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Nicomachean Ethics
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{{Short description|Aristotle’s theory of virtue ethics grounded in natural philosophy and human teleology}}{{italic title}}(File:Aristotelis De Moribus ad Nicomachum.jpg|alt=An elaborate Latin page of Nicomachean Ethics|236px|thumb|First page of a 1566 edition of the Aristotolic Ethics in Greek and Latin)The Nicomachean Ethics ({{IPAc-en|Ë|n|aɪ|k|É|m|É|Ë|k|i|É|n|,_|Ë|n|ɪ|-}}; , ) is among Aristotle’s best-known works on ethics: the science of the good for human life, that which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim.BOOK, Aristotle, Aristotle, Andronicus, Andronicus of Rhodes, Nicomachean Ethics, ({{PD-notice}}){{rp|I.2}} It consists of ten sections, referred to as books, and is closely related to Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics. The work is essential for the interpretation of Aristotelian ethics.The text centers around the question of how to best live, a theme previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle’s friend and teacher. In Aristotle’s Metaphysics, he describes how Socrates, the friend and teacher of Plato, turned philosophy to human questions, whereas pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical, and concerned with natural science. Ethics, Aristotle claimed, is practical rather than theoretical, in the Aristotelian senses of these terms. It is not merely an investigation about what good consists of, but it aims to be of practical help in achieving the good.{{r|ne|at=II.2 (1103b)|quote=á¼Ïεὶ οá½Î½ ἡ ÏαÏοῦÏα ÏÏαγμαÏεία οὠθεÏÏÎ¯Î±Ï á¼Î½ÎµÎºÎ¬ á¼ÏÏιν á½¥ÏÏÎµÏ Î±á¼± á¼Î»Î»Î±Î¹... ([O]ur present study, unlike the other branches of philosophy, has a practical aim, for we are not investigating the nature of virtue for the sake of knowing what it is, but in order that we may become good...)}}It is connected to another of Aristotle’s practical works, Politics, which reflects a similar goal: for people to become good, through the creation and maintenance of social institutions. Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while politics adopts the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.The Nicomachean Ethics had an important influence on the European Middle Ages, and was one of the core works of medieval philosophy. As such, it was of great significance in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Aristotle became known as “the Philosopher” (for example, this is how he is referred to in the works of Thomas Aquinas). In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology became widespread, as introduced by Albertus Magnus. The most important version of this synthesis was that of Thomas Aquinas. Other more “Averroist” Aristotelians such as Marsilius of Padua were also influential.Until well into the seventeenth century, the Nicomachean Ethics was still widely regarded as the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published before 1682.JOURNAL, Sytsma, David, 2021, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Protestantism,doi.org/10.20935/AL1650, Academia Letters, en, 1650, 1â8, 10.20935/AL1650, 237798959, During the seventeenth century, however, authors such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes argued that the medieval and Renaissance Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking was impeding philosophy.For Bacon see for example Novum Organum; for Hobbes, De Cive.Interest in Aristotle’s ethics has been renewed by the virtue ethics revival. Recent philosophers in this field include Alasdair MacIntyre, G. E. M. Anscombe, Mortimer Adler, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Martha Nussbaum.- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
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Title and abbreviations
The title is usually assumed to refer to Aristotle’s son Nicomachus. One theory is that the work was dedicated to him, another is that it was edited by him (though he is believed to have died young, probably before he could have managed this alone.{{sfn|Burnet|p=xii}}) Another possibility is that the work was dedicated to Aristotle’s father, who was also named Nicomachus. It is unlikely that it was dedicated by Aristotle himself, as it does not appear to be in a form Aristotle intended for publication.{{sfn|Burnet|p=xii}} Rather it seems to be something like lecture notes meant for the lecturer or for consultation by students.{{sfn|Burnet|p=xvii}}The oldest known reference to the Nicomachean Ethics by that title is in the works of Atticus (c. {{CE|175}}), who also references the Eudemian Ethics by name.{{sfn|Burnet|p=xi}}In Greek the title is ’ (), which is sometimes also given in the genitive form as ’ (). The Latin version is or .Referencing
The Nicomachean Ethics is often abbreviated as NE or EN. Books and chapters are referred to with Roman and Arabic numerals respectively, along with corresponding Bekker numbers. So, for example, “NE II.2, 1103b1” means ”Nicomachean Ethics, book II, chapter 2, Bekker page 1103, column b, line number 1”. Chapter divisions, and the number of chapters in a book, are somewhat arbitrary and sometimes different compilers divide books into chapters differently.Book V for example: Brewer, Browne, Burnet, Gillies, Grant, Jelf, Lancaster, Peters, Ross, Stewart, Taylor, and Williams divide it into 11 chapters; Hatch, Paley, and Welldon into 15; Chase into 17.Background
Parts of the Nicomachean Ethics overlap with Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics:{{sfn|Pakaluk|2005}} Books V, VI, and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics are identical to Books IV, V, and VI of the Eudemian Ethics. Opinions about the relationship between the two works differ. One suggestion is that three books from Nicomachean Ethics were lost and subsequently replaced by three parallel works from the Eudemian Ethics, which would explain the overlap.BOOK, Hughes, Gerard J., The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 2013, Routledge, 978-0-415-66384-7, Oxon, 245,- See also {{harvnb|Grant|pp=55â69|quote=[I]f these Disputed Books be read as IV., V., VI. of the Eudemian Ethics, there is nothing in them which interferes with the continuity of that work; the books appear as if in their natural place. On the other hand, if read as V., Vi., VII. of the Nicomachean Ethics, that treatise is at once marred by many irregularities.... [T]here is also a remarkable coincidence between the style and manner of these Books, and that which we find consistently employed by the Eudemian writer.}} Another is that both works were not put into their current form by Aristotle, but by an editor.JOURNAL, John M., Cooper, The Magna Moralia and Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy, The American Journal of Philology, 94, 4, 1973, 327â49, 10.2307/293613, 293613,
- BOOK, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Plutarch, Life of Sulla, Plutarch, Parallel Lives, After the death of Theophrastus, the library went to Neleus of Scepsis.
Synopsis
Aristotle was the first philosopher to write ethical treatises,{{sfn|Grant|p=416|ps=: “Before Aristotle, Ethics cannot be said to have existed as a separate science.“}} and begins by considering how to approach the subject. He argues that the correct approach for subjects like Ethics or Politics, which involve a discussion on beauty or justice, is to start by considering what would be roughly agreed to be true by people of good upbringing and substantial life experience, and then to work from those intuitions toward a more rigorous understanding.{{r|ne|at=I.3,4,6,7}}BOOK, Kraut, Richard, Aristotle’s Ethics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2014, Edward N., Zalta, {{sfn|Grant|p=391â396}} Over the course of the Ethics, Aristotle alternates between a theoretical/systematic approach to formalizing ethics and an empirical approach of consulting opinion, prior philosophical or literary works, and linguistic clues.{{sfn|Grant|p=391â396,416}}Aristotle’s ethics is said to be teleological, in that it is based on an investigation into the , or end, of a human. In Aristotle’s philosophy, the of a thing “can hardly be separated from the perfection of that thing”, and “the final cause of anything becomes identical with the good of that thing, so that the end and the good become synonymous terms”.{{sfn|Grant|p=221}}Taking this approach, Aristotle proposes that the highest good for humans is , a Greek word often translated as “flourishing” or sometimes “happiness”. Aristotle argues that is a way of taking action (){{sfn|Grant|p=230â251}} that is appropriate to the human “soul” () at its most “excellent” or virtuous (). is the most “complete” aim that people can have, because they choose it for its own sake. An excellent human is one who is good at living life, who does so well and beautifully (). Aristotle says such a person would also be a serious () human being. He also asserts that virtue for a human must involve reason in thought and speech (), as this is a task () of human living.{{r|ne|at=I.7(1098a)}}After proposing this ultimate end of human activity, Aristotle discusses what ethics means. Aristotelian Ethics is about how specific beneficial habits (virtues) enable a person to achieve and how to develop a virtuous character (). He describes a sequence of necessary steps: The first step is to practice righteous actions, perhaps under the guidance of teachers, in order to develop good habits. Practiced habits form a stable character in which those habits become voluntary, which then achieves .{{r|ne|at=II.1 (1103b)}}The Greek word , or “character”, is related to modern words such as ethics and ethos. Aristotle does not equate character with habit ( in Greek, with a short ”e“) because character involves conscious choice. Instead, character is an like health or knowledgeâa stable disposition that must be maintained with effort. However, good habits are a precondition for good character.In Latin, the language of medieval European philosophy, the habits are , giving us modern English words like “moral”. Aristotle’s term for virtuous character () is traditionally translated with the Latinate term “moral virtue”. Latin , is derived from the word meaning man, and became the traditional translation of Greek .Aristotle reviews specific ways in which people are thought worthy of praise or blame. He describes how the highest types of praise require having all the virtues, and these in turn imply more than good character, indeed a kind of wisdom.{{Citation|last=Sachs|first=Joe|title=Nicomachean Ethics|page=68|quote=Greatness of soul is the first of four virtues that Aristotle will find to require the presence of all the virtues of character.}} The four essential virtues are:- Magnanimity (“great soul“), which requires a correct attitude towards the honor this involves, in Book IV.{{r|ne|at=1123b}}
