Aristotle opens the first chapter of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics as follows: “Every art and every inquire, and similarly every action as well as undertaking, seem to aim at some good. Hence people have right defined that the good is that at which all things aim”. The article indicates and elucidates the difficulties found in the quoted statement on the basis of translation and commentary by Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno.

A distinguished international team of scholars under the editorship of Carlo Natali have collaborated to produce a systematic, chapter-by-chapter study of one of the most influential texts in the history of moral philosophy. The seventh book of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics discusses weakness of will in its first ten chapters, then turns in the last four chapters to pleasure and its relation to the supreme human good.

The _Nicomachean Ethics_ is one of Aristotle’s most widely read and influential works. Ideas central to ethics—that happiness is the end of human endeavor, that moral virtue is formed through action and habituation, and that good action requires prudence—found their most powerful proponent in the person medieval scholars simply called “the Philosopher.” Drawing on their intimate knowledge of Aristotle’s thought, Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins have produced here an English-language translation of the _Ethics_ that is as remarkably faithful (...) to the original as it is graceful in its rendering. Aristotle is well known for the precision with which he chooses his words, and in this elegant translation his work has found its ideal match. Bartlett and Collins provide copious notes and a glossary providing context and further explanation for students, as well as an introduction and a substantial interpretive essay that sketch central arguments of the work and the seminal place of Aristotle’s _Ethics_ in his political philosophy as a whole. The _Nicomachean Ethics_ has engaged the serious interest of readers across centuries and civilizations—of peoples ancient, medieval, and modern; pagan, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish—and this new edition will take its place as the standard English-language translation. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that friendship and justice are the same, apparently flouting the not uncommon contrast between friendship and justice. I start by assessing Aristotle’s principle of equality: friends of equal standing engage in exact reciprocity in goods and friends of unequal standing engage in proportional reciprocity. In a number of ways that have gone unnoticed, the equalization principle is a requirement for understanding the sameness of friendship and justice. Just relations and friendship share the same (...) domain, that is, the same relationship of a corresponding community. Moreover, asking how to be just to someone is the same as asking how to be a friend to that person, indicating that the virtue of justice and the virtue of friendship are also the same. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to indicate that there is quite strong support in the text of the Nicomachean Ethics for the argument that its inquiry is “political” rather than “ethical” in character – the textual evidence provides reasons to challenge the traditional belief that Aristotle separated ethics from politics and started the rise of ethics as a new branch of philosophy. In addition, one can posit a hypothesis that the reader, whom Aristotle had in mind while writing (...) what we now know as the Ethics, was a politician-lawgiver. So the reader aimed at in the Ethics is the same as the reader aimed at in the Politics – a politician-lawgiver. The Ethics and the Politics are a two-part but inseparable compound that together make a textbook for a politician-lawgiver. Both parts should be read together because the one cannot be understood correctly without the other. Aristotle studies human good not from the point of view of the individual but from the point of view of the human community. The highest human good – the philosopher’s eudaimonia – is achieved not by individual effort but as a result of good laws and a well-organized life in a polis. (shrink)

Happiness, then, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world.'In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle's guiding question is: what is the best thing for a human being? His answer is happiness, but he means, not something we feel, but rather a specially good kind of life. Happiness is made up of activities in which we use the best human capacities, both ones that contribute to our flourishing as members of a community, and ones that allow us to (...) engage in god-like contemplation. Contemporary ethical writings on the role and importance of the moral virtues such as courage and justice have drawn inspiration from this work, which also contains important discussions on responsibility for actions, on the nature of practical reasoning, and on friendship and its role in the best life. This new edition retains David Ross's justly admired translation while updating certain key terms. It also includes a valuable introduction to this seminal work, and notes designed to elucidate Aristotle's arguments. (shrink)

Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that (...) Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy. (shrink)

The present essay aims to respond to one of the most recent empirical challenges posed to an Aristotelian based virtue ethics. In the course of the debate concerning the existence of character traits a second and more recent challenge has emerged, which Jesse Prinz has called The Normativity Challenge. The argument in this case is that the empirical study of happiness undertaken by psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists, reveals that the end which virtues are supposed to support, namely happiness, is so (...) thoroughly culturally specific that an Aristotelian virtue ethics cannot hope to stand as an alternative to other forms of ethics. In response I argue that Prinz’s critique is committed to two presuppositions about Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia that are not supported by a careful reading of the Nicomachean Ethics, one of which is a careful understanding of natural goodness, so that the sociological evidence he produces does not support the conclusion he supposes that it does. (shrink)

