What, according to Aristotle, is the good for a human being?

In Aristotle view, human beings do not have a uniform nature. He divided them into groups, principally male and female, and free and slave, differing in capability. All human beings, whatever their kind, can be most virtuous, and therefore happiest in polis in their own way. The key words in this analysis are nature and natural. Aristotle believed that all living things are to be understood in terms of their natures. The nature of a thing, what it really is, is what it becomes when its growth is completed. Human beings too are to be seen in terms of the potential they can develop, the end towards which they strive. Man's end is life in the polis, because that life is the best conceivable for human beings. Certain economic, social and political conditions must be met if the members of the human community are to achieve their potential as rational and moral beings. One of the political scientist's tasks is to discover those conditions, and base the ideal constitution upon them. There is no society that is an exemplar to follow. Aristotle also claimed that our knowledge must come from actual instances. (Bakalis pp.36-56)

The analysis proceeded next to the culminating human association, the polis. Here he dealt solely with free men, the heads of households and asked how they should be associated. They are all men that because of their natural superiority are to rule other beings. Aristotle said that equals must be treated equally. The virtuous should be citizens. Free birth and adequate means may not seem to us to have to do with virtue, but Aristotle valued them as conditions enabling a man to act virtuously. Only free men have the capacity to reason and are virtuous in ...