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1
Hursthouse, Rosalind. "Aristotle,Nicomachean Ethics." Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 20 (March 1986): 35–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1358246100004008.
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Our understanding of the moral philosophy of Aristotle is hampered by a number of modern assumptions we make about the subject. For a start, we are accustomed to thinking about ethics or moral philosophy as being concerned with theoretical questions about actions—what makes an action right or wrong? Modern moral philosophy gives two different sorts of answers to this question. One is in terms of a substantial ethical theory—what makes an action right or wrong is whether it promotes the greatest happiness, or whether it is in accordance with or violates a moral rule, or whether it promotes or violates a moral right. The other sort gives a meta-ethical answer—rightness and wrongness are not really properties of actions, but in describing actions as right or wrong we commend or object to them, express our approval or disapproval or our emotions concerning them. But the ancient Greeks start with a totally different question. Ethics is supposed to answer, for each one of us, the question ‘How am I to live well?’ What this question means calls for some discussion.
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Hursthouse, Rosalind. "Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics." Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 20 (March 1986): 35–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0957042x00004004.
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Our understanding of the moral philosophy of Aristotle is hampered by a number of modern assumptions we make about the subject. For a start, we are accustomed to thinking about ethics or moral philosophy as being concerned with theoretical questions about actions—what makes an action right or wrong? Modern moral philosophy gives two different sorts of answers to this question. One is in terms of a substantial ethical theory—what makes an action right or wrong is whether it promotes the greatest happiness, or whether it is in accordance with or violates a moral rule, or whether it promotes or violates a moral right. The other sort gives a meta-ethical answer—rightness and wrongness are not really properties of actions, but in describing actions as right or wrong we commend or object to them, express our approval or disapproval or our emotions concerning them. But the ancient Greeks start with a totally different question. Ethics is supposed to answer, for each one of us, the question ‘How am I to live well?’ What this question means calls for some discussion.
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Owens, Joseph, Aristotle, and Terence Irwin. "Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics." Classical World 80, no. 4 (1987): 333. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4350061.
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Heinze, Eric. "The meta-ethics of law: Book One of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics." International Journal of Law in Context 6, no. 1 (February 25, 2010): 23–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1744552309990280.
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Traditional scholarship has approached Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics mostly as a system of positive ethics. Less attention has been paid to the work’s meta-ethics – the claims Aristotle makes about what any system of positive ethics must say or do in order to count as an ethical theory. In this article, Book One of the Nicomachean Ethics is read not simply as an introduction to Aristotle’s system of positive ethics, but as a statement of distinct meta-ethical principles, which can be evaluated independently of any view that might be taken of his positive ethics. Insofar as Aristotle inscribes his legal theory within his ethical theory, those principles stand as a meta-ethics of law. Under Aristotle’s legal meta-ethics, law necessarily presupposes: (1) a concept of the ‘good’; (2) purpose; (3) dialectics; (4) objectivist ethics; (5) a best constitution; (6) a positive ethics; and (7) a concept of the ‘human’.
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von der Luft, Eric. "Nicomachean Ethics. By Aristotle." Modern Schoolman 66, no. 1 (1988): 79–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/schoolman19886615.
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BOŽILOVIĆ, JELENA. "ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL COMMUNITY IN THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE." Kultura polisa, no. 44 (March 8, 2021): 173–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.51738/kpolisa2021.18.1r.3.02.
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Aristotle’s understanding of political community is strongly linked with the view on political naturalism and the concept of a man as a moral being. According to Aristotle, man (by nature) achieves his human potential by living in a community, however, the political community on its own, as the largest and the most significant among all communities, enables citizens to fully develop their virtue through their participation in political life. For this reason, a man and the community are joined in a relationship resulting in mutual creation of ethics: by living in a polis, an individual develops virtue, and conversely, his virtuous actions in the community enable a polis to endure on ethical principles. This conception is found in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, and is encompassed in the theory of virtue, theory of citizenship and a detailed consideration of the forms of political systems. Although elitist and exclusivist, Aristotle’s ethical and political views remain intact in terms of the value ascribed to the “the philosophy of human life”, as his legacy continues to inspire modern social thought. The aim of this paper is to show the connection Aristotle makes between a political community and ethical principles while pointing to their universal importance through the analysis of Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.
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Crisp, Roger. "Nobility in the Nicomachean Ethics." Phronesis 59, no. 3 (June 3, 2014): 231–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685284-12341267.
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AbstractThis paper suggests that we understand Aristotle’s notion of nobility (τὸ καλόν) as what is morally praiseworthy, arguing that nobility is not to be understood impartially, that Aristotle is an egoist at the level of justification (though not at the level of motivation), and that he uses the idea of the noble as a bridge between self-interest and moral virtue. Implications for contemporary ethics are discussed.