- Justice, as established by a good ruler in a good community, in (Book V: Justice and Fairness: a moral virtue needing special discussion|Book V).{{r|ne|at=1129b}}
- , or practical judgment, in (Book VI: Intellectual virtues|Book VI).{{r|ne|at=1144b}}
- Friendship, in (Books VIII and IX: Friendship|Book VIII).{{r|ne|at=1157a}}
Book I
Book I attempts to define the subject matter of ethics and justify his method for examining it.{{r|ne|at=I.3,4,6,7}} As part of this, Aristotle considers common-sense opinions along with those of poets and philosophers.Who should study ethics, and how
Aristotle points out that “things that are beautiful and just, about which politics investigates, involve great disagreement and inconsistency, so that they are thought to belong only to convention and not to nature”. For this reason Aristotle says we should not demand exacting rigor (), like we might expect from a mathematician, but rather look for answers about “things that are so for the most part”. He claimed that people are satisfactory judges of such subjects after they become acquainted with them. However as the young (in age or in character) are inexperienced, they are less likely to benefit from this kind of study.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=I.3 (1094bâ1095a)}}I.6 contains a famous digression in which Aristotle appears to question his “friends” who “introduced the forms”. This refers to Plato and his school, and their Theory of Forms. Aristotle says that while both “the truth and one’s friends” are loved, “it is a sacred thing to give the highest honor to the truth”, signaling his belief that the Theory of Forms is not that. A Forms-based discussion of the Good might try to discover some characteristic that all good things have in common. Aristotle does not find this approach promising because the word “good” is used in too many ways. He says that while it is probably not coincidental that various things called good share that description, it is perhaps better to “let go for now” the quest for some common characteristic, as this “would be more at home in another type of philosophic inquiry”: not helpful for discussing how people should act, in the same way that doctors do not need to philosophize over the definition of health in order to treat each case.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=I.6 (1096aâ1097b)}}Ethics“>Defining and the aim of the Ethics
The opening passage asserts that all technical arts, all investigations (every , including the Ethics itself), indeed all deliberate actions and choices, aim at some good apart from themselves. Many such goods are intermediate, desired only as means to higher goods.{{r|ne|at=I.1 (1094a)|quote=ÏᾶÏα ÏÎÏνη καὶ ÏᾶÏα μÎθοδοÏ, á½Î¼Î¿Î¯ÏÏ Î´á½² ÏÏá¾¶Î¾Î¯Ï Ïε καὶ ÏÏοαίÏεÏιÏ, á¼Î³Î±Î¸Î¿á¿¦ ÏÎ¹Î½á½¸Ï á¼ÏίεÏθαι δοκεῠ(Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act and purpose, seems to aim at some good)}}Aristotle asserts that there is one highest goodâ (traditionally translated as “happiness” or “flourishing“)âwhich is what good politics should target, because what is best for an individual is less beautiful () and divine () than what is good for a people () or community (). Politics organizes communal practical life, so the proper aim of politics should include the proper aim of all other pursuits, and “this end would be the human good ()”. The human good is a practical target, in contrast to Plato’s references to “the Good itself”. Aristotle concludes that ethics (“our investigation” or ) is “in a certain way political”.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|page=I.2}}Aristotle then elaborates on the methodological concern with exactness. He claims that ethics, unlike some other types of philosophy, is inexact and uncertain. He says that it would be unreasonable to expect demonstrations of strict mathematical exactitude, but rather “each man judges correctly those matters with which he is acquainted”.{{sfn|Rackham|p=1094b}}Aristotle states that while most would agree to call the highest aim of humanity , and also to equate this with both living well and doing things well, disagreement about what this is persists between the majority () and “the wise”.{{r|ne|at=I.4 (1095aâ1095b)}} He distinguishes three possible ways of life that people associate with happiness:{{r|ne|at=I.5 (1095bâ1096a)}}- the way of slavish pleasure
- the way of refined and active honorable politics
- the way of contemplation
- passive virtue that suffers evils and misfortunes. Aristotle says no one would propose such a thing unless sacrificing to defend a shaky hypothesis (as Sachs points out, this is what Plato depicts Socrates doing in his Gorgias).
- money making, which Aristotle asserts is a life based on a merely intermediate good
- Sachs: the human good comes to be disclosed as a being-at-work of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if the virtues are more than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue. But also this must be in a complete life, for one swallow does not make a Spring
- Ross: human good turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence, and if there are [sic.] more than one excellence, in accordance with the best and most complete. But we must add “in a complete life”. For one swallow does not make a summer
- Thomson: the conclusion is that the good for man is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind. There is one further qualification: in a complete lifetime. One swallow does not make a summer
- Crisp: the human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are several virtues, in accordance with the best and most complete. Again, this must be over a complete life. For one swallow does not make a summer
- Peters: the good of man is exercise of his faculties in accordance with excellence or virtue, or, if there be more than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue. But there must also be a full term of years for this exercise; for one swallow or one fine day does not make a spring}}
- Sachs: “and it belongs to a man of serious stature to do these things well and beautifully”;
- Ross: “and the function of good man to be the good and noble performance of these”;
- Rackham: “and say that the function of a good man is to perform these activities well and rightly”;
- Thomson: “and if the function of a good man is to perform these well and rightly”;
- Crisp “and the characteristic activity of the good person to be to carry this out well and nobly”.
Questions that might be raised about the definition
Aristotle addresses some objections that might be raised against his proposed definition of .First, he considers a Socratic question (found for example in Plato’s Meno) of whether might be a result of learning or habit or training, or perhaps divine grace or random chance. Aristotle says that does result from some sort of learning or training. But, although not god-given, is one of the most divine things, and “for what is greatest and most beautiful to be left to chance would be too discordant”.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=I.9 (1099bâ1100a)}}File:Neoptolemos und Priamossohn.jpg|alt=An ancient Greek painting of a man in armor charging a throne where another man is seated|thumb|200px|NeoptolemusNeoptolemusAristotle says must be considered over a lifetime, otherwise Priam, for example, might be defined as unhappy only because of his unhappy old age.{{r|ne|at=I.9â10}}Concerning the importance of chance to , Aristotle argues that a person at work in accordance with virtue “will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances, as a good general will turn the forces at his command to the best account, and a good shoemaker will make the best shoe that can be made out of a given piece of leather, and so on with all other crafts”.{{r|ne|at=I.10}} Only many great misfortunes will limit how blessed such a life can be, but “even in these circumstances something beautiful shines through”.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=I.10 (1100aâ1101a)}}Aristotle says that it “seems too unfeeling and contrary to people’s opinions” to claim that the postmortem “fortunes of one’s descendants and all one’s friends have no influence at all” on one’s . But he says it seems that if anything at all gets through to the deceased in this indirect way, whether good or bad, it would be something faint and small.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=I.11 (1101aâ1101b)}}Aristotle distinguishes virtue and . Virtue, through which people “become apt at performing beautiful actions” is praiseworthy, while is something beyond praise: blessed, “since every one of us does everything else for the sake of this, and we set down the source and cause of good things as something honored and divine”.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=I.12 (1101bâ1102a)}}Introduction to the rest of the Ethics
Aristotle asserts that some things can be accepted about the soul (another reference to Plato), including the division of the soul into rational and irrational parts, and the further division of the irrational parts into two parts:- one that is “not human” but “vegetative” and most at work during sleep, when virtue is least obvious
- another that is amenable to reason: “the faculty of appetite or of desire” in the soul that can comprehend and obey reason, much as a child can act “rationally” not by reasoning but by obeying a wise father.
