion, and he divides aims of friendships or love into three types—each giving feelings of good will that go in two directions:


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Two are inferior to the other because of the motive: friendships of utility and pleasure do not regard friends as people, but for what they can give in return.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Friendships of utility are relationships formed without regard to the other person at all. With these friendships are classed family ties of hospitality with foreigners, types of friendships Aristotle associates with older people. Such friends are often not very interested in being together, and the relationships are easily broken off when they cease to be useful.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: At the next level, friendships of pleasure are based on fleeting emotions and are associated with young people. However, while such friends do like to be together, such friendships also end easily whenever people no longer enjoy the shared activity, or can no longer participate in it together.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Friendships based upon what is good are the perfect form of friendship, where both friends enjoy each other's virtue. As long as both friends keep similarly virtuous characters, the relationship will endure and be pleasant and useful and good for both parties, since the motive behind it is care for the friend themselves, and not something else. Such relationships are rare, because good people are rare, and bad people do not take pleasure in each other.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle suggests that although the word friend is used in these different ways, it is perhaps best to say that friendships of pleasure and usefulness are only analogous to real friendships. It is sometimes possible that at least in the case of people who are friends for pleasure familiarity will lead to a better type of friendship, as the friends learn to admire each other's characters.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Book IX and the last sections of Book VIII turn to the question of how friends and partners generally should reward each other and treat each other, whether it be in money or honor or pleasure. This can sometimes be complex because parties may not be equals. Aristotle notes that the type of friendship most likely to be hurt by complaints of unfairness is that of utility and reminds that "the objects and the personal relationships with which friendship is concerned appear [...] to be the same as those which are the sphere of justice." And it is the transactions of friends by utility that sometimes require the use of written laws. Furthermore, all associations and friendships are part of the greater community, the "polis", and different relationships can be compared to the different types of constitution, according to the same classification system Aristotle explains in his "Politics" (Monarchy, Tyranny, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Timocracy, and Democracy).


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Pleasure is discussed throughout the whole "Ethics", but is given a final more focused and theoretical treatment in Book X. Aristotle starts by questioning the rule of thumb accepted in the more approximate early sections, whereby people think pleasure should be avoided—if not because it is bad simply, then because people tend too much towards pleasure seeking. He argues that people's actions show that this is not really what they believe. He reviews some arguments of previous philosophers, including first Eudoxus and Plato, to argue that pleasure is clearly a good pursued for its own sake even if it is not "The Good", or in other words that which all good things have in common.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: In chapter 3 Aristotle applies to pleasure his theory of motion () as an energeia as explained in his "Physics" and "Metaphysics". In terms of this approach, pleasure is not a movement or () because unlike the movement of walking across a specific room, or of building a house, or a part of a house, it has no end point when we can say it is completed. It is more like seeing which is either happening in a complete way or not happening. "Each moment of pleasurable consciousness is a perfect whole."


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: A sense perception like sight is in perfect activity () when it is in its best conditions and directed at the best objects. And when any sense is in such perfect activity, then there is pleasure, and similarly thinking () and contemplation () have associated pleasures. But seeing, for example is a whole, as is the associated pleasure. Pleasure does not complete the seeing or thinking, but is an extra activity, just as a healthy person can have an extra good "bloom of well-being".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: This raises the question of why pleasure does not last, but seem to fade as if we get tired. Aristotle proposes as a solution to this that pleasure is pursued because of desire to live. Life is an activity () made up of many activities such as music, thinking and contemplation, and pleasure brings the above-mentioned extra completion to each of these, bringing fulfilment and making life worthy of choice. Aristotle says we can dismiss the question of whether we live for pleasure or choose pleasure for the sake of living, for the two activities seem incapable of being separated.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Different activities in life, the different sense perceptions, thinking, contemplating, bring different pleasures, and these pleasures make the activities grow, for example a flute player gets better at it as they also get more pleasure from it. But these pleasures and their associated activities also impede with each other just as a flute player cannot participate in an argument while playing. This raises the question of which pleasures are more to be pursued. Some pleasures are more beautiful and some are more base or corrupt. Aristotle ranks some of them as follows:


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle also argues that each type of animal has pleasures appropriate to it, and in the same way there can be differences between people in what pleasures are most suitable to them. Aristotle proposes that it would be most beautiful to say that the person of serious moral stature is the appropriate standard, with whatever things they enjoy being the things most pleasant.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Turning to happiness then, the aim of the whole "Ethics"; according to the original definition of Book I it is the activity or being-at-work chosen for its own sake by a morally serious and virtuous person. This raises the question of why play and bodily pleasures cannot be happiness, because for example tyrants sometimes choose such lifestyles. But Aristotle compares tyrants to children, and argues that play and relaxation are best seen not as ends in themselves, but as activities for the sake of more serious living. Any random person can enjoy bodily pleasures, including a slave, and no one would want to be a slave.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle says that if perfect happiness is activity in accordance with the highest virtue, then this highest virtue must be the virtue of the highest part, and Aristotle says this must be the intellect ("nous") "or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine". This highest activity, Aristotle says, must be contemplation or speculative thinking (). This is also the most sustainable, pleasant, self-sufficient activity; something aimed at for its own sake. (In contrast to politics and warfare it does not involve doing things we'd rather not do, but rather something we do at our leisure.) However, Aristotle says this aim is not strictly human, and that to achieve it means to live in accordance not with our mortal thoughts but with something immortal and divine which is within humans. According to Aristotle, contemplation is the only type of happy activity it would not be ridiculous to imagine the gods having. The intellect is indeed each person's true self, and this type of happiness would be the happiness most suited to humans, with both happiness () and the intellect () being things other animals do not have. Aristotle also claims that compared to other virtues, contemplation requires the least in terms of possessions and allows the most self-reliance, "though it is true that, being a man and living in the society of others, he chooses to engage in virtuous action, and so will need external goods to carry on his life as a human being".


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Finally, Aristotle repeats that the discussion of the "Ethics" has not reached its aim if it has no effect in practice. Theories are not enough. However, the practice of virtue requires good education and habituation from an early age in the community. Young people otherwise do not ever get to experience the highest forms of pleasure and are distracted by the easiest ones. While parents often attempt to do this, it is critical that there are also good laws in the community. But concerning this need for good laws and education Aristotle says that there has always been a problem, which he is now seeking to address: unlike in the case of medical science, theoreticians of happiness and teachers of virtue such as sophists never have practical experience themselves, whereas good parents and lawmakers have never theorized and developed a scientific approach to analyzing what the best laws are. Furthermore, very few lawmakers, perhaps only the Spartans, have made education the focus of law making, as they should. Education needs to be more like medicine, with both practice and theory, and this requires a new approach to studying politics. Such study should, he says, even help in communities where the laws are not good and the parents need to try to create the right habits in young people themselves without the right help from lawmakers.


title: Nicomachean Ethics

text: Aristotle closes the "Nicomachean Ethics" therefore by announcing a programme of study in politics, including the collecting of studies of different constitutions, and the results of this programme are generally assumed to be contained in the work that exists today and is known as the "Politics".


title: Emory Cohen

text: Emory Isaac Cohen (born March 13, 1990) is an American actor. He made his feature film debut in "Afterschool" (2008). He is best known for his roles as AJ Cross in Derek Cianfrance's film "The Place Beyond the Pines" (2012), Tony Fiorello in John Crowley's film "Brooklyn" (2015), and Homer in the Netflix series "The OA" (2016).


title: Emory Cohen

text: Cohen was born in Manhattan, New York, New York, the only child of Donna (née Ackerman), a director of a preschool, and Noel Cohen, a music teacher. As well as being Jewish, he is a fourth generation New Yorker whose ancestors emigrated from Russia. Cohen made his stage debut as Mr. Peachum in a school production of "The Threepenny Opera" at the Robert F. Wagner Jr. Scondary School for Arts and Technology, under the direction of Alma Whitney and Oskar Sarasky.


title: Emory Cohen

text: He graduated from Elisabeth Irwin High School in 2008 and received a full scholarship to study acting at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He trained at UArts for two years before dropping out to study acting in New York.


title: Emory Cohen

text: Cohen made his feature film debut in "Afterschool" in 2008, opposite Ezra Miller. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and received positive reviews from critics. His next role was in the 2010 drama film "The Hungry Ghosts". In 2012, he co-starred in Derek Cianfrance's crime drama film "The Place Beyond the Pines" opposite Bradley Cooper and Dane DeHaan. The film received generally positive reviews and was a box office success.


title: Emory Cohen

text: He had a recurring role during the first season of "Smash", playing Leo, the son of Debra Messing's character, and starred as Wendell Pierce's lover in the independent film "Four".


title: Emory Cohen

text: In 2014, he appeared in the drama "The Gambler" playing a tennis player and in the independent film "Beneath the Harvest Sky". In 2015, he portrayed Tony, the love interest of Eilis, played by Saoirse Ronan, in "Brooklyn". Rex Reed praised his "wonderful, warm and deeply touching performance". In "Variety", Kristopher Tapley wrote that "Brooklyn" offered "another reminder that Emory Cohen is one of the most exciting actors of his generation."


title: Emory Cohen

text: Cohen had a leading role in the 2015 independent film "Stealing Cars", opposite Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy. He received positive reviews for his role as Billy Wyatt. In 2016, he starred in the Netflix series "The OA".