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APOSTOLOPOULOU, Georgia. "The Initial Anthropology in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics." WISDOM 8, no. 1 (June 29, 2017): 65. http://dx.doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v8i1.175.
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In the ‘Foreword’, I address some aspects of Academician Georg Brutian’s philosophy. The Initial Anthropology paper follows.
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considers the relation of ethical theory to anthropology in a specific way. He sets out an initial anthropology that describes the human through its common and non-common elements to plants as well as to ‘other animals’. The conclusion is that the human animal is the only living being that is endowed with reason and carries out ‘practical life’. We may call this difference ‘the anthropological difference’. In his ethical theory, Aristotle points to the limits of the anthropological difference. On the one hand, he holds that only practical theory can explain the ‘practical life’ as well as the ‘human Good’. On the other hand, he highlights that the human is higher than the ‘other animals’, since the human is endowed with the divine element of intellect; nevertheless, there are beings that are ‘more divine’ than the human. Thus Aristotle corroborates the human and its practical life, without abandoning the Socratic-Platonic view of the Divine. In this aspect, the alleged anthropocentrism of Aristotle’s ethics is to be reconsidered.
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Pugh, John K. "The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle." Teaching Philosophy 12, no. 1 (1989): 82. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/teachphil198912120.
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Nielsen, Karen. "Dirtying Aristotle's Hands? Aristotle's Analysis of 'Mixed Acts' in the Nicomachean Ethics III, 1." Phronesis 52, no. 3 (2007): 270–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852807x208017.
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AbstractThe analysis of 'mixed acts' in Nicomachean Ethics III, 1 has led scholars to attribute a theory of 'dirty hands' and 'impossible oughts' to Aristotle. Michael Stocker argues that Aristotle recognizes particular acts that are simultaneously 'right, even obligatory', but nevertheless 'wrong, shameful and the like'. And Martha Nussbaum commends Aristotle for not sympathizing 'with those who, in politics or in private affairs, would so shrink from blame and from unacceptable action that they would be unable to take a necessary decision for the best'. In this paper I reexamine Aristotle's analysis of putatively 'mixed acts' in Nicomachean Ethics III, 1, maintaining that Aristotle denies that there are acts that are (i) voluntary under the circumstances, (ii) right, all things considered, under the circumstances, but nevertheless (iii) shameful or wrong for moral or prudential reasons under the circumstances. The paper defends this interpretation with reference to Aristotle's discussion of shame in EN IV, 9 and Rhetoric II, 6, as well as his overall meta-ethical commitment to a position I call 'mitigated circumstantial relativism'. By focusing on Aristotle's analysis of putatively 'mixed acts', we come closer to a true appreciation of Aristotle's ethical theory, even though 'mixed act' is not, I argue, a category in Aristotle's considered ontology of action.
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Grönroos, Gösta. "NOTES ON NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 1173a2–5." Classical Quarterly 66, no. 2 (August 11, 2016): 484–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838816000586.
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In Nicomachean Ethics (= Eth. Nic.) 10.2, Aristotle addresses Eudoxus' argument that pleasure is the chief good in his characteristically dialectical manner. The argument is that pleasure is the chief good, since all creatures, rational (ἔλλογα) and non-rational (ἄλογα) alike, are perceived to aim at pleasure (1172b9–11). At 1172b35–1173a5, Aristotle turns to an objection against Eudoxus' argument. For some object (οἱ δ’ἐνιστάμενοι) to the argument by questioning one of its premisses, namely that what all creatures aim at is the good (1172b12–15). Instead, they claim that what all creatures aim at is not good (ὡς οὐκ ἀγαθὸν οὗ πάντ’ ἐφίεται, 1172b36). This claim is reasonably taken to mean that not everything that all creatures aim at is good. But, as we shall shortly see, Aristotle dismisses it in a way suggesting a less charitable interpretation. At any rate, the significance of this objection is that it challenges the strong claim that what all creatures aim at is the good with an argument against the weaker claim that what all creatures aim at is good (or a good). For if the weaker claim is refuted, then the strong claim is refuted as well. Aristotle takes issue with the argument against the weaker claim, but without committing himself to the strong claim.
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Aufderheide, Joachim. "Aristotle Against Delos: Pleasure in Nicomachean Ethics x." Phronesis 61, no. 3 (June 4, 2016): 284–306. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685284-12341309.
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Two crucial questions, if unanswered, impede our understanding of Aristotle’s account of pleasure in en x.4-5: (1) What are the activities that pleasure is said to complete? (2) In virtue of what does pleasure always accompany these activities? The answers fall in place if we read Aristotle as responding to the Delian challenge that the finest, best and most pleasant are not united in one and the same thing (en i.8). I propose an ‘ethical’ reading of en x.4 according to which the best activities in question are those integral to the exercise of virtue.