Books IIâIII: Concerning excellence of character, or moral virtue
Aristotle says that whereas intellectual virtue requires teaching, experience, and time, virtue of character comes about as a consequence of adopting good habits. Humans have a natural capacity to develop these virtues, but that training determines whether they actually develop.{{r|ne|at=II.1 (1103aâ1103b)}}Aristotle says moral virtues are found at a mean () between deficiency and excess.{{sfn|Grant|p=251â262}} For example, someone who flees is a coward (with a deficiency of bravery, or an excessive response to fear), while someone who fears nothing is rash (the opposite extreme). The virtue of courage is a “mean” between these two extremes. For this reason, Aristotle is considered a proponent of the golden mean doctrine.However Aristotle seems to choose this formulation as a basic starting point because it was already well-known. One of the two Delphic mottos associated with Aristotle’s Socratic teachers was “nothing in excess”, a motto much older than Socrates himself, and similar ideas can be found in Pythagoreanism, and in the Myth of Icarus. People first perform actions that are virtuous, possibly guided by teachers or experience; these habitual actions then become virtues when people characteristically choose such actions deliberately.{{r|ne|at=II.2 (1103bâ1104b)}}According to Aristotle, character, properly understood, is not just any tendency or habit but something that influences what causes pleasure or pain. A virtuous person feels pleasure when they perform the most beautiful or noble () actions; their practice of virtues and their pleasure therefore coincide. A person who is not virtuous, on the other hand, often finds pleasure to be misleading. For this reason, the study of virtue (or of politics) requires consideration of pleasure and pain.{{r|ne|at=II.3 (1104bâ1105a)}}It is not enough to perform virtuous actions by chance or by following advice. It is not like in the productive arts, where the product is judged as well-made or not. To be a virtuous person, one’s virtuous actions must be- done knowingly
- chosen for their own sakes
- chosen according to a stable disposition (not on a whim, or uncharacteristically).
- feelings (),
- faculties or capacities (),
- acquired habits ().Dunamis and hexis are translated in numerous ways. See Categories 8b for Aristotle’s explanation of both words.
Moral virtue as conscious choice
Aristotle begins by distinguishing human actions as voluntary & involuntary, and chosen & unchosen, and investigates what makes an action worthy of praise or blame, honor or punishment, and pardon or pity.{{r|ne|at=III.1â3 (1109b30â1110b)}}Aristotle divides wrong actions into three categories:- Voluntary () acts which are caused by a person’s will or desire or choice.
- Involuntary or unwilling () acts, which are caused by some outside factor or by ignorance (for example the wind carries a person off, or a person has a wrong understanding of the particular facts of a situation).
- “Non-voluntary” or “non willing” actions () that are bad actions done by choice, but not deliberately, for example actions that are demanded from us under threat, or actions that are the lesser evil when no good actions are available. If you regret a non-voluntary wrong action of this sort, it is effectively equivalent to an involuntary action for the purposes of assigning blame.
- Deliberate choice (): “seems to determine one’s character more than one’s actions do”. Things done on the spur of the moment, and things done by animals and children, can be willing, but driven by desire and spirit and not deliberate choice. Choice is rational and can be in opposition to desire. Choice always concerns realistic aims and available actions (which distinguishes it from “opinion” which can be about anything).{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=III.2 (1111bâ1113a)}}
- Deliberation (), at least for sane people, does not include theoretical contemplation about universals, nor about distant things, nor about things already precisely known, such stand or sit. “We deliberate about things that are up to us and are matters of action” and concerning things where it is unclear how they will turn out. Deliberation is therefore not about reasoning which ends to pursue (health, for example) but how to think through the means of achieving those ends. When desire (for an end) and deliberation (about the means) combine, a choice is born.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=III.3 (1113aâ1113b)}}
- Wishing () is something like deliberation, but focuses on ends rather than means. Contrary to some theories,See Plato’s Protagoras Aristotle says that people do not wish for what is good by definition (though perhaps for what appears to be good). A worthy () person, however, does wish for what is “truly” good. Most people are misled by pleasure, “for it seems to them to be a good, though it is not”.{{r|ne|at=III.4 (1113a)}}
Courage{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of courage
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | ||
Courage (): mean in fear and confidence|First Type: Foolhardy or excessive fearlessness; overindulges in fearful activities | Cowardly (): excessive fear; deficient in confidence | |
Second Type: Rash (): excessive confidence |
- Citizen-soldiers who display a quasi-courage that is motivated by penalties for disobedience, by hope of honors, or by fear of shame when caught acting cowardly.BOOK, The Basic Works of Aristotle, McKeon, Richard, 2009, The Modern Library, 978-0-307-41752-7, New York, {{Page needed|date=May 2023}} Such motivations can make an army fight as if brave, but true courage is motivated by the love of virtue, not by external motives. Aristotle notes that Homeric heroes such as Hector had this type of courage.
- People who are experienced in dealing with some particular danger often seem courageous, though it is their skill rather than their courage which gives them confidence.
- Passion or anger () can look like courage. People who exhibit can be blind to dangers, but unlike truly courageous people they do not aim at virtue. Aristotle notes however that this is “something akin to courage” and if it were combined with deliberate choice and purpose it would seem to be true courage.
- The boldness of someone who feels confident based on many past victories is not true courage. Like a person who is overconfident when drunk, this apparent courage is based on a lack of fear (not confidence in the face of fear), and will disappear if circumstances change.
- People who are overconfident simply due to ignorance of the danger can mimic courage.
Temperance (){| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of temperance
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||
Temperance ()> |
Book IV. The second set of examples of moral virtues
The moral virtues discussed in Book IV concern behavior in social or political situations. Book IV is sometimes described as reflecting the norms of an Athenian gentleman in Aristotle’s time. While this is consistent with the approach Aristotle said he would take in Book I, long-running disagreement concerns whether this was a frameworkd for deriving more general conclusions, for example in Book VI, or whether it shows that Aristotle failed to generalize, and that his ethical thinking was parochial.“>Liberality or generosity (){| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of generosity
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||||||||
Rackham}} generosity,{{sfn | 2002 | Rackham}} wastefulness,{{sfn | 2002 | Rackham | Sachs | }} () |
Magnificence{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of magnificence
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | ||||
magnificence (), munificence> | Rackham}} chintziness,{{sfn | 2002}} pettiness () |
Magnanimity or “greatness of soul“{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of magnanimity
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||
- Deserves and claims great things, but above all, honor.
- Good in the highest degree, great in every virtue. He never behaves in a cowardly manner or wrongs another person, because, loving honor above all, lacks motive to do such things.
- Moderately pleased at receiving great honors from good people. Despises casual honors from middling people, however.
- Indifferent to what fate bringsâââ“neither over-joyed by good fortune nor over-pained by evil” and cares not for power and wealth, except as a means to honor. Even honor, loved above all, does not consume him.
- It helps to be rich, powerful, and well-born, though none of those things are sufficient.
- Does not court danger (little that is worth courting danger). Confronts danger “unsparing of his life, knowing that there are conditions on which life is not worth having”.
- Asks for nothing, but gives readily. Give benefits and gifts, but hates to receive them. Hates to be in another’s debt, and overpays a debt to gain an advantage.
- Remembers (and likes to be reminded of) services to others, but not those received (which are reminders of having been in an inferior position).
- Projects dignity before people of high position and riches. Behaves in an unassuming manner towards common people, rejecting vulgar pomposity.
- Does not reach for common honors, only for the best ones. Few deeds, but those few are extraordinary.
- Speaks directly “except when he speaks in irony to the vulgar”. Respects truth more than people’s opinions, so does not hesitate to offer contempt and does not try to be tactful.
- Rejects service to a “superior”, but may choose to serve a friend.
- Admires little, since to a great person, nothing else is particularly outstanding.
- Refuses to bear grudges or remember wrongs.
- Refuses to gossip or praise or demean others, rejecting typical motives to do so.
- Prefers to possess beautiful things of no particular use more than practical things.
- Moves slowly and deliberately, and speaks in a deep, level voice.
- He is definitely a male, though Aristotle does not think he needs to point this out explicitly.
A balanced ambitiousness concerning smaller honors{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of ambitiousness
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||
Gentleness () concerning anger{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of anger
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | ||||
Rackham}} irritability,{{sfn | 2002}} (), wrathfulness | spiritlessness (), slavishness |
Friendliness{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of friendliness
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||
general pleasantness in society | friendliness, amiability (something like ) | First type: obsequious (), if for no purpose | quarrelsome () and surly (), churlish, peevish |
Second type: flattering, fawning (), if for own advantage | |||
- Dealing appropriately with different types of people, for example people in a higher social position than oneself, or people more or less familiar to you.
- Sometimes sharing in the pleasure of companions at some expense, if this pleasure is not harmful or dishonorable.
- Willingness to experience pain in the short term for longer-run pleasure of a greater scale.
