What the Word Means
Arete (ἀρετή) is an ancient Greek noun most commonly translated as "excellence" or "virtue," though neither English word captures it fully. In its earliest usage, arete described the excellence of a warrior. That is, strength, courage, and skill in battle. Arete, however, takes on a much broader meaning than do the English words "excellence" or "virtue." For example, a sword that cut cleanly had arete and a horse that ran swiftly had arete. Arete encapsulates more than just the english usage of "excellence" or "virtue," as using the work in the Greek sense, would mean I could say that I am a virtous cook. That is clearly a way in which we do not use 'virtious' in English.
The Function Argument
Aristotle's answer begins with what he calls the ergon — the characteristic function or work — of a human being. Just as the ergon of a flute player is to play the flute, and of a sculptor to sculpt, the ergon of a human being is the thing only humans can do: to live a life governed by rational activity.
"The human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete."
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.7Arete, for Aristotle, is not a single quality but a family of excellences — each one a stable disposition of character (a hexis) that allows us to feel, choose, and act in the right way, at the right time, toward the right people, to the right degree. Courage is arete. Justice is arete. Practical wisdom — phronesis — is the master excellence that orders all the rest.
Crucially, these excellences are not gifts. They are not granted by birth or luck. They are formed through habit — through the repeated, deliberate practice of excellent action until it becomes second nature. We become just by doing just acts. We become courageous by doing courageous things. The character we have is, in the most meaningful sense, the character we chose to build, one action at a time.
Excellence in Service of What
Arete is not an end in itself. Instead, it is one of the conditions for eudaimonia — happiness — which is the ultimate end of human life. Like arete, eudaimonia is not fully captured by the English word "happiness." It is a way of being and acting that reflects the fullness of human potential.
The connection is direct: a life of arete is a life fully and properly human. To fail at arete is not simply to be a bad person — it is to fall short of what you are. It is to live below your own nature.
"It is possible to fail in many ways, but to succeed is possible only in one way — which is why failing is easy and success is difficult."
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.6This is why arete demands effort. There is only one way to cut with precision, only one way to reason with clarity, only one way to act with genuine courage. Excellence is narrow. Mediocrity is wide. The path toward arete requires not just good intentions but sustained attention, repeated practice, and honest self-examination.
Toward, Not At
The title of this site is deliberate. It is not "At Arete." It is "Toward Arete" — a direction, not a destination. The Greeks understood that arete is not a fixed achievement you arrive at and keep. It is an ongoing activity, something you pursue and enact, repeatedly, over the course of a life.
This site is a record of that pursuit: the ideas I'm working through, the writing I'm producing, the things I'm learning to cook, the meals that have taught me something about what excellence tastes like, the tutoring work that pushes me to understand things well enough to explain them, and the academic path I'm on — from economics and philosophy at LMU to quantitative economics at UCLA — all in service of understanding the world more clearly and living within it more deliberately.
Every section here is, in some sense, an attempt at arete in a particular domain. Not a record of success, but a record of effort — of taking seriously the idea that how you do anything is how you do everything, and that the fullest human life is one lived in deliberate pursuit of excellence, in all things, at all times.