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Olmsted, Wendy. "Ethical Deliberation in Aristotle’S Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 30, no. 2 (2013): 251–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-90000541.
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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.
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Rodica Dobre, Carmen. "The Actuality of Aristotelian Virtues." Filosofiya-Philosophy 30, no. 3 (September 20, 2021): 261–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.53656/phil2021-03-04.
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Aristotle defined the ethical and intellectual virtues which are recognized as fundamental even today. Contemporary virtue ethics still takes into account Aristotelian virtues. The modern moral philosophers have tried to find new ethical values in a society in which religions are in decline and the old values lost their meaning. The starting point of their research has been Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” which has remained the most important work in ethics influencing the philosophical thinking until nowadays. This paper seeks to explain the actual importance of the cardinal Aristotelian virtues and how they are seen today.
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O’Meara, Dominic J. "Aristotelian and Neoplatonic Ethics in Michael Psellos and John Italos." Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa 66, no. 1 (June 30, 2021): 135–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/subbto.2021.1.06.
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"This paper examines the use made by Michael Psellos and John Italos of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics together with Neoplatonic sources (in particular Porphyry’s Sentences) on the subject of virtue. Examining chapters 66-81 of Psellos’ De omnifaria doctrina and Essays 81 and 63 of Italos’ Problems and Solutions, I argue that both philosophers have a coherent theory of virtue which integrates Aristotelian ethical virtue in the Neoplatonic hierarchy of the virtues. Keywords: Psellos, Italos, Aristotle, ethics. "
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LOCKWOOD, THORNTON C. "ὁμόνοια: The Hinge of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics?" Dialogue 59, no. 1 (March 2020): 7–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0012217319000337.
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Scholarship on the political ramifications of Aristotle’s account of friendship has focused on “political friendship” and has lost sight of the importance of his account of “like-mindedness” or “concord” (ὁμόνοια). Such a focus is mistaken for a number of reasons, not least of which is that, whereas Aristotle has a determinate account of like-mindedness, he has almost nothing to say about political friendship. My paper examines the ethical and political aspects of like-mindedness in light of a disagreement between Richard Bodéüs and René Gauthier about the autonomy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as a work of ethical theory.
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Mouzala, Melina G. "Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6." Peitho. Examina Antiqua 8, no. 1 (October 24, 2017): 309–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2017.1.20.
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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 (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), 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.
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Mouzala, Melina G. "Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6." Peitho. Examina Antiqua, no. 1(8) (October 24, 2017): 309–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/peitho.2017.12234.
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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 (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), 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.
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Perälä, Mika. "A Friend Being Good and One’s Own in Nicomachean Ethics 9.9." Phronesis 61, no. 3 (June 4, 2016): 307–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685284-12341310.
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This paper reconsiders Aristotle’s arguments inNicomachean Ethics9.9 concerning the claim that a virtuous friend is naturally desirable. The paper demonstrates that a virtuous friend, according to Aristotle, is naturally desirable not only because he is good, but also because he is one’s own. Although the two are different ways of being desirable, the paper shows that Aristotle takes being one’s own to consist in a distinctive kind of being good. This enables him to extend the grounds of virtue-friendship beyond the good character narrowly conceived, and thus explain why a friend is preferable to other virtuous people.
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McAleer, Sean. "Friendship, Perception, and Referential Opacity in Nicomachean Ethics IX.9." History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis 16, no. 1 (April 5, 2013): 362–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.30965/26664275-01601016.
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Abstract: This essay reconstructs and evaluates Aristotle’s argument in Nicomachean Ethics IX.9 that the happy person needs friends, in which Aristotle combines his well-known claim that friends are other selves with the claim that human perception is meta-perceptual: the perceiving subject perceives its own existence. After exploring some issues in the logic of perception, the essay argues that Aristotle’s argument for the necessity of friends is invalid since perception-verbs create referentially opaque contexts in which the substitution of co-referential terms fails.
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Berry, Matthew. "The Natural Part of Political Justice in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics." Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 25, no. 1 (2020): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/epoche2020108167.
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Scholars have advanced many different interpretations of Aristotle’s discussion of “the naturally just” in the Nicomachean Ethics. Most of these interpretations, however, pay insufficient attention to the context into which Aristotle introduces the concept, and in particular to Aristotle’s discussion of political justice, of which “the naturally just” is only a part. This paper seeks to recover that context and to offer a new interpretation of “the naturally just” as the part of political justice that is derived from the nature of republican politics, rather than from the agreement of fellow citizens.
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Gicheva-Gocheva, Dimka. "The Influence of Herodotus on the Practical Philosophy of Aristotle." Labyrinth 18, no. 2 (December 30, 2016): 104. http://dx.doi.org/10.25180/lj.v18i2.49.