Honesty about oneself: the virtue between boasting and self-deprecation{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of truthfulness
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||
irony“) |
Wit and charm{| class“wikitable“|+A virtue theory of wittiness
Concerned with |
Mean |
Excess |
Deficiency | |||||
wittiness,{{sfn | Sachs | buffoonery, vulgarity, frivolity () | boorishness, sourness () |
Shame (quasi-virtue)
The sense of shame is not a virtue, but more like a feeling than a stable character trait (). Shame derives from voluntary acts, and a decent person does not voluntarily act shamefully, so a sense of shame fits awkwardly into a scheme of virtues, though shamelessness is certainly a vice.{{r|ne|at=IV.9 (1128b)}}In youth, shame is attractive, since young people are expected to make mistakes because of their inexperience, and responding to these mistakes with appropriate shame is praiseworthy. In adults, shame is not admirable.Book V: Justice and fairness
Book V is the same as Book IV of the Eudemian Ethics; the first of three books common to both works. It represents the discussion on justice () foreseen in earlier books, which covers some of the same material as Plato’s Republic, though in a strikingly different way.Burger points out that although the chapter nominally follows the same path () as previous chapters “it is far from obvious how justice is to be understood as a disposition in relation to a passion: the proposed candidate, greed (), would seem to refer, rather, to the vice of injustice and the single opposite of the virtue.“{{sfn|Burger|2008}} In other words, justice is not described as a mean between two extremes.He distinguishes such states-of-character from “science”. A science concerns a subject matter in which knowledge and skill aim for opposite extremes: for example, a doctor knows the science of health, and uses this knowledge to heal or possibly harm patients. A state-of-character, on the other hand, goes in only one directionâââhaving a courageous state-of-character does not make it easier for you to be cowardly, nor vice versa. Justice, he says, is a state of character that is possessed by people who engage in just acts from just desires, not merely the science of knowing theoretically about just outcomes or processes.Aristotle claims that people use the word “just” to mean either “law abiding” or lawful (), or equitable or fair (). He envisions an ideal legal system in which “all that is unfair is unlawful, but not all that is unlawful is unfair... [and] the law bids us practise every virtue and forbids us to practise any vice.” But: “It would seem that to be a good man is not in every case the same thing as to be a good citizen.” These two common meanings of justice coincide only to the extent that the laws are themselves good, something only lawmakers can ensure.{{sfn|Rackham|p=1129b}}Aristotle says that a complete virtue encompasses all types of justice and indeed all types of excellence of character, while a partial virtue is distinct from other character traits. For example, a soldier who flees in battle might be exhibiting cowardice, but could also be exhibiting a sort of injustice (e.g. not wanting to equally share risks with other soldiers).{{r|ne|at=1130b}}To understand how justice aims at what is good, it is necessary to look beyond particular good or bad things, and this includes considering the viewpoint of a community (the subject of Aristotle’s Politics). Alone of the virtues justice looks like “someone else’s good”, an argument also confronted by Plato in his Republic.Concerning areas in which law-abiding behavior might conflict with fairness, Aristotle says that this is part of Politics.Such a discussion appears in Book III of Politics. Aristotle divides particular justice further into two parts: distribution of divisible goods, and rectification in private transactions. The first relates to members of a community in which it is possible for one person to have more or less of a good than another person. The second concerns transactions that have resulted in an imbalance. This part is itself divided into two parts: voluntary and involuntary. Involuntary is divided into furtive and violent divisions.{{r|ne|at=1131a}}{{sfn|Burger|2008|loc=Appendix 3}}{{tree chart/start |summary=based on Ronna Burger’s (2008) app 3}}{{tree chart| | | |CIT|~|~|~|SOU | | |CIT=Justice in the City|SOU=Justice in the Soulcontrast V.11 (1138b5â13) andPlato’s Republic IV (443bâd)|}}{{tree chart| |,|-|-|^|-|-|.| | | }}{{tree chart|GEN| | | |PAR|GEN=General Sense The just = the lawfulâ¢V.1 (1129b12â14):lawful things are in a sense just thingsâ¢V.9 (1137a11â12):lawful things are only by accident just things|PAR=Particular Sense just = equalV.2 (1130b30â1131a1)|}}{{tree chart| | | | |,|-|-|^|-|-|.| | | }}{{tree chart| | | |DIS| | | |COR| | |DIS=Distributive JusticeGeometric proportion:â¢equal shares for equals;â¢unequal for unequals;â¢different in different regimes|COR=Corrective Justice Arithmetic proportion: subtract unjust gain of one party, to make up for loss by the other party|boxstyle_DIS=align: right}}{{tree chart| | | | | | | |,|-|-|^|-|-|.|}}{{tree chart| | | | | | |VOL| | | |INV| |VOL=Voluntary transactions|INV=Involuntary transactionsV.2 (1131a2â9)}}{{tree chart| | | | | | | |!| | | |,|-|^|-|.| | | }}{{tree chart| | | | | | |VLS| |FUR| |FOR| |VLS=sellingbuyinglending at interestgiving security for a loaninvestingdepositingrenting|FUR=Furtivetheftadulterypoisoning ()procuring ()enticement of slavesassassination by treacheryfalse witness|FOR=By forceassaultimprisonmentmurderseizure, rapemaimingverbal abuseslanderous insult}}{{tree chart/end}}Aristotle says that justice involves the allocation of shares of goods in a way that concerns “at least four terms, namely, two persons for whom it is just and two shares which are just”.{{r|ne|at=V.3§5 (1131a)}} The just must fall between what is too much and what is too little, and what is just requires consideration not just for equality but for the relative political standing of the parties.How to judge the mean is not clear, because “if the persons are not equal, they will not have equal shares; it is when equals possess or are allotted unequal shares, or persons not equal equal shares, that quarrels and complaints arise”.{{r|ne|at=V.3§7 (1131a23â24)}}Aristotle does not state how to decide who deserves more or less. Political systems variously define “fair share”. Democrats think that citizens should have equal shares, and others a lesser share. Others (believers in oligarchy, aristocracy, etc.) think that shares ought to be proportionate to wealth, fortune of birth, or honor. Distributive justice then allocates goods according to that rule, so that if persons A and B stand in a ratio A:B by the accepted standard, shares of the good should be divvied out in a ratio C:D so that (A+C):(B+D) = A:B; in other words, so that in divvying up the goods the relative status of A and B is respected.{{r|ne|at=V.3§13}}The second part of particular justice is restorative It concerns voluntary and involuntary transactions between people and looks to remediate harm () caused to an individual. Emphasizing justice as a mean, he says that “men require a judge to be a middle term or mediumâindeed in some places judges are called mediatorsâfor they think that if they get the mean they will get what is just. Thus the just is a sort of mean, inasmuch as the judge is a medium between the litigants.” To restore both parties to this just mean, a judge must redistribute the value so that both have the mean. This rule rectifies both voluntary and involuntary transactions.{{sfn|Rackham|p=1132a}}Finally, Aristotle turns to the idea that retaliation (“an eye for an eye“) is justice, an idea he associates with the Pythagoreans.{{r|ne|at=V.5}} One problem with this approach is that it ignores different reasons for committing a crime. For example, a crime of passion or ignorance rather than from defective character, which makes a critical difference when determining the just action. Another problem is that it does not preserve the original proportions of the parties involved: “an eye for an eye” is blindly equal in its application and does not respect the status of the parties prior to the transgression. For example: “if an officer strikes a man, it is wrong for the man to strike him back; and if a man strikes an officer, it is not enough for the officer to strike him, but he ought to be punished as well”.{{r|ne|at=V.5§4}}Aristotle mentions that what is legal is not the same as what is just: “Political Justice is of two kinds, one natural, the other conventional.“{{sfn|Rackham|loc=V.7§1}} Aristotle makes a point that recalls debates from Plato’s Republic: “Some people think that all rules of justice are merely conventional, because whereas a law of nature is immutable and has the same validity everywhere, as fire burns both here and in Persia, rules of justice are seen to vary.“{{r|ne|at=V.7§2}} Aristotle insists that justice is fixed in one sense, and variable in another: “the rules of justice ordained not by nature but by man are not the same in all places, since forms of government are not the same, though in all places there is only one form of government that is natural, namely, the best form”.{{r|ne|at=V.7§3}} He claimed people can generally see which types of rules are conventional and which naturalâand he felt that most important when trying to judge whether someone was just or unjust was determining whether they did something voluntarily. Harmful acts can be categorized as:- accidental â from ignorance of the nature of the act, that cause an unforeseeable harm
- mistaken â from ignorance of the nature of the act, that cause a foreseeable injury, but that do not imply vice
- unjust â with knowledge of the nature of the act (therefore voluntary), but not premeditated (e.g., done from passion)
- viciously unjust â both voluntary and chosen
Chapter 5 - Currency
In chapter five, Aristotle gives his theory for the origin of currency as a medium of exchange. He begins from an assumption that in voluntary economic transactions, the people in the transaction begin with a certain relative proportion of goods, and end with the same relative proportion of goods. If this does not occurâif the proportion goes out of balance during the transactionâsome injustice has occurred. A problem with this is that it is difficult for people to exchange things that are actually equal such that they preserve this proportion: imagine a cobbler trying to exchange shoes for a house, for example. Clearly no house-builder is going to accept a single pair of shoes in trade or a pile of shoes (as unwieldy and impractical). Money exists, says Aristotle, so that both parties in a transaction can weigh their contributions on a common scale. But how does a cobbler, for instance, know how to value their product on this scale? Aristotle says that the key to determining this quantitative measure of value is . This has often been translated as “demand” by translators eager to suggest that Aristotle anticipated the modern supply and demand theory of price, but could also be translated as “use”, “advantage”, or “service”.BOOK, Meikle, Scott, Aristotle’s Economic Thought, 1997, Oxford University Press,Book VI: Intellectual virtues
Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics is identical to Book V of the Eudemian Ethics.If a virtue is the habit of deliberately choosing a virtuous mean, how is that mean identified? And how is that translated into actionâhow does knowledge become choice?Recognizing the mean means recognizing the correct boundary-marker () that defines the frontier of the mean. So practical ethics (having a good character) requires knowledge.Aristotle divides the soul () into a part having reason (the intellect) and parts without it (one part concerning perception or sensation, and another with appetite or desire). He has so far discussed the type of virtue or excellence () of the appetitive, non-reasonable partâthat of the character (, the virtue of which is , moral virtue). Now he intends to discuss the other type: that of thought ().Choice happens when an end desired by the appetitive part of the soul combines with a discovery of means by the intellectual part of the soul. Both parts of the soul are equal partners in this; describing it as the desire enlisting the intellect or the intellect guiding the desire is a matter of convention.{{r|ne|at=VI.1}}The part of the soul with reason is divided into two parts:- one concerning things with invariable causes
- one concerning variable things and deliberation about actions
Practical judgement ()
The closing chapters of Book VI examine (practical judgement, practical wisdom, or prudence) more closely.