title: Emory Cohen

text: Other notable actors that he has worked alongside include Dylan O'Brien, Liam Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Clark Gregg, Megan Fox, Oscar Isaac, Ewan McGregor, Seth Mcfarline, Naomi Watts and Brad Pitt.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Angry Birds (later remarketed as Rovio Classics: Angry Birds, formerly Angry Birds Classic) is a 2009 casual puzzle video game developed by Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was first released for iOS and Maemo devices starting in December 2009. By October 2010, 12 million copies of the game had been purchased from the iOS App Store, which prompted the developer to design versions for other touchscreen-based smartphones, most notably Android, Symbian, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry 10 devices. The series has since expanded to include titles for dedicated video game consoles and PCs. A sequel, "Angry Birds 2", was released in July 2015 for iOS and Android. Around April 2019, the original game was removed from the App Store. A recreation of the game's content from 2012 was released as "Rovio Classics: Angry Birds" on March 31, 2022.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The gameplay revolves around players using a slingshot to launch the birds at green pigs stationed in or around various structures, with the intent of destroying all the pigs on the playing field. As players advance through the game, new types of birds become available (some with special abilities that can be activated by the player). Rovio Mobile has supported "Angry Birds" with numerous free updates that add additional game content, and the company has also released stand-alone holiday and promotional versions of the game.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: "Angry Birds" was eventually praised by critics for its success at leveraging a combination of addictive gameplay, comical style, and low price into a viable franchise with long-term potential for profit. The game's popularity has led to the release of "Angry Birds" games for personal computers and gaming consoles, created a market for merchandise featuring the "Angry Birds" characters, a 2016 feature-length animated film, a 2019 sequel to said film, and several seasons of television cartoons. The "Angry Birds" series had a combined tally of over four billion downloads across all platforms, as of January 2018, including special editions. After its release, the original game was called "one of the most mainstream games out in 2010", "one of the great runaway hits of 2010", and "the largest mobile app success the world has seen as of 2011".


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In "Angry Birds", the player controls a flock of multi-colored birds that are attempting to save their eggs from green-colored pigs. In each stage of the gameplay, the pigs are sheltered by structures made of various materials such as wood, glass, and stone resembling children's toy building blocks. The objective of the game is to eliminate all the pigs on the level. Using a slingshot, players launch a limited set of birds with the goal of either striking the enemy pigs directly or damaging their surrounding structures, causing the blocks to collapse and pop the pigs. The player must set the angle and force of the bird's travel by pulling back on the slingshot (using intuitive touch-controls in the mobile versions). The launch process is quick and casual, with no visible trajectory data, and a player simply selects a point in the X-Y field behind the launch post from which the virtual slingshot will be released. In various stages of the game, additional objects such as TNT crates and rocks are incorporated into the structures, and power-ups may be used to enhance the birds to attack hard-to-reach pigs. Also hidden in the levels, players can unlock bonus levels by collecting golden eggs.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: There are several different types of birds used in the game, distinguished by their color and shape. In the earliest levels only the basic red cardinal whose name is Red is available. As the player advances through the game additional types of birds become available. Some birds are effective against particular materials, and some have special abilities that may be activated by the player while the bird is airborne. For example, Chuck, a canary speeds up; Bomb, a loon explodes, hence the name; a bluebird named Jay fragments from his siblings, Jake and Jim; a Leghorn hen called Matilda can drop an explosive egg-shaped projectile; a galah named Stella can trap objects in bubbles; Hal, an emerald toucanet boomerangs back; a giant cardinal named Terence, appears and functions similarly to Red, but deals more damage than his smaller counterpart; and a Jamaican oriole named Bubbles expands and inflates. The pigs also vary, with hardiness relative to their size. Small pigs are weaker and are easily vanquished by direct hits or by debris from the damaged structures, while larger pigs are able to withstand more damage before succumbing to defeat. In addition, some pigs wear hats or armor, making them even more resistant to damage.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Each level starts with the quantity, types, and firing order of birds predetermined. If all of the pigs are eliminated after the last bird is launched, the level is cleared and the next level is unlocked. If all of the birds run out and the pigs are not defeated, the level failed and must be repeated. Points are scored for each pig defeated as well as for damage to, or destruction of, structures, and hefty bonus points are awarded for any unused birds. Upon completing each level, players can receive up to three stars depending on the score received. Players are encouraged to repeat any previously beaten levels in which the full three stars weren't awarded in order to fully master them and earn the full three star rating.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In early 2009, Rovio was in a state of bankruptcy; the staff began viewing proposals for potential games. One such proposal came from senior game designer Jaakko Iisalo in the form of a simulated screenshot featuring some angry-looking birds with no visible legs or wings. While the picture gave no clue as to what type of game was being played, the staff liked the characters, and the team elected to design a game around them. In early 2009, physics games, such as "Crush the Castle", were popular flash-based web games, so the Rovio team was inspired by these games. During the development of "Angry Birds", the staff realized the birds needed an enemy. At the time, the "swine flu" epidemic was in the news, so the staff made the birds' enemies pigs. Angry Birds was the studio's 52nd produced game and on its initial release, the game did not sell many copies. After Angry Birds was a featured app on the UK App Store in February 2010 and quickly reached No. 1 there, it reached the No. 1 spot on the paid apps chart in the US App Store in the middle of 2010, staying in that milestone for 275 days. The initial cost to develop "Angry Birds" was estimated to exceed €100,000, not including costs for the subsequent updates. In terms of publishing for the iOS version, Rovio partnered with distributor Chillingo to publish the game to the App Store.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Chillingo claimed to have participated in final game polishing, such as adding visible trajectory lines, pinch to zoom, pigs' grunts, birds' somersaults on landing.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Since then Rovio has self-published almost all of the later ports of the game, with the exception of the PSP version, which was produced under license by Abstraction Games.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: When Rovio began writing new versions of the game for other devices, new issues came to light. As the team began working on a version for Android systems, they observed a large number of configurations of device types and versions of the Android software. The number of combinations of software version, processor speed and even user interfaces was significantly larger than that for the iOS version. Ultimately, the team settled on a minimum set of requirements, even though that left nearly 30 types of Android phones unable to run the game, including some newly released phones. It was released on October 15, 2010. One month after the initial release on Android, Rovio Mobile began designing a lite version of the game for these other devices.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In early 2010, Rovio began developing a version of "Angry Birds" for Facebook. The project became one of the company's largest, with development taking over a year. The company understood the challenges of transplanting a game concept between social platforms and mobile/gaming systems. In a March 2011 interview, Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka said, "you can’t take an experience that works in one environment and one ecosystem and force-feed it onto another. It's like Zynga. They can’t just take "FarmVille" and throw it on mobile and see what sticks. The titles that have been successful for them on mobile are the ones they’ve built from the ground up for the platform." The Facebook version incorporate social-gaming concepts and in-game purchases and entered beta-testing in April 2011; the game became officially available on Facebook in February 2012 as Angry Birds Facebook (later "Angry Birds Friends").