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The approach of this paper is a retrospective one. It is an attempt to show that many important ideas of Herodotus, a great ancestor of Aristotle, have influenced his practical philosophy. The paper focuses specially on several topics from the Histories of Herodotus, which have found a resonance in the Nicomachean ethics and in the Politics of Aristotle. The main ones in respect of the ethical theory are: the different forms of justice and the just as for example the super-human justice, the just in the family relations, the judicial just and the just in the polis or the larger human community. Book Epsilon of the Nicomachean Ethics is indebted to Herodotus in several points. In respect of Aristotles' political theory, there are two topics in the History of Herodotus which deserve a special interest: firstly, the conversation of the three noble Persians, who discuss the six basic types of political order and organization of power-and-submission in a state or city-state (in book ІІІ, 80-82); this becomes a paradigm for the next typologies of Plato (in the Republic and the Statesman) and Aristotle (in the Politics); secondly, the importance of personal freedom, the equity of the speaking (discussing?) men on the agora, and the supremacy of law for the well-being of any community and its peaceful future. The legacy of Herodotus is obvious in many anthropological and ethical concepts of Aristotle, especially in his most read and quoted ethical writing and in his Politics
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Johnstone, Hugh. "A fragment of Simonides?" Classical Quarterly 47, no. 1 (May 1997): 293–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cq/47.1.293.
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Tessitore, Aristide. "Making the City Safe for Philosophy: Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10." American Political Science Review 84, no. 4 (December 1990): 1251–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1963262.
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The perennially problematic relationship between philosophy and politics, though recognized as an important theme in the Platonic corpus, is virtually ignored in the writings of his most famous student. This is not due to the absence of the problem but the deftness of Aristotle's treatment. Attentiveness to both the requirements of moral-political life and the nature of philosophy gives rise to the rhetorical design of the Nicomachean Ethics. In the final book of the Ethics Aristotle establishes the value of philosophy by placing his argument within a broader context that reveals to what extent moral and intellectual excellence can be regarded as similar and even complementary. Without actually denying the existence of a fundamental tension between the requirements of philosophy and civic virtue, Aristotle succeeds in winning an at-least-partial acceptance of philosophy on the part of those who are (or will be) most responsible for the welfare of the city.
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Ward, Ann. "Generosity and Inequality in Aristotle’s Ethics." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 28, no. 2 (2011): 267–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-90000188.
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This article explores the virtues of generosity and magnificence in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Generosity involves private individuals giving moderately; magnificence is spending by individuals on a grand scale for public purposes. Inequality, it is argued, grounds and motivates these virtues. For Aristotle, generosity and magnificence are products of inherited wealth, and the generous and the magnificent person seek the noble in their actions rather than the benefit of their recipients. The generous and the magnificent intend to place themselves in a superior position to those who receive their gifts.Moreover, magnificence flows from a great inequality of wealth and requires that the provision of public goods be in private hands. Aristotle, this article suggests, means to critique rather than embrace these virtues by pointing to the inequality and privacy at their foundation. The way in which Aristotle’s theory of justice supplements his analysis of generosity and magnificence is also brought to light.
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Lockwood, Thornton C. "Justice in Aristotle’s Household and City." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 20, no. 1-2 (2003): 1–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-90000048.
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In Nicomachean Ethics V.6 Aristotle contrasts political justice (which exists between citizens) with household justice (between husband and wife), paternal justice (between father and son), and despotic justice (between master and slave) (1134b8–18). My paper expands upon Aristotle’s sometimes enigmatic remarks about political justice through an examination of his account of justice within the oikia or ‘household’. Understanding political justice requires explicating the concepts of freedom and equality, but for Aristotle, the children and wife within the household are free people even if not citizens, and there exists proportionate equality between a husband and wife. Additionally, Aristotle’s articulation and defence of political justice arises out of his examination of despotic justice in the first book of the Politics. Not only are the polis and the oikia similar insofar as they are associations, but Nicomachean Ethics VIII.9–11 suggests they are even isomorphic with respect to justice and friendship. Thus, in this paper I explore the relationships between father and son, husband and wife, master and slave, and between siblings in order to see what they tell us about Aristotle’s understanding of freedom, equality, and justice.
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Johnston, Rebekah. "Aristotle on Wittiness." Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (2020): 323–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/epoche2020226157.