concerns practical matters, and matters that can be meaningfully influenced by human effort. Syllogistic reasoning is important to this variety of reasoning: you must be able to know the truth about the universal, the particular, and the syllogistic process that enables you to draw a conclusion from such truths.{{r|ne|at=VI.7}}
has subcategories for different spheres of human life:{{r|ne|at=VI.8}}
- prudence - for practical wisdom about governing yourself
- domestic management - for practical wisdom about home economics
- legislation - for practical wisdom about politics
- deliberative and judicial government for practical wisdom about the execution of political principles
seems to require experience; it is unlike mathematics that a talented child learn. Aristotle thinks this is because expertise in mathematics requires an understanding of abstract universals, while practical wisdom requires encounters with real-life particulars. A savant can grasp a mathematical truth immediately; but may be skeptical about a truth of practical wisdom and to need to see that truth exemplified in real-life examples before adopting it.{{r|ne|at=VI.8}}
Practical wisdom also concerns intuitively-grasped particulars (somewhat resembling , which is intuition about universals). For example, recognizing a triangle without having to count the sides and add up the angles is using practical wisdom in this way.{{r|ne|at=VI.8}}People with practical wisdom deliberate well. Deliberation is a sort of inquiry into what would be a good course of action. It is not: - scientific knowledge (which is invariable/eternal and so not amenable to deliberation)
- clever guessing, just so stories, or facile wit (deliberation is more careful)
- truth (knowledge can be true or false, but deliberation is better or worse)
- correctness (having the correct opinion is a conclusion, not a deliberation)
- good reasoning toward bad ends (such as a clever but intemperate person might do)
- true conclusions arrived at through mistaken logic
- true conclusions arrived at through unnecessarily cumbersome logical tangles
- good reasoning toward ends that are good, but not all that good; not good enough to contribute to .{{r|ne|at=VI.9}}
Book VII. Impediments to virtue
This book is Book VI in Eudemian Ethics. It extends previously developed discussions, especially from the end of Book II, in relation to the vice of and the virtue of .This book shows signs of having been cobbled together from multiple fragmentary sources; it is repetitive.BOOK, J. Cook, Wilson, The Structure of the Seventh Book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Chapters IâX, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1879, The compilers looked on the reputed works of Aristotle as ‘sacred books,’ and considered themselves under obligation not to suppress any of the material which they found. ¶ Consequently they incorporated in the text several versions of the same thing, even where they differed but slightly from one another: just as a Christian might regard the various accounts of the same events in the Gospels as of equal value and entitled to preservation in their original form. ¶ The different ways in which they arranged and combined the duplicates may be accounted for by supposing that they endeavoured not to restore accurately an original order, but rather to make a context which would read with some appearance of continuity out of the actual fragments, adding and taking away as little as possible. There seem to be undoubted traces of connecting sentences written by a compiler: but the condition of the text indicates that it was a rule in some books at least to make such work a minimum; if this is so it would be caused by the same feeling as that which prompted the preservation of the duplicates., Aristotle lists three impediments to virtue:{| class=“wikitable“|+ Impediments and Their Opposites- heroic greatness (near-divine)
- virtue (habitually good, not badly tempted in the first place)
- continence (habitually capable of resisting temptation)
- endurance (able to resist temptation for sufficient reward)
- passion (sometimes overcome by anger or other very strong emotion)
- incontinence (often overcome by mere desire)
- vice (habitually bad)
- brutishness (nearly subhuman)
Self-control and hedonism
According to Aristotle, self-control and (incontinence) are not “identical with Virtue and Vice, nor yet as different in kind from them”.{{sfn|Rackham|p=1146a}} Temperance is distinct from self-control, both because self-control could be used to restrain good desires as much as bad ones, and because a temperate person would not have bad desires that need restraining.{{r|ne|at=VII.1â2}}Another way of stating the difference between lack of self control and intemperance is that intemperance is a choice and a habit of characterâââan exercise of the willâââwhile incontinence is contrary to choiceâââa failure of will. By analogy, the incontinent person is like a city that has good laws on the books but that doesn’t enforce them; the intemperate person is like a city with bad laws.{{r|ne|at=VII.10}}Aristotle reviews notions about self-control, including one he associates with Socrates.{{r|ne|at=VII.1â2}} According to Aristotle, Socrates argued that incontinent behavior must be a result of ignorance, as people only choose what they think to be good: it’s not that the unrestrained person does things that they know to be bad, disregarding their knowledge under the influence of passion, but that they are ignorant about what is good and bad. Aristotle says at first that “this view plainly contradicts the observed facts”, but comes to conclude that “the position that Socrates sought to establish actually seems to result”.{{sfn|Ross|loc=VII.2â3}}His way of accommodating Socrates relies on syllogistic reasoning. Aristotle suggests that an incontinent person has competing universal premises, for example “Ï would be unjust” and “Ï would satisfy my sensual desire.” When they then encounter a particular “α is an example of Ï” the universal premise that has a sensual payoff associated with it crowds out the one that does not when it comes time for the incontinent person to choose a course of action (“α would satisfy my sensual desire” â´ “I shall α!“). The incontinent person therefore remains in ignorance about what they should be able to know (“α would be unjust“).{{r|ne|at=VII.3}}Aristotle says that someone who lacks self-control is typically influenced either by “necessary” pleasures or pains, like those associated with food and sex, or by more supererogatory pleasures and pains like those associated with victory, honor, or wealth. Lack of self-control in the first case is simple lack of self-control, and is a sort of vice (in a similar domain to intemperance). Lack of self-control in the second case is somewhat different: pursuing good things, but in an excessive, unrestrained way.{{r|ne|at=VII.4}}Some have unusual desires or aversions after they were victimized as children or experience some sort of psychopathology or other malady.{{sfn|Rackham|loc=VII.5§3}} Aristotle says that “every sort of senselessness or cowardice or dissipation or harshness that goes to excess is either animal-like or disease-like”.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|loc=VII.5§5 (1149a)}}For Aristotle, (“incontinence“), is distinct from animal-like behavior because it is specific to humans and involves rational thinking, even though the conclusions are not put into practice. Someone who behaves in a purely animal-like way is not acting based upon conscious choice.Returning to the question of anger (), Aristotle distinguishes it from desires because he says it listens to reason, but often hears incorrectly. He contrasts this with desire, which does not listen to reason. Someone overcome by anger is conquered by flawed, crude reason, but at least by an argument; someone overcome by desire is conquered by desire alone.{{r|ne|at=VII.5}} He also says that anger is more natural and less blameworthy than desire for excessive unnecessary pleasure.{{r|ne|at=VII.5}} Acts from anger are more likely to be sudden and unpremeditated, while those motivated by desire are more likely to be plotted. Furthermore, acts of never result from anger, but always have a connection to pleasure-seeking, whereas angry people act from often-regretted pain.{{r|ne|at=VII.5}}The two ways that people lose mastery of their own actions and do not act according to their own deliberations include excitability, where a person does follows their imagination, and that of a weak person who has thought things through, but is carried away by passion.{{r|ne|at=VII.6 (1150b)}} Nevertheless, it is better to have than the vice of , in which intemperate acts are chosen for their own sake. People with such a vice do not even know they are wrong, and feel no regrets. These are less curable.{{r|ne|at=VII.6â7}}Aristotle compares self-control (resisting the temptation of the pleasant) with endurance (resisting the temptation of the unpleasant), and he describes the (wikt:nebbish|nebbish) (who wilts in the face of moderate displeasure) as a sort of counterpart to the person without self control.{{r|ne|at=VII.7}}Finally Aristotle addresses questions raised earlier:- Not everyone who stands firm has self-control. Stubborn people are more like a person without self-control, because they are partly led by the pleasure that comes from exhibiting confident decisiveness or by avoiding the pain of admitting a mistake.{{r|ne|at=VII.9}}
- Not everyone who fails to stand firm has a true lack of self-control. Aristotle gives the example of Neoptolemus (in Sophocles’ Philoctetes) who feels honor-bound both to lie to Philoctetes for the sake of Odysseus, and not to lie for the sake of remaining an honest person.{{r|ne|at=VII.9 (1151b)}}
