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In the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes the Good as perfect (teleion) and self-sufficient (autarkes). He adds that the notion of self-sufficiency (autarkeia) must be considered not from the point of view of the single man, but of the community. This argument seems incoherent: is self-sufficiency to be attributed to the Good or to the community? In order to answer this question, we can ask initially if it is the same to say that the Good or the community is self-sufficient. Secondly, if the individual is not self-sufficient, how could he search by himself the self-sufficient Good, without having to follow what is determined by the community? Aristotle, in his ethical treatises and in Politics, is concerned with the relation between self-sufficiency (autarkeia), and community (koinonia). But the philosopher tries to show, in his Ethics, that there can be an ideal of self-sufficiency for each human being, independently or in spite of his life in the polis. The aim of this paper is to discuss the meaning and relevance of the reference to autarkeia, in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics, to the Aristotelian view on the practical Good.