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Aristotle claims, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that in addition to being, for example, just and courageous, and temperate, the virtuous person will also be witty. Very little sustained attention, however, has been devoted to explicating what Aristotle means when he claims that virtuous persons are witty or to justifying the plausibility of the claim that wittiness is a virtue. It becomes especially difficult to see why Aristotle thinks that being witty is a virtue once it becomes clear that Aristotle’s witty person engages in what he calls ‘educated insolence’. Insolence, for Aristotle, is a form of slighting which, as he explains in the Rhetoric, generally causes the person slighted to experience shame and anger. In this paper, I attempt to bring some clarity to Aristotle’s claim that being witty is a virtue by examining why Aristotle thinks that the object of a witty person’s raillery will find this joking pleasant.
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Howland, Jacob. "Revaluing Ethics: Aristotle's Dialectical Pedagogy By Thomas W. Smith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 325p. $75.50 cloth, $25.95 paper." American Political Science Review 96, no. 3 (September 2002): 624. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055402370369.
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Like Socrates, Thomas Smith's Aristotle practices philosophy as a way of life. The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's protreptic and therapeutic introduction to this way of life. It is not a didactic treatise but a teaching that aims at the improvement of its readers' souls. It therefore begins from reputable opinions (endoxa) and employs dialectical arguments—not the best arguments simply, but the best available for improving the lives of Aristotle's audience.
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Schuh, Guy. "Reading the Nicomachean Ethics as an Investigation." History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis 23, no. 1 (September 8, 2020): 167–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.30965/26664275-02301011.
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Abstract Aristotle tells us that the Nicomachean Ethics is an “inquiry” and an “investigation” (methodos and zētēsis). This paper focuses on an under-appreciated way that the work is investigative: its employment of an exploratory investigative strategy—that is, its frequent positing of, and later revision or even rejection of, merely preliminary positions. Though this may seem like a small point, this aspect of the work’s methodology has important consequences for how we should read it—specifically, we should be open to the possibility that some contradictions in the text are the result of his employment of this investigative strategy. In the paper, I describe this investigative strategy, discuss what motivates Aristotle to employ it in the work, and go through three contradictions that are plausibly identified as examples of its use—specifically, his claims that courageous people do and do not fear death, that friendship is and is not mutually recognized goodwill, and that virtuous people do and do not choose noble actions for their own sake.
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Marcinkowska-Rosół, Maria. "The Concept of Brutishness (Thēriotēs) in Aristo¬tle’s Nicomachean Ethics." Roczniki Humanistyczne 66, no. 3 SELECTED PAPERS IN ENGLISH (October 23, 2019): 81–117. http://dx.doi.org/10.18290/rh.2018.66.3-6e.
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The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 64 (2016), issue 3.
The article deals with “brutishness” or “beastliness” (thēriotēs), a concept introduced by Aristotle in the seventh book of the Nicomachean Ethics and defined by him as a negative ethical disposition, different both from vice (kakia) and from incontinence (akrasia), and leading to such pathological behaviours as cannibalism, paedophilia, omophagy, phobias and compulsions. Aristotle’s statements concerning brutishness (VII 1, 1145a15–35, VII 5, 1148b15–1149a24 and VII 6, 1149b23–1150a8) are examined and interpreted in order to clarify the following issues: the essence of thēriotēs as a specific ethical disposition (Sections I–II), its concrete forms and their causes (Section III), the moral-psychological condition of persons with a brutish hexis (Section IV), and their self-consciousness and moral responsibility for their brutish acts (Section V).
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Pakaluk, Michael. "Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics VIII.9, 1160a14–30." Classical Quarterly 44, no. 1 (May 1994): 46–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838800017201.
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This difficult and evidently corrupt text of Aristotle has given rise to a variety of differing readings among the commentators. I shall propose a new and conservative emendation of the text, which, I believe, resolves all of the difficulties. But it is helpful first to take stock of those difficulties, in order to see what is required of a solution.
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Hirji, Sukaina. "External Goods and the Complete Exercise of Virtue in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 103, no. 1 (October 13, 2020): 29–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/agph-2017-0107.
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Abstract 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. I argue that there is good sense to be made of Aristotle’s stance on external goods. 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 explain how, on his 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. 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. 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.
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Howland, Jacob. "Aristotle's Great-Souled Man." Review of Politics 64, no. 1 (2002): 27–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034670500031600.
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Aristotle's discussion of the great-souled man (megalopsuchos) is crucial to any interpretation of the Nicomachean Ethics. Yet there is no scholarly consensus about the nature and significance of the megalopsuchos. This article examines Aristotle's treatment of the great-souled man within the context of the Ethics as a whole and in connection with other relevant passages elsewhere in the Aristotelian corpus. In particular, Aristotle's identification of Socrates as a great-souled man in the Posterior Analytics provides an interpretative key to his discussion of greatness of soul in the Ethics. Aristotle's presentation of the great-souled man reflects an ambiguity at the heart of virtue itself, and underscores the Socratic character of the fundamental lessons of the Ethics. According to Aristotle, the true megalopsuchos is Socrates.