- A person with practical judgment () cannot have . It might sometimes seem so, but only in the sense that a clever person can sometimes recite words that make them sound wise, like an actor or a drunk reciting poetry. A person lacking self-control can have knowledge, but not an active knowledge that they pay attention to.{{r|ne|at=1152a}}
Hedonism and pleasure
Aristotle discusses pleasure in two separate parts of the Nicomachean Ethics (VII.11â14 and X.1â5). Plato discussed similar themes in several dialogues, including the Republic and the Philebus and Gorgias.He begins this section by rebutting the arguments of Speusippus who opposed the idea that pleasure is a (or the) good.{| class=“wikitable“|+ Speusippus’s Arguments Against Pleasure Being GoodBooks VIII and IX: Friendship
Book II Aristotle discussed friendship. Here Sachs discusses Aristotle’s ideas about friendship (philia).{{blockquote|The treatment of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics is longer than that of any other topic, and comes just before the conclusion of the whole inquiry. Books VIII and IX are continuous, but the break makes the first book focus on friendship as a small version of the political community, in which a bond stronger than justice holds people together, while the second treats it as an expansion of the self, through which all one’s powers can approach their highest development. Friendship thus provides a bridge between the virtues of character and those of intellect.{{sfn|Sachs|2002|page=209}}}}Friendship, says Aristotle, is a virtue, or at any rate it implies virtue. And it is necessary for eudaimonia; indeed, if you had everything else but had no genuine friends, life would not be worth living.{{r|ne|at=IX.9}} It is also an important consideration in justice and politics, as friendship is what holds states together.{{r|ne|at=VIII.1 (1155a)}}Friendship exists when two people each wish for each other’s good, and are both aware of this mutual relationship.{{r|ne|at=VIII.2}} The two sorts of friendship are friends who love each other because (and to the extent that) they are useful or pleasant to each other, and friends who love each other because they are good and virtuous and wish good things for the other for the other’s sake. The first sort is inferior to the last because of the motive (friendships of utility and pleasure do not regard friends as people, but for what they can offer) and also because they are more fragile (likely to disintegrate if the utility or pleasure goes away).{{r|ne|at=VIII.3 (1155b)}}Friendships of utility are relationships formed without regard to the other person. These friendships are grouped along with family ties and of hospitality to foreigners, types of friendships Aristotle associates with older people.{{r|ne|at=VIII.3 (1156a)}} Friendships of pleasure are based on fleeting emotions and are more associated with young people. While such friends like to be together, such friendships end whenever people no longer enjoy the shared activity, or can no longer participate in it together.{{r|ne|at=VIII.3 (1156a)}}Friendships based upon what is good are the perfect form of friendship, in which both friends enjoy each other’s virtue. As long as both friends maintain a virtuous character, the relationship will endure and be pleasant, useful, and good for both parties, since the motive behind it is care for the friend. Such relationships are rare, because good people are rare, and bad people do not take pleasure in each other.{{r|ne|at=VIII.3 (1156b)}}Aristotle suggests that although the word friend is used in these different ways, it is best to say that friendships of pleasure and usefulness are only analogous to real friendships. It is sometimes possible that, at least in the case of people who are friends for pleasure, familiarity will lead to a better friendship as the friends learn to admire each other’s characters. Perfect friendship may be incidentally utilitarian (it is in fact pleasant and useful) but is not primarily so. It requires trust, and it is difficult to trust someone who is not virtuous. The lesser, utilitarian species of friendship is also worthy of attention, but it is only a shadow of the real thing.{{r|ne|at=VIII.3 (1157a)}}Genuine friendship seems to require regular in-person encounters.{{r|ne|at=VIII.4, IX.12}} Friend must be amiable and enjoy spending time together (though these are not sufficient{{r|ne|at=IX.5}}). It is possible to have many utilitarian friendships, but only a few true friends.{{r|ne|at=VIII.5, IX.10}}Friendships between people of differing status can present difficulties. People in authority sometimes have friends quick-witted of the pleasurable, and obedient friends of the useful sort, but the quick-witted ones may not be obedient, and obedient ones tend not to be quick-witted, rarely are the two united. Good, virtuous people tend not to make friends with people above their station (except with rare examples who are also exceptionally good and virtuous).{{r|ne|at=VIII.6}}However, a sort of friendship between unequals is possible: such as friendship between a father and son. Rulers can have a friendly regard for their subjects. In such cases, friendship is a sort of respect that should be apportioned, like justice, according to the relative status of the parties: a son should respect the father more than the father respects the son; subjects should love their king more than the king loves any subject; etc. This is another way such friendship differs from genuine friendship, in which love and respect is equal, regardless of status, and in which loving rather than being-loved is valued. This makes it difficult for differently-situated people to become genuine friends, or for a genuine friendship to survive a rebalancing in status between the friends.{{r|ne|at=VIII.7,13}}In friendships between unequals, the superior person thinks their status should qualify them for a superior share of its benefits; the inferior person thinks that they should be able to expect more benefits as they have less to give. Aristotle thinks one way to resolve this is to allow the inferior person receives a larger share of actual goods and assistance, while the superior person gains the larger share of honor from such beneficence, so they both benefit. This is true of the polis in general: some people contribute little and take much, other people contribute much and take little, but are repaid in honor. This is how mortals behave towards gods, and children towards parents.{{r|ne|at=VIII.14}} The relationship between benefactors and those they benefit also has a paradoxical friendship dynamic; the giver may enjoy the gift-giving more than the recipient enjoys the gift, and the giver may be more fond of the recipient than vice-versa.{{r|ne|at=IX.7}}Friendship is a form of love, best exhibited in the giving rather than in the receiving.{{r|ne|at=VIII.8}}Associations and friendships bind the together.{{r|ne|at=VIII.9 (1160a)}} Different relationships can be compared to the different types of constitution, according to the classification system Aristotle explains in his Politics (Monarchy, Tyranny, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Timocracy, and Democracy).{{r|ne|at=1161a}} The difference between the good and bad types has to do with how virtuous, or self-serving, are those in power. A monarch cares for his kingdom and subjects; a tyrant, for himself. An aristocracy looks out for the good of the polis; an oligarchy tries to accrue more power and wealth for itself. A timocracy has the good of everyone in mind; a democracy tries to rob the minority to feed the majority.{{r|ne|at=VIII.10, IX.6}} Similarly, a good friendship between a man and his wife in a patriarchy is like the friendship between an aristocracy and the commoners; a good friendship between brothers is like the friendship between timocrats.{{r|ne|at=VIII.11}}The friendship between relatives is closer than that of fellow-citizens. And the closeness of such friendship is related to the closeness of kinship, as well as to their closeness-in-age, and the extent to which they have been brought up together. The friendship of parents and children is a special sort, akin to the relationship between the gods and mortals. The friendship between husband and wife is natural and fundamentalâââeven more so than that of the tendency of people to come together in communities. Marriages may be utilitarian friendships or genuine ones.{{r|ne|at=VIII.12}}Genuine friends don’t have reason to complain about the justice of their friendship, because if they love more than they are loved, an imbalance is OK. In utilitarian friendships complaints over whether one of friend is contributing to the friendship, and each friend is eager to give less and get more.{{r|ne|at=VIII.13}} These sorts of conflicts are not best handled by a model of objective justice, but, in such cases, the value of favors received (and therefore how much return is due) ought generally to be determined by the recipient.{{r|ne|at=IX.1}}If obligations to friends conflict with each other, or with other obligations, no rules describe how to resolve them, but heuristics may help: repay debts, prefer kin to non-kin, prefer friends to others, respect elders, etc. A right answer, might be available, but no universal formula applies.{{r|ne|at=IX.2}}Utilitarian friendships are expected to last only as long as the utility. Genuine friendships can also end, for instance if one of the parties stops considering it a genuine friendship, or if one of friend descends into vice, or ascends beyond the other in virtue.{{r|ne|at=IX.3}}A virtuous person seeks friendships that resemble the relationship he has with himself. A virtuous person has integrity, and wishes what is actually good for himself, for his own sake. In this way he is like a genuine friend to himself, for a friend wishes for a friend what is good for the friend. Vicious people, on the other hand, are in conflict even with themselves (their appetites conflict with their reason, and so forth), and so they lack a foundation on which to build genuine friendships.{{r|ne|at=IX.4}}Enlightened self-regard is an important prerequisite for loving others. But the sort of self-love practiced by the intemperate is worse than useless. For this reason a good person ought to be encouraged in self-love, while a wicked person ought to be discouraged in it, since he does not know how to do so properly.{{r|ne|at=IX.8}}In times of bad fortune, it is good to have helpful friends; in times of good fortune, it is even better to be a helpful friend. Friends should not hesitate to aid each other, even unasked, but should avoid becoming the objects of a friends’ kindness.{{r|ne|at=IX.11}}Book X: Pleasure, happiness, and upbringing
