This is a very perceptive reading. It is true that Aristotle believes you can't live a good life without certain conditions obtaining, conditions which are outside of individual control. Sometimes this is called "moral luck" in contemporary writing. It is true that in every society we know of, certain people or certain classes of people are much better positioned to live well.
But just because the Ethics alone doesn't fully address the social issues you rightly raise (about helping others be free) doesn't mean it implies that they are irrelevant to individual ethics. They are just out of scope for the book. The Politics is more about what kind of society creates the conditions for people to achieve the good life described in the Ethics. There are, however, parts of the Ethics that do bear directly on this question — the parts on generosity, friendship, and education.
Your last question — how to decide between different virtues if they conflict — is also a good one. The best answer I can come up with is that virtue ethics is based on the idea that open-ended judgment is going to be exercised in any ethically significant situation, and it does not attempt to give a rigid framework for decision-making. I would suggest that any framework that does try to do that is brittle, and trading flexibility for false clarity.
But just because the Ethics alone doesn't fully address the social issues you rightly raise (about helping others be free) doesn't mean it implies that they are irrelevant to individual ethics. They are just out of scope for the book. The Politics is more about what kind of society creates the conditions for people to achieve the good life described in the Ethics. There are, however, parts of the Ethics that do bear directly on this question — the parts on generosity, friendship, and education.
Your last question — how to decide between different virtues if they conflict — is also a good one. The best answer I can come up with is that virtue ethics is based on the idea that open-ended judgment is going to be exercised in any ethically significant situation, and it does not attempt to give a rigid framework for decision-making. I would suggest that any framework that does try to do that is brittle, and trading flexibility for false clarity.