This book provides an exploration of the epistemological, metaphysical, and psychological foundations of the Nicomachean Ethics. Rejecting current orthodoxy, this book argues that scientific-knowledge (episteme) is possible in ethics, that dialectic and understanding (nous) play essentially the same role in ethics as in an Aristotelian science, and that the distinctive role of practical wisdom (phronēsis) is to use the knowledge of universals provided by science, dialectic, and understanding so as best to promote happiness (eudaimonia) in particular circumstances and to (...) ensure a happy life. Turning to happiness itself, the book develops a new account of Aristotle's views on ends and functions, exposing their twofold nature. It argues that the activation of theoretical wisdom is primary happiness, and that the activation of practical wisdom — when it is for the sake of primary happiness — is happiness of a second kind. He concludes with an account of the virtues of character, external goods, and friends, and their place in the happy life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean EthicsCharles M. YoungGabriel Richardson Lear. Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 238. Cloth, $35.00.Suppose that you and I are friends. I need a ride to the airport; you offer to take me. You might do this for any of a number (...) of reasons: because you want to place me in your debt, because you want to impress bystanders, etc. But you might also do it for none of these reasons. You might do it, instead, because, understanding what resources are and what resources are for, you see taking me to the airport as an appropriate use of your resources (your time and your car), given our relationship and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.That's the Readers' Digest version of one story one might tell, on Aristotle's behalf, by way of connecting up friendship, virtuous action, practical and theoretical wisdom, action for its own sake, and action for the sake of the fine in the Nicomachean Ethics. I myself think it is a good story. It is also a story, I think, that Gabriel Richardson Lear tells, at least some of the time, in Happy Lives and the Highest Good, though she tells it with respect to courage, temperance, and magnanimity, not liberality and friendship.Most of the time, however, Lear tells another story. According to it, your taking me to the airport makes clear your commitment to make use of your resources to promote my good. Since we are friends, however, my good is bound up with yours, so in promoting my good you also promote your own good. But according to Aristotle the good for each of us is a life in which rationality is realized in thought and action. Hence your taking me to the airport counts as fine because it shows your commitment to that sort of life. But, again according to Aristotle, the centerpiece, and source of value, of that sort of life is contemplative activity, so you act for the sake of contemplation, whether you know this or not. And, in view of its expression of practical reason and truthfulness, your liberal activity is structurally similar to and so approximates to contemplative activity, and this allows us to say that you did what you did for the sake of contemplation.This is, so far as I know, an entirely new approach to the problems raised by Aristotle's identification of happiness with contemplation in NE X. Lear's story, and the arguments in its support, deserve and will repay serious attention. I limit myself here to four concerns about some of the details.First, our first story locates what is fine about virtuous action in the fit exhibited among the agent, her action, and her situation. Lear's story locates what is fine about virtuous action in its promotion of a certain kind of life. The first story thus sees what is fine about [End Page 118] virtuous action as something intrinsic to it, while Lear's story sees it as something external to it that it promotes. The first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Second, the first story has it that virtuous activity is an expression of understanding, Lear's story that it is an expression of a commitment to understanding. Again, the first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Third, Lear thinks that the liberal person can be said to act for the sake of contemplation when contemplation is the source of value for what she does, even when it is not the conscious aspiration of her action. That may be true, but I do not see that it is enough. What needs explanation is rather that she can be said to choose liberal activity for the sake of contemplation, and it is unclear how this could be unconscious.Finally, Lear's appeal to approximation may prove too much. The crafts, according to Aristotle, involve practical reason and truthfulness. But Aristotle doesn't believe that craft... (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.8, Aristotle seems to argue that certain external goods are needed for happiness because, in the first place, they are needed for virtuous activity. This has puzzled scholars. After all, it seems possible for a virtuous agent to exercise her virtuous character even under conditions of extreme hardship or deprivation. Indeed, it is natural to think these are precisely the conditions under which one's virtue shines through most clearly. Why then does Aristotle think that a wide (...) range of external goods is required for virtuous activity, and therefore, for happiness? -/- I argue that there is good sense to be made of Aristotle's stance on external goods. Specifically, I explain how, on this view, a range of external goods is required for the full exercise of virtue, and I show that it is only this full exercise that is constitutive of eudaimonia. Drawing on passages in Politics 7.13 and Nicomachean Ethics 3.1, I develop and defend a distinction between the "mere" exercise of virtue, and the full or complete exercise of virtue. I argue that, for Aristotle, the distinguishing feature of this distinction is the value of the virtuous action's ends. An action that fully expresses virtue aims at an end that is unqualifiedly good, while an action that merely exercises virtue does not. I argue that the external goods Aristotle mentions in NE 1.8 are necessary for performing actions with unqualifiedly good ends, and so necessary for the complete exercise of virtue. In addition to providing a more satisfactory account than existing proposals of the role of external goods in Aristotelian happiness, my interpretation has two additional upshots. First, it brings to light an under-appreciated and independently compelling feature of Aristotle's ethical thought: the value of virtuous actions depends in part on the value of the ends they aim to realize. Second, it finds in Aristotle a distinct and powerful way of thinking about the badness of certain kinds of misfortune and deprivation: they are bad in part because they prevent us from fully realizing our capacity for moral agency, from fully engaging with value in the world. (shrink)