Aristotle discusses pleasure throughout the Ethics, but gives it a more focused and theoretical treatment in Book X. He starts by questioning the rule advanced in the more approximate early sections, by which people think pleasure should be avoidedâif not because it is simply bad because people tend too much towards pleasure-seeking. He argues that people’s actions show this to not be what they really believe, but is a “noble lie” taught for its supposed salutary effects.{{r|ne|at=X.1}}He reviews arguments of previous philosophers, including Eudoxus (who considered pleasure to be the good)Since no works of Eudoxus have survived, we have to take Aristotle’s word for this. and Plato and Speusippos (who did not), to advance his own middle-way argument: pleasure is a good pursued for its own sake even if it is not The Good in a Platonic or ultimate sense.{{r|ne|at=X.2â3}}Even if pleasure and pain are entirely orthogonal to virtue and vice, because these sensations are powerful motivators, particularly in the young. it is important for the ethicist to consider them.{{r|ne|at=X.1}}To define what pleasure is, Aristotle applies his theory of motion () as an (as explained in his Physics and Metaphysics). In this approach, pleasure is not a movement or because unlike the movement of walking across a room, or building a house, it has no completion endpoint. It is more like seeing, which is either happening in a complete way or not happening. “Each moment of pleasurable consciousness is a perfect whole.“{{sfn|Rackham|loc=X.4 (1174b)}}A sense perception like sight is in perfect activity () when it is in its best conditions and directed at the best objects. Any sense in such perfect activity produces pleasure; similarly thinking () and contemplation () have their associated pleasures. But seeing, for example, is a whole, as is the associated pleasure. Pleasure completes the seeing or thinking, in a way, but as an additional supervening activity that crowns it, rather than as something necessary to it.{{r|ne|at=X.4}}Why doesn’t pleasure last? Why does it fade as if from fatigue? Aristotle proposes that this is because pleasure accompanies activity and no activity can be continued indefinitely without fatigue, and because sensation requires some novelty and any pleasurable stimulus loses its appeal when repeated too often. Life is an activity () made up of many activities such as music, thinking, and contemplation, and pleasure brings supervening completion to each of these, leading to fulfillment and a life worth living. Aristotle says the question of whether life is for pleasure or pleasure is for the sake of living, for the two activities seem irreversibly intertwined.{{r|ne|at=X.4 (1175a10â20)}}Different activitiesâsense perceptions, thinking, contemplatingâbring different kinds of pleasure, and these pleasures intensify the activities. Thus “for each activity has its own proper pleasure.“{{r|ne|at=X.5 §6}} For example a flute player gets better at playing while getting more pleasure from it. But these pleasures and their associated activities may impede each other, just as a flute player cannot participate in an argument while playing. This raises the question of which pleasures are to be pursued. Some pleasures are more beautiful and some are more base or corrupt. The pleasure a virtuous person feels from practicing virtue is a good pleasure; the pleasure a vicious person feels from practicing vice, less so (such “pleasures” hardly deserve the name).{{r|ne|at=X.5}}Aristotle argues that each type of animal has pleasures appropriate to it, and in the same way people differ in the pleasures most suitable to them. Aristotle proposes that the person of serious moral stature is the appropriate standard.{{r|ne|at=X.5 (1176a)}}Happiness
Finally, Aristotle returns to , the aim of the whole Ethics. According to the Book I definition it is an activity, good in and of itself, and chosen for its own sake (not instrumentally). Aristotle argued that virtues fit this definition, but perhaps recreational activity also fits the bill (a tennis game, for example, may be played for its own sake).Aristotle thinks that this trivializes . Anybody can enjoy recreation, even a slave, and no one would want to be a slave. He believes recreation is not an end in itself, but a way of relaxing in preparation for (or to recover from) more noble activity: in other words it is instrumental.{{r|ne|at=X.6}}Aristotle says that if perfect is activity in accordance with the highest virtue, then this highest virtue must be the virtue of the highest part of the soul. He says this must be the intellect () “or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine”. This highest activity, Aristotle says, must be philosophical contemplation (). This is also the most sustainable, pleasant, self-sufficient activity; and it is chosen for its own sake. To achieve it means to live in accordance with something immortal and divine which is within humans, and, “so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us”.{{sfn|Ross|loc=X.7}} According to Aristotle, contemplation is the only type of happy activity in which the gods might be imagined to engage in. The intellect is the true self, and this type of happiness is the happiness most suited to humans, in that only humans possess both happiness () and the intellect (). Aristotle also claims that compared to other virtues, contemplation requires the least in terms of possessions and allows the most self-reliance, “though it is true that, being a man and living in the society of others, he chooses to engage in virtuous action, and so will need external goods to carry on his life as a human being”.{{sfn|Rackham|loc=X.7â8.}}What distinguishes humans from other animals is that we reason. This is a hint to our purpose. And that in turn tells us how to fulfill our . “That which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest.“{{sfn|Ross|loc=X.7}} Indeed, itself is something peculiar to human beings, and this is fundamental:Happiness extends... just so far as contemplation does, and those to whom contemplation more fully belongs are more truly happy, not as a mere concomitant but in virtue of the contemplation; for this is in itself precious. Happiness, therefore, must be some form of contemplation.{{sfn|Ross|loc=X.8}}The need for education, habituation, and good laws
File:Young Spartans National Gallery NG3860.jpg|alt=A painting of semi-nude youth playing and stretching in a field|right|thumb|Young Spartans Exercising by Edgar Degas (1834â1917). Aristotle approved of how SpartaSpartaAristotle reiterates that the Ethics has not reached its aim if it has no effect in practice. The point is not just to learn how to live, but to actually live that way. Theories are not enough.The practice of virtue requires good education and habituation from an early age. Young people otherwise do not get to experience the highest forms of pleasure and are distracted by the easiest ones. While parents often attempt this sort of education, it is critical that the community enact good laws.Concerning this need for good laws and education, Aristotle says he seeks to address an eternal problem: unlike in medical science, theoreticians of happiness and teachers of virtue such as sophists never have practical experience themselves, while good parents and lawmakers have never developed a scientific approach to analyzing what the best laws are. Furthermore, few lawmakers, perhaps only the Spartans, made education a focus of law-making, as they should. Education needs to be more like medicine, with both practice and theory, and this requires a new approach to studying politics. Such study should, he says, help even in communities where the laws are not good and the parents need to try to create the right habits in young people without help from lawmakers.Aristotle closes the Nicomachean Ethics therefore by highlighting his sequel, Politics.{{r|ne|at=X.9}} (However, Politics as we have it today is significantly different from the promised discussion of politics Aristotle alludes to there.){{sfn|Burnet|ps=xxviâxxvii}}Influence and derivative works