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Natali, Carlo. "Rhetorical and Scientific Aspects of the Nicomachean Ethics." Phronesis 52, no. 4 (2007): 364–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852807x229258.
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AbstractThere are fields of research on NE which still need attention: the edition of the text the style and rhetorical and logical instruments employed by Aristotle in setting out his position. After indicating the situation of the research on the text of NE, I describe some rhetorical devices used by Aristotle in his work: the presence of a preamble, clues about how the argument will be developed, a tendency to introduce new arguments in an inconspicuous way and the articulation of general definitions through more specific analyses. At a deeper level NE seems to be organised on the model of investigating definitions described in the second Book of the Posterior Analytics, and not according the so-called 'dialectical method'. In conclusion I argue that NE is not an early or a confused work, as some scholars maintain, but rather a skilful construction, the fruit of a mature intelligence.
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Bailey, Jesse. "Colloquium 3 Commentary on Moore." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 35, no. 1 (September 16, 2020): 98–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134417-00351p09.
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Abstract This paper is a response to Christopher Moore’s excellent paper, “Questioning Aristotle’s Radical Account of Σωφροσύνη.” I expand upon some of the themes in the four suggestions Moore makes in his “Four Possible Defenses” of Aristotle that I take to be the most fruitful avenues of research. I then argue that pursuing these avenues will show that Aristotle’s thinking in the Nicomachean Ethics about σωφροσύνη—and virtues in general—cannot be understood by looking only at the early books. I argue that his deeper analysis of virtue and φρόνησις in book VI demand a revaluation of the apparent finality of his comments in book III. Specifically, I argue that the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole is constructed as a dialectical advancement that points to a progressively deepening understanding of the relationship between the discussion of the individual virtues in the early books and the discussion of φρόνησις in book VI must be developed in order to understand Aristotle’s conception of any individual virtue.
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Kakkori, Leena, and Rauno Huttunen. "Aristotle and Pedagogical Ethics." Paideusis 16, no. 1 (October 27, 2020): 17–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1072603ar.
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The teacher’s pedagogical ethics refers to the Kantian maxims that a teacher is obliged to follow. One could provide a list of the most crucial maxims that a teacher must absolutely not violate. We surely need these Kantian maxims in the teachers’ pedagogical ethics, although they tell us very little about the properties that good and moral teachers should possess. In teacher education we must of course elaborate on the ethical code of the teacher (maxims), but we must also consider the properties of a morally good teacher. A good source in endeavouring to find these properties is the book Aristotle wrote over 2,000 years ago, Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, a virtuous citizen must be educated. Without virtues (άρετή) – at least a certain degree of virtues – the polis community is impossible. Virtues are the human properties or action dispositions which facilitate the existence of telos, the purpose of a human being.” The telos of a man is to live a life worth living (eudaimon). Man achieves his telos by living a good life, which is a life lived according to certain virtues. In this article we consider what kind of a person a virtuous teacher is and what kind of a friend she is to her pupils.
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Kamtekar, Rachana. "Aristotle contra Plato on the Voluntariness of Vice: The Arguments of Nicomachean Ethics 3.5." Phronesis 64, no. 1 (December 6, 2019): 57–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685284-12341361.
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AbstractAristotle’s arguments in NE 3.5 target Plato’s position that vice is not blameworthy but to be pitied because involuntary, i.e. contrary to our wish for our good—not the ‘Socratic paradox’ that wrongdoing is involuntary. To this end, Aristotle develops a causal account of voluntary action based on Plato, Laws 9, but replaces Plato’s character-based classification of actions with his own distinction between performing actions of a certain type and having a character of that type. This distinction, central to Aristotle’s account of character-formation by habituating actions, allows Aristotle to show how character, whether vicious or virtuous, can be voluntary.
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Baker, Samuel H. "What is ‘the best and most perfect virtue’?" Analysis 79, no. 3 (September 10, 2018): 387–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/analys/any064.
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AbstractWe can clarify a certain difficulty with regard to the phrase ‘the best and most perfect virtue’ in Aristotle’s definition of the human good in Nicomachean Ethics I 7 if we make use of two related distinctions: Donnellan’s attributive–referential distinction and Kripke’s distinction between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. I suggest that Aristotle is using the phrase ‘the best and most perfect virtue’ attributively, not referentially, and further that even though the phrase may refer to a specific virtue (semantic reference), Aristotle is not using the phrase to refer to a specific virtue (speaker’s reference).
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Miller, Benjamin. "Virtue, Knowledge, and Political Instability in Aristotle’s Politics: Lessons from the Eudemian Ethics." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought 38, no. 2 (May 7, 2021): 261–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340325.