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Improvements for the game include the ability to synchronize the player's progress across multiple devices; for example, a player who completes a level on an Android phone can log into their copy of the game on an Android tablet and see the same statistics and level of progress.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The initial iOS version of the game included a single episode entitled "Poached Eggs", which contained three themed chapters, each with 21 levels. From time to time, Rovio has released free upgrades that include additional content, such as new levels, new in-game objects and even new birds. As updates have been released, they have been incorporated into the game's full version offered for download from each platform's application store.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The first update released on February 11, 2010 added a new episode called "Mighty Hoax", containing two new chapters with 21 levels each. Updates released on April 6, 2010 added the "Golden Eggs" feature, which placed hidden golden eggs throughout the game that would unlock bonus content when found, and a new episode called "Danger Above", which initially contained a single chapter of 15 levels. Two later updates added two more chapters to "Danger Above", each with 15 levels. "The Big Setup" episode, released on July 18, 2010, added a new chapter with 15 levels and additional Golden Egg levels. "The Big Setup" was later given two more chapters of 15 levels each.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: A fifth episode, called "Ham 'Em High", launched on December 23, 2010, in celebration of the game's first year in the iOS App Store. "Ham 'Em High" contained 15 American Old West-themed levels in a single chapter; updates on February 4, 2011 and March 18, 2011 each added one new 15-level chapter. "Ham 'Em High" also introduced the Mighty Eagle, a new bird that may be used once per hour to clear any uncompleted levels. The Mighty Eagle can also be used in previously completed levels, without the once-per-hour limit, to play a mini-game called "Total Destruction" in which the player attempts to destroy as much of the scenery as possible, both with the standard birds and the Mighty Eagle, achieving 100% destruction earns the player a Mighty Eagle feather for the level.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The Mighty Eagle is offered as a one-time, in-game purchase, and was initially only available for iOS, as its App Store customers have iTunes accounts with pre-linked credit cards. In late 2011, Rovio also added the Mighty Eagle to the Chrome App version of the game. Rovio has begun testing an Android update called the "Bad Piggy Bank" with the Elisa wireless service in Finland and T-Mobile, which allows users to charge in-app purchases, such as the Mighty Eagle, to their mobile phone bills. The service went live on Android with the release of version 2.2.0 in August 2012, using Google Play's transaction system, which allows both mobile billing and credit cards, allowing both Android phones and WiFi-only tablets to unlock the features. This version also added the powerups from the Facebook version and added an option to pay to remove ads, allowing Android players to enjoy the game ad-free as iOS players do.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The sixth episode, "Mine and Dine", was released on June 16, 2011 with 15 new mining-themed levels and a new Golden Egg. An August 24, 2011 update expanded "Mine and Dine" with two more 15-level chapters.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The seventh update, "Birdday Party", was released on December 11, 2011 to commemorate the second anniversary of the first release of the iOS version into the iTunes App Store. It included 15 new birthday cake-themed levels, as well as updated graphics and the addition of elements from the spin-off games, such as the scoring graphic seen in "Angry Birds Rio" and the introduction of "Bubbles", the Orange Bird that first appeared in "Angry Birds Seasons". The update was later released for Android and Microsoft Windows. The eighth update was released initially to iOS on March 20, 2012 in a lead-up to the release of "Angry Birds Space". The new update included an animated tutorial, enhanced gameplay, all new UI graphics, and the first 15 levels of "Surf and Turf," the "Angry Birds Facebook"-exclusive episode (see below), another 15 levels were added later, with the iOS version receiving the power-ups first seen in the Facebook version.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On October 9, 2012, the final chapter of "Surf and Turf" was released. Along with that, a new episode called "Bad Piggies" was released. This is to advertise the new Rovio game, Bad Piggies. Another update was released on December 11, 2012, the 3rd anniversary of the game's release, with 15 new levels to "Birdday Party" and 15 new levels to "Bad Piggies". The second set of 15 levels in "Birdday Party" introduced "Stella", the Pink Bird to the game. 15 more levels were later released for the "Bad Piggies" episode on March 7, 2013. On the same day these final 15 levels were released, Angry Birds became "Free App of the Week" on the Apple App Store until March 14, 2013 and became an instant hit on the Top Free App charts on the App Store until March 18, 2013, when the app returned to the normal price of $0.99.