The ancient Greek philosopher and teacher Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school in Athens dedicated to the study of nature and philosophical inquiry for over a hundred years. In opposition to his own teacher, Plato, Aristotle developed a metaphysical and ethical theory based on the view that human beings are embodied creatures, not merely thinking things. In doing so, he clarified and expanded the concept of virtue, developing a theory of virtue that has impacted how we think (...) about mental states, states of wellbeing, and states of moral character. In Book II of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains how we learn good (or bad) habits through experience, education, and training. Pleasure and pain provide starting points for us, because they help orient us toward the good, but eventually our primary motivation should be to do good because it is good. Excellent habits are those that cause us to react in neither excessive nor deficient ways to the things around us. Once we have the right motivation to do good because it is good, and once our habitual righteous action exemplifies our stable character, we are virtuous and thriving people. (shrink)

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the first and arguably most important treatise on ethics in Western philosophy. It remains to this day a compelling reflection on the best sort of human life and continues to inspire contemporary thought and debate. This Cambridge Companion includes twenty essays by leading scholars of Aristotle and ancient philosophy that cover the major issues of this text. The essays in this volume shed light on Aristotle's rigorous and challenging thinking on questions such as: can there (...) be a practical science of ethics? What is happiness? Are we responsible for our character? How does moral virtue relate to good thinking? Can we act against our reasoned choice? What is friendship? Is the contemplative life the highest kind of life? Covering all sections of the Nicomachean Ethics and selected topics in Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics and Protrepticus, this volume offers the reader a solid foundation in Aristotle's ethical philosophy. (shrink)

Sometimes, in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), Aristotle describes virtuous actions as the sorts of actions that are ends; it is important for Aristotle to do so if he wants to maintain, as he seems to at least until NE 10.7-8, that virtuous actions are a constituent of eudaimonia. At other times, he claims that virtuous actions are the sorts of actions that are for the sake of ends beyond themselves; after all, no one would choose to go into battle (...) or give away a significant portion of their wealth if it did not realize some good end. In this paper, I review the familiar problem raised by Aristotle's discussion of the nature of virtuous actions, propose a solution to this problem by appealing to a distinction between virtuous actions and 'acting virtuously', and sketch the significance of this solution for understanding the relationship between virtue and human happiness. (shrink)

_The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics_ illuminates Aristotle’s ethics for both academics and students new to the work, with sixteen newly commissioned essays by distinguished international scholars. The structure of the book mirrors the organization of the Nichomachean Ethics itself. Discusses the human good, the general nature of virtue, the distinctive characteristics of particular virtues, voluntariness, self-control, and pleasure.

By examining the systematic integration of theology, ethics, and teleology in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I address four key interpretational aporiai: the apparently illogicality of the opening lines, the apparent contradiction between practical virtue and contemplation being the highest good, the “dominant” v. “inclusivist” views of eudaimonia, and the immanence v. transcendence of God. I show how proper attention to the link between Aristotle’s conception of the Good as “that at which all things aim” and God as the prime unmoved (...) mover, as well as an appreciation of the overall “aristocratic” context of Aristotelian philosophy, provides a new way of dealing with these aporiai that renders them less perplexing and problematic, while avoiding un-Aristotelian, anachronistic readings. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is the meaning and significance of habit formation, or habituation, in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, ethics is an intellectual activity that helps an individual become a good person. Moreover, habituation is essential for becoming a good person. Aristotle believes that habituation, which helps us become good people, is possible by making “actions in accordance with virtues” our habits. Habituation is a keystone concept in Aristotle’s ethics. However, contrary to the importance given to (...) the concept of habituation, Aristotle’s remarks on habituation are curiously poor and fragmentary. Several researchers have been baffled by this contradiction and have produced different perplexing interpretations. This paper attempts to shed light on Aristotle’s views on the path to virtue from a new perspective by clarifying three points: 1. According to Aristotle, habituation is something that adults with life experience should attempt to overcome their vices. 2. The “action” that constitutes the substance of habituation is the trial and error through which the learner achieves his or her own “middle point” (i.e., virtue), without following ready-made examples. 3. The reason Aristotle did not offer an in-depth explanation of this issue is that the hard work of habituation is already a “virtuous” and “noble” action in and of itself. (shrink)