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Abstract I argue that we cannot fully understand Aristotle’s position on political stability and state preservation in the Politics with paying close attention to his Eudemian Ethics. We learn from considering the Politics and the Eudemian Ethics in concert that even ‘correct’ regimes are unstable when citizens do not possess full virtue. Aristotle introduces his formal account of the knowledge requirements for virtue in Eudemian Ethics 8.3, and he applies these knowledge requirements as an explanation for state decline in Politics 2.9 when discussing the Spartans. If we primarily focus on the Nicomachean Ethics as Aristotle’s single essential ethical work, we will not learn the lesson he intends his readers to take away from the Spartan discussion in the Politics: that virtue requires correct understanding of the hierarchy and structure of the good life. This knowledge prevents the erosion of the virtues of character and the decline of political regimes.
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Kenny, Anthony. "Aristotle on Friendship in the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics." Revue de philosophie ancienne XXXVI, no. 1 (2018): 73. http://dx.doi.org/10.3917/rpha.361.0073.
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Méndez, Víctor Hugo. "Ética tau y utopía en Aristóteles." Theoría. Revista del Colegio de Filosofía, no. 27 (March 30, 2015): 43–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.16656415p.2014.27.497.
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“Ethos” and “ethos”, roots of the word “ethic”, are written with the consonant “theta” (Th). “Etos”, written with the consonant “tau” (T), means “year”. The aim of this paper is to highlight the presence of what I have called “tau ethic” in Greek political thought. To paraphrase Nietzsche, I perceive the birth of ethics out of the spirit of “ethos/ethos/etos”. To start with, Solon was one of the seven sages. Nobody could deny his influence in Archaic and Classical Greece. He was considered in those days a kind of founding father. His division of human life into periods of seven years was the canonical way of thinking about it in ancient times. In addition, Plato and Aristotle use to quote Solon as an indisputable authority. Finally, I show that Aristotle’s utopia is built on Solonian cornerstones. On the one hand, I emphasize the importance of Solonian anthropological thought in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. On the other hand, I show how ideal society is designed according to the age group into Aristotle´s utopia. To put the problem succinctly, an essential element of Aristotle’s practical philosophy is what I have called “tau ethic”, an issue not sufficiently researched.
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Wyllie, Robert. "Nemesis, Envy, and Justice in Aristotle’s Political Science." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought 38, no. 2 (May 7, 2021): 237–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340324.
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Abstract Aristotle does not explain why ordinary citizens who lack the virtue of justice nevertheless praise justice and the law. Indignation (nemesis), defined as pain at the undeserved gains of others, is a promising candidate in the list of means regarding virtues and passions in Book 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics. However, as many scholars have noted, Aristotle’s description of indignation as a mean is flawed. Moreover, indignation is the only characteristic in the list that disappears from the inquiry thereafter. I argue that Aristotle obliquely criticizes indignation for aligning envy, a base passion, with conventional justice. Aristotle’s subtle critique reveals that envy motivates ‘the many’ to support justice, an unsavory conclusion which he does not highlight.
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Trott, Adriel M. "Logos and the Political Nature of Anthrōpos in Aristotle’s Politics." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 27, no. 2 (2010): 292–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-90000172.
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Departing from Aristotle’s two-fold definition of anthrōpos (human) as having logos and being political, the argument of this article is that human beings are always fundamentally political for Aristotle. This position challenges the view that ethical life is prior to or beyond the scope of political life. Aristotle’s conception of the political nature of the human is developed through a reading of the linguistic argument at Politics 1.2; a careful treatment of autos, or self, in Aristotle; and an examination of the political nature of anthrōpos in the context of Aristotle’s candidates for the best life in Politics VII.1–3 and Nicomachean Ethics X.6–8. From this consideration the compatibility between Aristotle’s claims that anthrōpos is fundamentally political and that the highest end of the human is achieved in theoria is maintained, since even in pursuing the theoretic life, human beings take up the practical question of what the best life is.
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Knoll, Manuel. "La giustizia distributiva tra Platone e Aristotele = Distributive Justice in Plato and Aristotle." ΠΗΓΗ/FONS 3, no. 1 (June 7, 2019): 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.20318/fons.2019.4550.