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On June 17, 2013, Rovio teased on its Facebook page that Red, the main protagonist of the game, would receive an ability in a new episode. On June 26, 2013, Rovio released a YouTube video, uncovering three new facts: the episode would be called Red's Mighty Feathers, the update would come in July, and the Angry Birds app icon would receive a new design. On July 3, 2013, the update was released, with fifteen levels of all-new game play. Instead of knocking over the pigs' castles, the player's goal is to keep the pigs from stealing the egg and leaving the playing field with it. The pigs arrive in waves of complicated vehicles, and the only available bird is Red, whose new ability is to target the nearest pig. There is no score, and the three stars are awarded by completing three objectives in one try. The first objective is to finish the level without getting the egg stolen. The second is to pop all the pigs in the level. The third is to use fewer than or equal to a certain number of birds to clear the level. Because some people were skeptical about the new gameplay, Rovio later announced that they would add levels to the episode based on the original level style. On September 16, 2013, Rovio added 15 levels to the episode using the original style and these levels include manual targeting for Red Bird.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On November 26, 2013, Rovio added a 30-level episode called "Short Fuse" that transforms the Bomb's explosions into highly-destructive electrical pulses, adds a powerup that transforms any Bird into a Bomb Bird and 3 different potions that can change the pigs. On December 11, 2013, Rovio added 15 levels to episode "Birdday Party" (cake 4) to celebrate its fourth birthday. On March 4, 2014, 15 levels were added to "Short Fuse" and the power-up icons were updated. On July 22, 2014, a 15-level episode called "Flock Favorites" that is inspired by fans' favorite episodes (Poached Eggs, Danger Above, Mine and Dine, Bad Piggies, Red's Mighty Feathers, Short Fuse, and Surf and Turf) was added.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On November 23, 2014, in partnership with (RED) and Apple Inc., an update to the app was released that was exclusive to iOS. In this update, there was an added special (RED)-themed Golden Egg level and Red's power from the "Red's Mighty Feathers" episode as a stand-alone power-up, that when purchased, can be used indefinitely (1 use per level) and 100% of the money went to the Global Fund to end AIDS. This purchase was only available until December 7, 2014.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On December 11, 2014, in honor of the Angry Birds' 5th birthday, an episode with 30 user-inspired levels was added. On June 23, 2015, Flock Favorites was added with 15 levels inspired by previous episodes. On December 11, 2015, in honor of Angry Birds 6th birthday, new 15 levels were added to Birdday Party. On December 11, 2016, in honor of Angry Birds' seventh birthday 15 more levels were added to Birdday Party.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On May 16, 2017, a dual virtual currency system was added to the game, in which currency is earned throughout gameplay (or accrued through in-app purchases) and can be used to purchase power-ups and other in-game items.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Since its initial release for the Nokia N900 multimedia Internet device, and Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch mobile digital devices, Rovio has released versions of "Angry Birds" for additional devices. An iPad-exclusive version, "Angry Birds HD", was released with the iPad mobile digital device in April 2010. In August 2010, "Angry Birds" was made available to the Palm Pre phone running Palm's webOS operating system through its App Catalog online store. Symbian^3 phones received a version of the game in October 2010, which initially includes only the "Poached Eggs" and "Mighty Hoax" episodes. Angry Birds works on Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In May 2010, Rovio announced plans for a version for devices using Google's Android operating system, with a beta version being released through the Android Market (now Google Play) in September 2010. The full Android version of the game was first released instead on GetJar in October 2010, though it was subsequently released on Android Market within days. Rovio officials noted that GetJar had a more global reach than Android Market, and GetJar's availability on other smartphone platforms (including Symbian) would make cross-platform promotion of the game easier. Unlike the previous versions, "Angry Birds" for Android is a free, ad-supported application, as paid applications aren't available on Android in some nations. An update called "Bad Piggy Bank" enabled players to buy out the in-game ads.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In October 2010, Microsoft suggested on one of its websites that a Windows Phone version of "Angry Birds" was in development. Rovio complained that Microsoft had not asked permission to make such a statement, noting that at that time it had not committed to design a Windows Phone version. Although Rovio asked Microsoft to revise its site to remove references to the game, a Windows Phone version was ultimately released in June 2011.