A distinguished international team of scholars under the editorship of Carlo Natali have collaborated to produce a systematic, chapter-by-chapter study of one of the most influential texts in the history of moral philosophy. The seventh book of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics discusses weakness of will in its first ten chapters, then turns in the last four chapters to pleasure and its relation to the supreme human good.

Aristotle appears to claim at Nicomachean Ethics 10.8, 1178a9 that there are two kinds of happy life: one theoretical, one practical. This claim is notoriously problematic and does not follow from anything that Aristotle has said to that point. However, the apparent claim depends on supplying 'happy' or 'happiest' from the previous sentence, as is standard among translators and interpreters. I argue for an alternative supplement that commits Aristotle to a much less problematic and unexpected position and permits a (...) wider variety of interpretations of Aristotle’s overall theory of happiness. (shrink)

This article resolves some difficulties with Aristotle's discussion of the choice-worthy (haireton). Nicomachean Ethics I posits goods that are choice-worthy for themselves and for something else, but Nicomachean Ethics X appears to present being choice-worthy for itself as mutually exclusive with being choice-worthy for something else; moreover, Nicomachean Ethics X seems to claim that action is choice-worthy for itself and, therefore, not choice-worthy for something else but also seems to claim that action is choice-worthy for something else (...) and, therefore, not choice-worthy for itself. As for the latter problem internal to Nicomachean Ethics X, I argue that Aristotle is ultimately committed to the idea that action is choice-worthy for something else. As for the problem between Nicomachean Ethics I and X, I argue that Nicomachean Ethics X only claims something admitted by Nicomachean Ethics I: being choice-worthy for something else is mutually exclusive with being choice-worthy only for itself. (shrink)

Introducing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to undergraduates, which is the explicit goal of Michael Pakaluk’s volume, is both easy and difficult. On one level, Aristotle’s text takes a common-sense view of human goodness and the qualities productive of it, a view which resonates with students when they reflect upon the general question of what they seek in life or whom they admire. Topics such as friendship, recognition (a.k.a., ‘honor’), self-improvement, and well-being are part of every student’s lived-experience and Aristotle’s discussion (...) of such topics reaches students ‘where they live’, as it were. And yet, on another level, as any student or teacher of the Nicomachean Ethics has discovered, Aristotle’s text presents numerous philosophical, exegetical, and editorial difficulties. For instance, Aristotle’s discussion of whether friendship is necessary for happiness (EN ix 9) is eminently practical and its conclusion almost trivially commonsensical; and yet Aristotle’s argument in support of the claim that friendship is necessary for happiness contains one of the most impenetrable discussions in the Ethics, namely the account of the apparently reflexive perceptions which only two friends can share (1170a13-b17), a phenomenon that goes to the very question of whether Aristotle possesses a notion of self-consciousness. (shrink)

This paper will investigate Aristotle’s methodology in the Nicomachean Ethics [EN]. It is widely agreed that Aristotle’s explicit account of his methodology in EN is the method of dialectic. However, it has been argued that Aristotle does not consistently practice this method and often appeals to metaphysical principles in his other texts to construct his moral theory. As a result, it has been claimed that Aristotle not only diverges from his dialectical method, but also contradicts his doctrine of the (...) autonomy of distinct branches of philosophical enquiry. In this paper, I will investigate what it would mean for Aristotle’s account to be dialectical and will show that, although Aristotle’s explicit methodology is dialectical he nonetheless diverges from this method in presenting his ergon argument. However, though he diverges from his dialectical method, I will argue that we can understand this divergence as a response to the definitive problem of EN; namely, how can we actually achieve the highest good in our actions. Thus, I will conclude that although Aristotle does in fact diverge from his dialectical method, we can understand this divergence as consistent with the claim that EN is an autonomous enquiry. (shrink)