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Riassunto: Secondo l’opinione prevalente tra gli studiosi di lingua tedesca, bisogna considerare Aristotele come colui che ha “scoperto” la giustizia particolare. Questo articolo dimostra che quest’opinione è errata, innanzitutto perché Platone aveva già precedentemente sviluppato, nella Repubblica e nelle Leggi, la dottrina della giustizia distributiva e il suo principio di uguaglianza geometrica o proporzionale. In un primo momento, l’articolo interpreta la dottrina della giustizia distributiva esposta da Aristotele nell’Etica Nicomachea e nella Politica. In un secondo momento, si mostra che i principali elementi di questa dottrina erano già stati sviluppati da Platone nelle Leggi. Infine, l’articolo offre un’interpretazione innovativa del concetto di giustizia presentato da Platone nella Repubblica.Parole chiave: Platone, Aristotele, giustizia distributiva, Repubblica, Leggi.Abstract: According to the prevailing opinion in German-speaking research, Aristotle is to be understood as the “discoverer” of particular justice. This article demonstrates that this view is incorrect, especially as Plato developed the doctrine of distributive justice and its principle of geometrical or proportional equality already previously in the Republic and the Laws. In a first step, this article interprets the doctrine of distributive justice that Aristotle lays out in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. In a second step, it shows that the main elements of this doctrine have already been developed by Plato in the Laws. In a final step the article offers an innovative interpretation of the concept of justice that Plato presents in the Republic.Keywords: Plato, Aristotle, Distributive justice, Republic, Laws.
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Vranas, Peter. "Aristotle on the Best Good: Is Nicomachean Ethics 1094a18-22 Fallacious?" Phronesis 50, no. 2 (2005): 116–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1568528053898309.
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AbstractThe first sentence of NE I.2 has roughly the form: "If A [there is a universal end] and B (because, if not-B, then C), 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 (until later on); but then the sentence is bizarre. Contrary to both sets of commentators (but following Wedin 1981), I suggest that Aristotle uses B together with A to infer validly that there is a non-instrumental – and thus unique – universal end (hence D). On this interpretation the above two problems disappear, but a subtler problem emerges: not-B does not entail C.
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Matthews, Gareth B. "Sparshott on How to Take Aristotle Seriously." Dialogue 36, no. 3 (1997): 615–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s001221730001711x.
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Francis Sparshott has written a wonderfully wise, urbane, honest, insightful, and provocative commentary on Aristotle's chief ethical work, the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). Some commentaries on ancient philosophical texts are line-by-line struggles to nail down the meaning of the text, as if the commentator were roofing a house in a high wind, one shingle at a time. Other commentaries are collections of essays, each inspired by a passage in the text, but each growing into a relatively self-contained discussion. Sparshott's commentary is neither of these things.
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Skowroński, Leszek. "Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics: Their Common Field of Inquiry and Their Common Reader." Peitho. Examina Antiqua 7, no. 1 (March 17, 2016): 167–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2016.1.8.
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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 (and this has already been done) that the reader, whom Aristotle had in mind while writing what we now know as the Ethics, was a politician-lawgiver (and not just any educated Greek or – which is even less probable – any human being). 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 (i.e. as closely as possible to the intentions of their author) 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 (or not fundamentally by that) but as a result of good laws and a well-organized life in a polis.
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Chen, Siyi. "The Stages of Moral Education in Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics." Rhizomata 7, no. 1 (April 1, 2019): 97–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2019-0004.
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Abstract I wish to prove in this article that Aristotle divides the ideal scheme of moral education into three stages: first, preliminary education, the most important part of which is the young’s musical-poetic education presented in Politics VIII.5–7; second, moral habituation, in the strict sense explained in Nicomachean Ethics II.1–4, which corresponds to the adult citizens’ military and subordinate political life, in which they learn how to rule through being ruled; finally, theoretical moral education, which means the learning of Nicomachean Ethics and Politics by those mature statesmen who wish to become excellent public educators.
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Curzer, Howard J. "Aristotle on the Perfect Life, and: Practices of Reason: Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (review)." Journal of the History of Philosophy 33, no. 1 (1995): 162–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hph.1995.0005.
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Brien, Kevin M. "Toward a Critical Synthesis of the Aristotelian and Confucian Doctrines of the Mean." Dialogue and Universalism 30, no. 1 (2020): 9–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/du20203012.
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This paper is the second phase of a project that was begun more than three years ago. The first phase culminated in the publication of a paper working toward a critical appropriation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.1 Therein Aristotle famously argues that human wellbeing (eudaimonia) is constituted by “activity of the soul in accordance with moral and intellectual virtue.”2 This earlier paper brought into focus all the main lines of Aristotle’s theoretical web in the N. Ethics: including the nature of the soul, intellectual virtue, moral virtue, etc. That paper went on to give a developed critique of Aristotle’s theoretical web, and against that background it argued for a very different way of thinking about intellectual virtue, and it prepared the ground for different ways of thinking about moral virtue. This current paper explores the various conceptual understandings of “the mean” in Aristotelian and in Confucian thought. It begins with an explanatory sketch of “the mean” as understood in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and then in a second section goes on to explore “the mean” as presented in classical Confucianism. The third section of this paper offers some reflections oriented toward a tentative formulation of a modified conception of “the mean” as it might be construed from a humanistic Marxist perspective.