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Near the end of 2010, Rovio stated that it was developing new ports of the game, this time for devices outside of the mobile phone market. In January 2011, three of those ports launched. First, Sony announced the release of "Angry Birds" for its PlayStation Portable handheld system in the form of a PlayStation mini game that includes nearly 200 levels from the original game; the version is also playable on the PlayStation 3. Next, Rovio announced the release of a Windows version of the game on January 4, 2011, available for sale exclusively from the Intel AppUp center, which included 195 levels at launch and plans for exclusive features not available on the smartphone versions. One day after the Windows version was released, the Mac App Store launched, with one of the first offerings being its own version of "Angry Birds". Ports of "Angry Birds" have also been proposed for the Wii and Nintendo DS systems, with the former becoming realized through "Angry Birds Trilogy" (see below). A 3D-enhanced version of the game was proposed for release on the LG Optimus 3D in October 2011.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: The popularity of "Angry Birds" has helped spread the game to other devices that were not initially designed as gaming machines. Barnes & Noble announced that a future update for its Nook Color e-reader will let the Android-based device run applications, including a port of "Angry Birds". In June 2011, Rovio announced plans to partner with Roku to include a version of "Angry Birds" on a new model of its Internet-connected set-top box, the Roku 2 XS.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In May 2011, an in-browser HTML5 version of "Angry Birds" was released in beta form. The game uses WebGL or Canvas and is distributed through the Chrome Web Store for use with Google's Chrome web browser. It runs on any WebGL- or Canvas-enabled browser, and features exclusive content when played on Chrome, such as exclusive levels and the so-called "Chrome Bombs". The version includes offline playability and features 60 FPS gameplay with a selection of graphics settings to accommodate a variety of hardware capabilities.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In October 2011, during Nokia World 2011, it was announced that "Angry Birds" would come preloaded in Nokia's Asha series of Series 40 touch handsets, aimed at emerging markets such as India, China and South Africa. In December 2011, Rovio released "Angry Birds HD", "Angry Birds Seasons HD", and "Angry Birds Rio HD" on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet from Research In Motion. In January 2012, Angry Birds was released for devices using Bada OS.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In February 2012, "Angry Birds" made its official debut on Facebook. It is known as "Angry Birds Friends" since May 23, 2012. The version launched with two chapters from the original game, along with then exclusive "Surf and Turf" chapter. The Facebook version adds a number of new power-up items, with a maximum of two in use per level. For example, the Power Potion power-up (Formerly known as the Super seeds) will make the launched bird larger and thus more powerful, while the King Sling power-up makes the slingshot stronger and able to launch birds higher and faster. Power-ups can be purchased in-game or given by friends who also play the game. "Surf and Turf" would later be included in the original mobile versions of the game, starting with iOS. The Facebook version features weekly tournaments among your friends, with the top 3 winners earning free in-game "Bird Coins" which can be used to purchase power-ups. There was a unique Green Day themed episode in the Facebook version of the game, however it was removed in December 2012.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: At the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, Rovio and distribution partner Activision announced plans to bring "Angry Birds" and two of its spin-off games, "Angry Birds Seasons" and "Angry Birds Rio" to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 3DS systems. Bundled together as "Angry Birds Trilogy", the games were built specifically for their respective consoles, taking advantage of their unique features, such as support for PlayStation Move, Kinect, high-definition displays, and glasses-free 3D visuals. "Trilogy" was also ported to the Wii and Wii U almost a year later.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: On April 28, 2015, it was also announced that the game was also released on Tizen smartphones by running with OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) emulation technology.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In early 2019, several games in the franchise, including the original title, were unexplainably removed from the App Store and Google Play. Fans of the original game adopted the hashtag <nowiki>#BringBack2012</nowiki> to demand the relisting of the removed games. Responding to the campaign, Rovio explained the removal of the games in a blog post citing software rot and the expiration of licensing deals. On March 31, 2022, Rovio released a new version of the original game titled "Rovio Classics: Angry Birds" marketed to its older fanbase. It is a remake of the game's state in 2012, replacing its proprietary engine with Unity for compatibility with newer and future devices. The remake also notably lacks microtransactions and pop-up advertisements in favor of a traditional revenue model.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In reviews, "Angry Birds" has been praised by critics. Chris Holt of "Macworld" called the game "an addictive, clever, and challenging puzzler", and "Pocket Gamer's" Keith Andrew said "Angry Birds" is "a nugget of puzzling purity dished out with relish aplenty". Jonathan Liu of Wired News wrote that "going for the maximum number of stars certainly adds a lot of replay value to a fairly extensive game".