This paper will discuss and analyze specific arguments concerning moral virtue and action that are found within the ten books of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Eudaimonia, i.e. well-being, or happiness, is the highest good for people, and in order to achieve this, a virtuous character is necessary. A virtuous character is cultivated, and the life of a virtuous human is a life that is lived well, and is lived according to moral virtues which are developed through proper habits. It is (...) through this development and practice of moral virtues by which one achieves eudaimonia, for this well-being is achieved by partaking in actions that are virtuous. The study of ethics for Aristotle is a practical science. Although through the study of ethics one may acquire theoretical knowledge, it is practical knowledge, or practical wisdom, that is most important for Aristotle when engaged in a search to define and cultivate a life that is well-lived. The topics and arguments contained within this paper will be of interest and relevance to both those who are interested in ancient Greek philosophy and to those that are concerned with ethics in the modern world. For this paper will also present situations from the modern world that are either examples of virtuous activity or its opposite. Such a study into Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics will offer insightful perspectives on proper action and virtue that is rooted in ancient Greek philosophy and remains relevant in our modern world. (shrink)

I review Gabriel Richardson Lear's excellent essay on Aristotle’s conception of the human good. She solves some long-standing problems in the interpretation of Aristotle’s ethics by drawing on resources in his natural philosophy and Plato’s conception of love. Her interpretation is a compelling and, to my mind, largely true account of Aristotle’s view. In this review, I summarize the book's main argument and then explain two fundamental points on which I have concerns.

Aristotle’s discussion of political friendship points to perfect friendship and the possibility that the good citizen can be the good person. This conclusion is arrived at by reflection on three problems raised in Aristotle’s analysis. First, citizen friendships of utility are the cause of civil strife. Second, there is a tension between citizen friendship in timocracy and justice. Although citizen friendship in a timocracy can aspire to perfect friendship, political justice requires kingship. Third, familial friendship, although natural, is more limited (...) in scope than political friendship. This article concludes with Aristotle’s discussion of conflicting obligations that opens up two grounds of natural friendship: relations to persons through body, and relations to persons who are virtuous. Virtue relations in timocracy allow citizen friendship to resemble perfect friendship. (shrink)

Truth has always been a controversial subject in Aristotelian scholarship. In most cases, including some well-known passages in the Categories, De Interpretatione and Metaphysics, Aristotle uses the predicate ‘true’ for assertions, although exceptions are many and impossible to ignore. One of the most complicated cases is the concept of practical truth in the sixth book of Nicomachean Ethics: its entanglement with action and desire raises doubts about the possibility of its inclusion to the propositional model of truth. Nevertheless, in (...) one of the most extensive studies on the subject, C. Olfert has tried to show that this is not only possible but also necessary. In this paper, we explain why trying to fit practical truth into the propositional model comes with insurmount­able problems. In order to overcome these problems, we focus on multiple aspects of practical syllogism and correlate them with Aristo­tle’s account of desire, happiness and the good. Identifying the role of such concepts in the specific steps of practical reasoning, we reach the conclusion that practical truth is best explained as the culmination of a well-executed practical syllogism taken as a whole, which ultimately explains why this type of syllogism demands a different approach and a different kind of truth than the theoretical one. (shrink)

In what precedes, I have argued that Aristotle does not, in his ethics, commit three metaphysical errors sometimes imputed to him: he does not define the good as a fact; he does not claim that human beings move by nature towards their telos; he does not claim, in the ergon argument, that human beings are fixed rather than versatile. Instead, I have shown, he does the opposite in each case: he argues that the good cannot be defined as a fact; (...) he claims that human beings move towards their telos only if they have virtue and virtue is not by nature; he locates, in the human ergon, that which is responsible for human versatility. Finally, I have shown by example that the metaphysical commitments of Aristotle's account of human happiness are not as controversial as they seem.If all of this is true, then perhaps the disorder that has existed in ethics since the enlightenment has been misdiagnosed. Perhaps it is not due to an unhappy choice between end-neutral emotivism on the one hand and Aristotle's bad metaphysics on the other. Perhaps instead it is due, at least in part, to a too hasty rejection of Aristotle's ethics on the grounds of a rejection of his biology. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle examines the nature of happiness, which he defines as a specially good kind of life. He considers the nature of practical reasoning, friendship, and the role and importance of the moral virtues in the best life. This new edition features a revised translation and valuable new introduction and notes.

