Nor yet is it skill in Conjecture: for this operates without conscious calculation, and rapidly, whereas deliberating takes a long time, and there is a proverb that execution should be swift but deliberation slow. [3] Again, Deliberative Excellence is not the same as Quickness of mind,2 which is a form of skill in Conjecture.
Nor yet is Deliberative Excellence any form of Opinion.
But inasmuch as a bad deliberator makes mistakes and a good deliberator deliberates correctly,3 it is clear that Deliberative Excellence is some form of correctness; though it is not correctness of Knowledge, nor of Opinion. Correctness cannot be predicated of Knowledge,4 any more than can error, and correctness of Opinion is truth; and also any matter about which one has an opinion has been settled already; [then again Deliberative Excellence necessarily involves conscious calculation. It remains therefore that Deliberative Excellence is correctness in thinking, for thought has not reached the stage of affirmation;]5 for Opinion has passed beyond the stage of investigation and is a form of affirmation, whereas a man deliberating, whether he deliberates well or badly, is investigating and calculating something. [4]
But Deliberative Excellence is a form of correctness in deliberation [so that we have first to investigate what deliberation is, and what object it deals with].6 However, ‘correctness’ in this connection is ambiguous, and plainly it is not every kind of correctness in deliberation that constitutes Deliberative Excellence. A man of deficient self-restraint or a bad man may as a result of calculation arrive at the object he proposes as the right thing to do, so that he will have deliberated correctly, although he will have gained something extremely evil; whereas to have deliberated well is felt to be a good thing. Therefore it is this kind of correctness in deliberation that is Deliberative Excellence, namely being correct in the sense of arriving at something good.7 [5]
But it is possible to arrive at a good conclusion, as well as at a bad one, by a false process of reasoning; one may arrive at what is the right thing to do, but not arrive at it on the right grounds, but by means of a wrong middle term. This quality then, which leads one to arrive at the right conclusion, but not on the right grounds, is still not Deliberative Excellence. [6]
Again, one man may arrive at the right conclusion by prolonged deliberation, while another may do so quickly. The former case also then does not amount to Deliberative Excellence; this is correctness of deliberation as regards what is advantageous, arriving at the right conclusion on the right grounds at the right time.8 [7]
Again, a man can be said to have deliberated well9 either generally, or in reference to a particular end. Deliberative Excellence in general is therefore that which leads to correct results with reference to the end in general, while correctness of deliberation with a view to some particular end is Deliberative Excellence of some special kind.
If therefore to have deliberated well is a characteristic of prudent men, Deliberative Excellence must be correctness of deliberation with regard to what is expedient as a means to the end, a true conception of which10 constitutes Prudence.10.
Understanding, or Good Understanding,