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Reviews for the first versions of the game that did not use a touch-screen, the PlayStation 3/PSP version and the Windows version, have also been positive, but with some disagreement over the different interfaces. Will Greenwald of "PC Magazine", in his review of the PlayStation Network version, said that the control scheme on these platforms is good, "but they're not nearly as satisfying as the touch-screen controls found on smartphone versions", and that the PlayStation 3 version appeared "blocky and unpleasant, like a smartphone screen blown up to HDTV size". Conversely, Greg Miller of IGN preferred the analog control setup of the PSP version, saying it "offered me tiny variances in control that I don't feel like I get with my fat finger on a screen". While giving the game a positive review, Miller concluded, "There's no denying that Angry Birds is fun, but it could use polish – such as sharper visuals, a better price and smoother action." Damien McFerrin of British website Electric Pig reviewed the PC version, saying "the mouse-driven control method showcases many distinct advantages over its finger-focused counterpart".


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: Angry Birds has also been described critically as impossible to understand the playing rules criteria by game critic Chris Schiller of Eurogamer.net, which has 'a contemptuous attitude towards its players, keeping them just frustrated enough not to switch off and play something else instead.'


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: "Angry Birds" became the top-selling paid application on Apple's UK App Store in February 2010, and reached the top spot on the US App Store a few weeks later, where it remained until October 2010. Since release, the free, limited version of "Angry Birds" has been downloaded more than 11 million times for Apple's iOS, and the full-featured paid version has been downloaded nearly 7 million times as of September 2010. The Android version of the game was downloaded more than 1 million times within the first 24 hours of release, even though the site crashed at one point due to the load, and over 2 million downloads in its first weekend. Rovio receives approximately US$1 million per month in revenue from the advertising that appears in the free Android version.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: According to Rovio, players logged more than 5 million hours of game time each day across all platforms, with the series having 200 million monthly active users, as of May 2012. In November 2010, Digital Trends stated that "with 36 million downloads, "Angry Birds" is one of the most mainstream games out right now". MSNBC's video game news blog has written that "[n]o other game app comes close" to having such a following. "The Christian Science Monitor" has remarked, ""Angry Birds" has been one of the great runaway hits of 2010". In December 2010, in honor of the one-year anniversary of the release of "Angry Birds", Rovio Mobile announced that the game had been downloaded 50 million times, with more than 12 million on iOS devices and 10 million on Android. By January 2014, the "Angry Birds" series had reached 2 billion downloads, including "Angry Birds", "Angry Birds Seasons", "Angry Birds Rio", "Angry Birds Space", "Angry Birds Star Wars I and II", and "Angry Birds Go!" On Christmas Day 2011 alone, 6.5 million copies of the various "Angry Birds" games were downloaded across all supported platforms.


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In the history of the Apple App Store, "Angry Birds" holds the record for most days at the top of the Paid Apps chart, having spent a total of 275 days at the No.1 position; "Angry Birds Rio" has been No.1 for a total of 23 days, ranking ninth on the list. In Apple's "iTunes Rewind" list of the most popular iTunes Store media for 2011, "Angry Birds" was the top-selling paid iPhone/iPod app on the App Store and its free version was the fourth-most downloaded. The game's two special-edition versions, "Angry Birds Seasons" and "Angry Birds Rio", were also ranked in the top 10 for paid iPhone/iPod apps, while its iPad-exclusive "Angry Birds HD" versions were the top-selling and top-downloaded iPad apps for the year. Mattel also made a few board games based on the app. These were called "Angry Birds: Knock on Wood, Angry Birds: On Thin Ice", and "Angry Birds: Mega Smash".


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: In February 2010, "Angry Birds" was a nominee for the "Best Casual Game" award at the 6th annual International Mobile Gaming Awards in Barcelona, Spain. In September 2010, IGN named "Angry Birds" as the fourth best iPhone game of all time. In April 2011, "Angry Birds" won both the "Best Game App" and "App of the Year" at the UK Appy Awards. At the 2011 Webby Awards, "Angry Birds" was awarded "Best Game for Handheld Devices".


title: Angry Birds (video game)

text: At the 14th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (later known as the D.I.C.E. Awards), "Angry Birds HD" won "Casual Game of the Year", and was also nominated for "Outstanding Innovation in Gaming" and "Game of the Year". It is the first mobile app game in the ceremony's history to be nominated for "Game of the Year".


title: Styria

text: Styria ( ; Serbo-Croatian and ; ) is a state ("Bundesland") in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and clockwise, from the southwest, by the Austrian states of Carinthia, Salzburg, Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and Burgenland. The state capital is Graz.


title: Styria

text: The March of Styria derived its name from the original seat of its ruling Otakar dynasty: Steyr, in today's Upper Austria. In German, the area is still called "Steiermark" while in English the Latin name "Styria" is used. The ancient link between Steyr and Styria is also apparent in their nearly identical coats of arms, a white Panther on a green background.