The Nicomachean Ethics opens with some preparatory, although important, claims about the nature of the end for which all other things we do are said to be means. After having labelled this end “the highest good,” Aristotle asks: “Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on our way of life, and would we not [as a consequence] be more likely to attain the desired end, like archers who have a mark to aim at?”1 The question (...) is never explicitly considered, but an affirmative answer presupposed. We have thus at least some reason to believe that Aristotle embraces a species of internalism when it comes to moral motivation, although, admittedly, Aristotle’s initial formulation is weak. He does not say that there is any necessary link between someone knowing that an act has the indicated role and being motivated to perform it, just that someone’s knowledge somehow will influence him in that direction. Nevertheless, we will see that Aristotle can be interpreted as an internalist of the qualified kind in the Nicomachean Ethics. It is reasonable to claim that Aristotle there embraces a specific sort of internalism, to the effect that a person is motivated to perform the acts which are virtuous for him to perform, actions which will make him happy, unless he suffers from some sort of epistemic defect. A person who is virtuous can be said to know what happiness is, and such a person is motivated to perform actions that result in happiness. Moreover, Aristotle can be interpreted as an internalist in the Humean tradition, in the sense that in order to be motivated to perform an action, desires are needed as well as beliefs. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which (...) a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends or Dialectic of the goods, which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

What is the good life for a human being? Aristotle’s exploration of this question in the _Nicomachean Ethics_ has established it as a founding work of Western philosophy, though its teachings have long puzzled readers and provoked spirited discussion. Adopting a radically new point of view, Ronna Burger deciphers some of the most perplexing conundrums of this influential treatise by approaching it as Aristotle’s dialogue with the Platonic Socrates. Tracing the argument of the _Ethics_ as it emerges through that approach, (...) Burger’s careful reading shows how Aristotle represents ethical virtue from the perspective of those devoted to it while standing back to examine its assumptions and implications. “This is the best book I have read on Aristotle’s _Nicomachean Ethics_. It is so well crafted that reading it is like reading the _Ethics_ itself, in that it provides an education in ethical matters that does justice to all sides of the issues.”—Mary P. Nichols, Baylor University. (shrink)

The first sentence of NE I.2 has roughly the form: "If A [there is a universal end] and B, then D [this end will be the best good]". According to some commentators, Aristotle uses B to infer A; but then the sentence is fallacious. According to other commentators, Aristotle does not use B ; but then the sentence is bizarre. Contrary to both sets of commentators, I suggest that Aristotle uses B together with A to infer validly that there is (...) a non-instrumental – and thus unique – universal end. On this interpretation the above two problems disappear, but a subtler problem emerges: not-B does not entail C. (shrink)

What does eudaimonia, happiness or human flourishing, means for Aristotle. Commentators can be divided in two camps. On the one hand, there are the proponents of a "dominant" or "intellectualist" interpretation of eudaimonia. They argue that Aristotle identifies eudaimonia, or more correctly "primary" eudaimonia, with philosophical contemplation. They appeal to book X, where Aristotle explicitly identifies the one with the other. Behavior in accordance with the moral virtues or character excellences, to which Aristotle dedicates most of the Nicomachean Ethics, (...) constitutes only "secondary" eudaimonia. On this interpretation, this behavior is subservient to contemplation. ;Against this "dominant" interpretation the "inclusivists" propound that happiness for Aristotle is a combination of intrinsic goods or activities. The character excellences are not for the sake of or subordinate to contemplation. "Inclusivism" is attractive to its adherents because it seems to offer an alternative to the allegedly unpalatable consequences of the intellectualist interpretation. At least one version of it does not seem to require that the philosopher interrupt his blissful contemplation to assist a suffering fellow human being since perfect happiness consists precisely in contemplation. ;As a means of reconciling these interpretations I propose a "communal" or "political" interpretation of contemplation as happiness. Aristotle is concerned not merely with the eudaimonia of the individual, but also with the eudaimonia of the polis. The highest eudaimonia of the polis is the maximization of the highest good of the polis. Since contemplation turns out to be the highest good, perfect happiness of the polis consists of contemplation by those members of the polis who are capable of it: its citizens. ;In the Politics, too, Aristotle sees contemplation as perfect happiness. The old dichotomy between the philosophical life and the political life is discarded for the ideal of the mixed life. Those capable of contemplation, the philosophers, rule. Their main task is to promote happiness. This they do through legislation of peace and leisure. Far from being divorced from the life of the polis, the philosophers actively participate in its rule. Aristotle did not stray far from his teacher, Plato. (shrink)

In this volume, Sorin Sabou explores the dependency of happiness on external goods in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Sabou defends the following thesis: the dependency of happiness on external goods, in EN, is interpreted in the light of its political self-sufficiency, and in the light of our political humanity; this dependency is of three kinds: (1) enhancing-instrumental, (2) constitutive, and (3) subsistent.

IN BOTH THE EUDEMIAN ETHICS AND THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Aristotle says that the aim of ethical inquiry is a practical one; we want to know what virtue is so that we may become good ourselves and thereby do well and be happy. By classifying ethical inquiry as a practical endeavor, Aristotle is rejecting a view that he attributes to Socrates according to which ethics is a kind of theoretical science. In theoretical sciences, such as geometry or astronomy, the knowledge (...) of a particular subject matter is sought as an end in itself, and the possession of such knowledge is sufficient to make one a geometer or an astronomer. In rejecting this model Aristotle argues that the knowledge of virtue is sought not solely for itself but in order to inform praxis and in order that we become virtuous and good, not by knowing what the virtues are but by cultivating them in practice. (shrink)

Although some scholars have argued that Aristotle makes deliberation seem independent of virtue, I argue that deliberation, properly understood, is ethical in the Rhetoric and the Nicomachean Ethics. Unlike modern scholars who separate the useful from the good and the prudent from the moral, Aristotle argues that speakers’ deliberative arguments seek what is good and beneficial, much as noble persons in the Ethics pursue the good and the beneficial in their actions. So regarded, the beneficial is not the enemy (...) of the excellent but its partner. I show that rhetorical argument is a flexible resource serving the different ends of deliberative, forensic and epideictic arguments. This article assesses the inventiveness, cogency and ethical implications of various rhetorical arguments, including argument from example and enthymeme. (shrink)

Aristotle's primary perspective on the concept of justice is founded on knowledge of the good, which is related to the ethical virtues in Nicomachean Ethics and is separated into two parts: universal justice and specialized justice. In Politics, on the other hand, Aristotle identifies justice as the intrinsic nature of just citizens, noting in both Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, "The political good is justice, and this is a common advantage.".

This is a study about the meaning of happiness (εὐδαιμονία) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (EN). It is argued that εὐδαιμονία in EN means actuality, and it has to be interpreted through the lenses of two metaphors used by Aristotle in EN 1.7 1098a21 and 10.6 1176a30: the “perimeter of good” and the “imprint of happiness.” To explain the meaning of happiness Aristotle first has to delineate the “perimeter of good” of human beings, and he does that with the help (...) of two criteria: the final end [τέλος] and the function of humanity [ἔργον ἀνθρώπου]. These two criteria are metaphysical concepts which describe the “good” as the final metaphysical aim of every person, and the best every person can be. This metaphysical teleological aim is the “actuality of the soul” according with excellence. This is the “perimeter” within which Aristotle enquires about εὐδαιμονία—the good of humans. (shrink)

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics had a profound influence on generations of later philosophers, not only in the ancient era but also in the medieval period and beyond. In this book, Anthony Celano explores how medieval authors recast Aristotle's Ethics according to their own moral ideals. He argues that the moral standard for the Ethics is a human one, which is based upon the ethical tradition and the best practices of a given society. In the Middle Ages, this human standard was (...) replaced by one that is universally applicable, since its foundation is eternal immutable divine law. Celano resolves the conflicting accounts of happiness in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, demonstrates the importance of the virtue of phronesis, and shows how the medieval view of moral reasoning alters Aristotle's concept of moral wisdom. (shrink)

Insofar as living well is, for Aristotle, the ultimate end of human life, and insofar as our life comprises different activities (energeiai), the key prerequisite for living well is to rank and choose different activities according to their value. The objective of this article is to identify and discuss different considerations that determine the value of an activity in Aristotle's ethics. Focusing on selected passages from Nicomachean Ethics X, I argue that the structure of an activity's value displays considerable (...) heterogeneity. An activity can be good on account of its excellence, excellence-independent worthwhileness, as well as its continuity; these kinds of value do not necessarily entail each other, and they can even occur at each other's expense. This interpretation shifts the focus from the notion of virtue to the notion of activity, and thus opens up a fresh angle on Aristotle's: virtue or excellence is just one source of activity's value, alongside its worthwhileness and continuity. (shrink)