title: Styria

text: The western and eastern parts of the district Graz-Umgebung (literally, "surroundings" of Graz) may or may not be considered parts of West and East Styria, respectively. The southern parts of the Duchy of Styria, which formed part of former Yugoslavia and later Slovenia (with the exception of World War II), were (and sometimes colloquially still are) referred to as "Lower Styria" ("Untersteiermark"; ).


title: Styria

text: Styria was inhabited by Celtic tribes. After its conquest by the Romans, the eastern part of what is now Styria was part of Pannonia, while the western one was included in Noricum. During the Barbarian invasions, it was conquered or crossed by the Visigoths, the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Rugii, and the Lombards. Slavs under the domination of the Avars settled in the valleys around 600. At the same time, Bavarians under Frankish domination began to expand their area to the south and east, ultimately absorbing the Slavic population.


title: Styria

text: In 1180, Styria separated from the Duchy of Carinthia and became a Duchy of its own; in 1192 the Austrian Duke Leopold V became also Duke of Styria. Later, Styria formed the central part of Inner Austria.


title: Styria

text: In 1918, after World War I, it was divided into a northern section (forming what is the current Austrian state), and a southern one, called Lower Styria, now inhabited by Slovenians, and which was annexed to Yugoslavia, and later became part of Slovenia. As a result of the turbulence of the two world wars, the German-speaking population of Lower Styria, which had been concentrated in the cities, migrated out of the region or was expelled.


title: Styria

text: The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the state was 49.6 billion € in 2018, accounting for 12.9% of the Austria's economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 35,400 € or 118% of the EU27 average in the same year.


title: Styria

text: As elsewhere in the developed world, there has been a shift away from the manufacturing sector towards the service sector in Styria. This has had negative consequences for the industrial regions of upper Styria which have suffered a steady decline in population in recent years.


title: Styria

text: In 2004, Styria had the strongest economic growth rate in Austria at 3.8%—mainly due to the Graz area which saw strong economic growth that year and has continued to grow in economic and population terms since then.


title: Styria

text: Styria is home to more than 150 clean technology companies of which one dozen are world technology leaders in their field. The revenue of Styrian cleantech companies totals €2.7 billion. This equals 8 percent of the Gross Regional Product (GRP) and is one of the highest concentrations of leading clean technology companies in Europe. The companies have an average (real) growth rate of 22 percent per year—well above the worldwide cleantech market growth of 18 percent per year. The region created roughly 2,000 additional green jobs in 2008 alone.


title: Styria

text: The Formula One Austrian Grand Prix has been held in the region, first at the Zeltweg Airfield in 1964 and then at the Osterreichring from 1970 to 1987. The sport returned to the circuit, now redesigned and rebranded as the A1-Ring, from 1997 to 2003. Formula One once again returned to the circuit, now renamed the Red Bull Ring, in 2014 and has been held at the track every year since. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the 2020 Formula One calendar massively revised, resulting in the Red Bull Ring becoming the first circuit to host consecutive Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, with the first round running under the Austrian Grand Prix name and the second held as the Styrian Grand Prix. This continued in 2021.


title: Styria

text: The state had been a stronghold of the right-wing Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) since 1945. However, Graz is markedly more left-wing than the rural districts of the province.


title: Styria

text: The governor (Austrian political term: "Landeshauptmann") of Styria has typically been a ÖVP candidate.


title: Styria

text: In the 2021 municipal election in Graz, the KPÖ surprisingly took over first place from the ÖVP, thus pushing long-time mayor Siegfried Nagl (ÖVP) out of office. The result caused a sensation internationally. Elke Kahr led the KPÖ for a third time in the 2021 Graz local election. Despite opinion polling suggesting a victory for the ruling Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), the KPÖ became the largest party with 28.8% of votes and 15 seats. After the election, the KPÖ entered into coalition talks with the Greens and SPÖ. On November 13, 2021, the KPÖ, the Greens and the SPÖ announced their coalition: Graz gets a communist mayor with Elke Kahr.


title: Styria

text: In the 2005 elections for state parliament the Social Democrats (SPÖ) under their regional chairman Franz Voves won the majority after the ÖVP had damaged its credibility through scandals and the secession of a high-ranking party member who took part in the 2005 elections after setting up his own party. In these elections, the KPÖ also received many votes after it had gained much popularity through its role in local politics in Graz during the preceding few years. The two right-wing populist parties, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), failed to win seats.


title: Styria

text: In subsequent elections in 2010 and 2015, the Social Democrats, the Austrian People's Party, and the Communist Party each lost between one fourth and one third of their shares of the vote relative to 2005. The Freedom Party grew from 4.6 percent to 26.8 percent.


title: Styria

text: The current government of Styria is a coalition of Social Democrats and People's Party, with each party holding 4 seats of the 8 seats available. The governor, Hermann Schützenhöfer, is a representative of the People's Party. His deputy, Michael Schickhofer, is a Social Democrat.