This essay offers an analysis and interpretation of the rarely commented-on chapter I.12 of the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle’s goal in this chapter is to prove that human happiness belongs to the class of prized goods, also characterized as divine goods, whereas virtue ranks lower, being a merely praiseworthy good. It is not easy to see why this chapter is placed at the end of Aristotle’s general discussion of the highest human good in Book I or why he included it (...) at all. My goal is to show that it does make a contribution to the architecture of the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole by helping to prepare the ground for one of the main argumentative strategies in the treatise X.6–8 on scientific contemplation as the key component of supreme happiness. To this end, I analyze each step of the argumentation in I.12, drawing also on relevant material from other Aristotelian texts, and then demonstrate the connection with some of the arguments in X.6–8. (shrink)

This essay takes a first step in comparative ethics by looking to Aristotle and the Aztec's conceptions of the good life. It argues that the Aztec conception of a rooted life, neltiliztli, functions for ethical purposes in a way that is like Aristotle's eudaimonia. To develop this claim, it not only shows just in what their conceptions of the good consist, but also in what way the Aztecs conceived of the virtues (in qualli, in yectli).

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s two forms of human happiness correspond to two forms of human virtue (moral and intellectual) and, I argue, to two forms of virtuous friendship (active and contemplative). I propose that the most properly human form of happiness is achieved in contemplative friendship. This friendship is a genuinely contemplative approximation of divine life and still a specifically human life consisting in discursivespeech with others. Contemplative friends wish the good to one another as human beings and thus (...) fulfill what friendship is more completely than do friends occupied with moral virtue. Aristotle’s text shows, first, that discussion and thinking can be shared more perfectly than can moral action and, second, that intellectual virtue completes human nature more fully than does moral virtue. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to link Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics to his Poetics. Specifically, I wish to argue that his ethical and political works imply that the realization of the human good, virtuous activity, can come about only given extended political experience. I then suggest that poetry (as presented by Aristotle in the Poetics) might itself be seen as a form of political experience that can strengthen and clarify ethical and political theory and aid in the realization (...) of virtue. By representing concrete examples of human life -- particular men acting in an unpredictable and contingent world -- and simultaneously observing certain dramatic rules, poetry helps to fill the gap between raw political experience and formal abstract theory. It captures the unique and indeterminate nature of varied human lives in a distilled and organized way, encouraging the audience's active participation and exercising those vital but elusive critical capacities which demand reason but go beyond deduction and rule following. Aristotle's Poetics illuminates, in a way that the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics cannot, the essential role of both reason and creativity in virtuous action. (shrink)

Journal of Human Values, Volume 28, Issue 1, Page 11-19, January 2022. This work is a study of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to characterize the good: the good that features in education and good life. Nicomachean Ethics teaches us that human good is neither in thought/theory, nor in action/practice alone, it is neither an exclusively individual prerogative, nor an outright social preserve. And, human good is impossible without education. The practice of education can neither be isolated nor conceptualized apart (...) from the demands of human life. If education is for human well-being—for human good—the good then is not in action alone, but action in accordance with the excellence of the actor. What unifies reason and action, knowing and doing is learning to be an excellent person—a person who is well-disposed in her affections and action, whose judgements are true, and decisions correct; and whose intellect and character are in harmony with the human nature. (shrink)

This article argues that the structure of Nicomachean Ethics reproduces the structure of Aristotle’s ethical theory, consisting of three parts: the doctrine of the highest good, the doctrine of the virtues, and the doctrine of the three types of life. We show that the last four books successively analyze three concepts of happiness: the sensual, the practical, and the contemplative.

In Oneself as Another, Paul Ricoeur proposes a new ethical theory that integrates Aristotle’s eudaemonist virtue ethical outlook with Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethics. The goal is ambitious, and recent discussions in anglophone philosophy have made its undertaking look to be founded on a confusion. The new argument goes that the ethical justification at work in the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions is of opposed kinds. Attempts to integrate them, as a result, are either incoherent, or, in the best case, simply minor (...) variations on one or another predominant ethical outlook. The essay grants the opposed kinds thesis and argues that despite its apparent impossibility, Ricoeur nevertheless does succeed in integrating two ethical approaches, including their different sources of justification, to produce a novel and thus ethically interesting theory. The essay closes, finally, with a reflection on how this method might be developed one step further to include an insight by Emmanuel Levinas on the look of the Other, and so make for an ethics of recognition. (shrink)