The Eudemian Ethics is sometimes considered to be a later commentary or paraphrase of the Nicomachean Ethics.{{sfn|Burnet|p=xiv}} The Magna Moralia is usually also interpreted as a post-Aristotle synthesis of Aristotelian Ethics including the Nicomachean and Eudemian, although it is sometimes also attributed to Aristotle.Though there is disagreement. Gillies (1813) suggests that both MM and EE “are chiefly to be considered as the first imperfect sketch of [NE]” (page vi, footnote c). And Friedrich Schleiermacher believed that MM was the Aristotelian original, with NE and EE derived from it.Parts of a {{CE|2nd-century}} commentary about the Nicomachean Ethics by Aspasius exist. This is the earliest extant commentary on any of Aristotle’s works, and is notable because Aspasius was a paripatetic, that is, of the Aristotelian scholastic tradition.{{sfn|Burnet|p=xix}}Aristotelian ethics was superseded by epicureanism and stoicism in Greek philosophy. In the West it did not regain interest until the 12th century, when the Nicomachean Ethics (and Averroes’s 12th-century commentary on it) was rediscovered.{{sfn|Grant|p=371â390}} Thomas Aquinas called Aristotle “The Philosopher”, and published a separate commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics as well as incorporating (or responding to) many of its arguments in his Summa Theologica.Domenico da Piacenza relied on Aristotle’s description of the pleasures of motion in Book X as an authority in his 15th-century treatise on dance principles (one of the earliest written documents on the formal principles of dance that eventually become classical ballet). Da Piacenza, who taught that the ideal smoothness of dance movement could only be attained by a balance of qualities, relied on Aristotelian philosophical concepts of movement, measure, and memory to extol dance on moral grounds, as a virtue.JOURNAL, Sparti, Barbara, Antiquity as inspiration in the renaissance of dance: The classical connection and fifteenth-century Italian dance, Dance Chronicle, 1993, 16, 3, 373â390, 10.1080/01472529308569139, In G. E. M. Anscombe’s 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy”, she noted that ethical philosophy had diverged so much since Aristotle that people who use modern ethical notions when discussing Aristotle’s ethics “constantly feel like someone whose jaws have somehow got out of alignment: the teeth don’t come together in a proper bite”. Modern philosophy had, she believed, discarded Aristotle’s human (and in its skepticism toward divine law as an adequate substitute), and lost a way of making the study of ethics meaningful. As a result, modern moral philosophy was floundering, unable to recall how its intuitions of good and bad could possibly be grounded in facts. She suggested that it might be possible to backtrack and recover an Aristotelian ethics, but that to do this would require updating some of Aristotle’s metaphysical and psychological assumptions that are no longer plausible: “philosophically there is a huge gap, at present unfillable as far as we are concerned, which needs to be filled by an account of human nature, human action, the type of characteristic a virtue is, and above all of human ‘flourishing.’“JOURNAL, Modern Moral Philosophy, Modern Moral Philosophy, G.E.M., Anscombe, G. E. M. Anscombe, Philosophy, 33, 124, January 1958, 1â19, 10.1017/S0031819100037943, 197875941, free, The modern virtue ethics revival has taken up this challenge. Notably, Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue (1981) explicitly defended an Aristotelian ethics against modern ethical theories. He claimed that Nietzsche had shown the varieties of modern moral philosophy to be hollow and had effectively refuted them. But he says Nietzsche’s refutations do not apply to “the quite distinctive kind of morality” found in Aristotelian ethics. So to recover ethics, “the Aristotelian tradition can be restated in a way that restores intelligibility and rationality to our moral and social attitudes and commitments”.BOOK, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2007, 3rd, Alasdair, MacIntyre, Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 9780268035044, 257, 259,Editions
Greek text
- BOOK, Brewer, John S., John Sherren Brewer, Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, with English Notes, Oxford, Henry Slatter, 1836,archive.org/embed/nicomacheaneth00aris, CITEREFBrewer,
- BOOK, Burnet, John, John Burnet (classicist), Aristotle, The Ethics of Aristotle, London, Methuen & Co., 1900,archive.org/embed/, CITEREFBurnet,
- BOOK, Bywater, Ingram, Ingram Bywater, Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, Oxford University Press, 1962, 1890,archive.org/embed/aristotelis00aristuoft, CITEREFBywater,
- BOOK, Grant, Alexander, Sir Alexander Grant, 10th Baronet, Aristotle, The Ethics of Aristotle, Illustrated with Essays and Notes, Longmans, Green & Co., 1885, 4th, CITEREFGrant, (in two volumes: 1 and 2)
- BOOK, Hawkins, E.L., Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Oxford, James Thornton, 1881, {{google books, y, gHYCAAAAQAAJ, 9, |ref=CITEREFHawkins}} (Books IâIV and part of X)
- BOOK, Lancaster, Thomas William, Thomas William Lancaster, Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Oxford, J. Vincent, 1884,archive.org/embed/nicomacheanethic00arisrich, CITEREFLancaster,
- BOOK, Paley, F.A., Frederick Apthorp Paley, Aristotle, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Books V & X, Cambridge, J. Hall & Son, 1872,archive.org/embed/nicomacheanethi02arisgoog, CITEREFPaley, (Greek text and English translation in parallel)
Translations
- BOOK, CITEREFApostle, Apostle, Hippocrates G., Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1984, 1975, Grinnell, Iowa, Peripatetic Press, 0911589031,archive.org/embed/aristotlesnicoma0000aris_g0g1, (With commentaries and glossary)
- BOOK, CITEREFBartlett, Bartlett, Robert C., Collins, Susan D., Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 2011, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 978-0-226-02674-9,archive.org/embed/aristotlesnicoma0000aris, (Translation, with interpretive essay, notes, glossary)
- BOOK, CITEREFBeresford, Beresford, Adam, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 2020, Penguin Classics, 978-0-141-39524-1, (Translation, with introduction and notes.)
- BOOK, CITEREFBroadie, Broadie, Sarah, Sarah Broadie, Rowe, Christopher, Christopher Rowe (classicist), Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 2002, Oxford University Press, Oxford,archive.org/embed/aristotle-nicomachean-ethics-sarah-broadie-cristopher-rowe,
- BOOK, CITEREFBrowne, Browne, R.W., Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1850,archive.org/embed/nicomacheanethi12arisgoog,
- BOOK, CITEREFChase, Chase, Drummond P., Drummond Percy Chase, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Aristotle, 1915, 1847, Everyman’s Library, London,archive.org/embed/nicomacheanethic00arisuoft,
- BOOK, CITEREFCrisp, Crisp, Roger, Roger Crisp, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 2014, 2000, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-107-03960-5,archive.org/embed/nicomacheanethic0000aris_a7a1,
- BOOK, CITEREFGillies, Gillies, John, Aristotle, Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Comprising his Practical Philosophy, London, Cadell & Davies, 1797, 1,archive.org/embed/dli.ministry.00350,
- BOOK, CITEREFHatch, Hatch, Walter M., Aristotle, The Moral Philosophy of Aristotle, London, John Murray, 1879,archive.org/embed/cu31924028995921,
- BOOK, CITEREFIrwin, Irwin, Terence, Terence Irwin, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1999, Hackett Publishing Company, 0-87220-464-2, registration,archive.org/details/isbn_9780872204645,
- BOOK, CITEREFPeters, Peters, F.H., Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, Standard Ebooks,standardebooks.org/ebooks/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/f-h-peters, 1906,
- BOOK, CITEREFRackham, The Nicomachean Ethics with an English Translation, Aristotle, Rackham, H., New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1934, 1926, Loeb Classical Library 73,archive.org/embed/nicomacheanethic0000aris_z0j5, 0674990811,
- BOOK, CITEREFReeve, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, Reeve, C. D. C., C. D. C. Reeve, 2014, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., Indianapolis, 978-1-62466-118-1, (Translation, with Introduction and Notes.)
- BOOK, CITEREFRoss, The Nicomachean Ethics: Translated with an Introduction, Aristotle, Ross, David, W. D. Ross, 1925, Oxford University Press, Oxford,archive.org/embed/in.ernet.dli.2015.264227,
- BOOK, CITEREFSachs2002, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: Translation, Glossary and Introductory Essay, Sachs, Joe, 2002, Focus Publishing, 1-58510-035-8,
- BOOK, CITEREFThomson, Aristotle, The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, Thomson, J. A. K., 1955, Penguin Classics, Re-issued 1976, revised by Hugh Tredennick.
- BOOK, CITEREFVincent, Vincent, J., Aristotle, A New Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Oxford, J. & C. Vincent, 1835, 3rd, {{google books, y, FCVMAAAAYAAJ, }}
- BOOK, CITEREFWelldon, Welldon, J.E.C., James Welldon, Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Translated with an Analysis and Critical Notes, London, MacMillan & Co., 1927, 1892,archive.org/embed/in.ernet.dli.2015.74392,
- BOOK, CITEREFWilliams, Williams, Robert, Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1869, 1879, 3rd,archive.org/embed/thenicomacheanet00arisuoft,
See also
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}- Aristotelian ethics
- Corpus Aristotelicum
- Economics (Oeconomica)
- Potentiality and actuality
- Ethics
- Eudaimonia
- Eudemian Ethics (Ethica Eudemia)
- Hexis
- Intellectual virtue
- Lesbian rule
- Magna Moralia (Great Ethics)
- Moral character
- Nous
- On Virtues and Vices (De Virtutibus et Vitiis Libellus)
- Phronesis
- Politics
- Protrepticus
- Summum bonum
- Virtue
- Virtue ethics
Footnotes
{{Reflist}}Further reading
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Ethics, Bostock, David, David Bostock (philosopher), 2000, Oxford University Press, New York,archive.org/embed/aristotlesethics0000bost, 0198752652,
- BOOK, Ethics with Aristotle, Broadie, Sarah, Sarah Broadie, 1991, Oxford University Press, New York,archive.org/embed/ethics-with-aristotle-sarah-broadie, 0195066014,
- BOOK, Burger, Ronna, Ronna Burger, Aristotle’s Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics, University of Chicago Press, 2008,archive.org/embed/aristotles-dialogue-with-socrates-on-the-nicomachean-ethics, 9780226080505,
- BOOK, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle, Cooper, John M., John M. Cooper (philosopher), 1975, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory, Hardie, W. F. R. Hardie, W.F.R., 1968, Oxford University Press, Oxford,archive.org/embed/aristotlesethica0000hard,
- BOOK, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics, Hughes, Gerald J., 2001, Routledge, London,archive.org/embed/routledgephiloso0000hugh, 0415221870,
- BOOK, ΠεÏὶ ÎικαιοÏÏνηÏ: The Fifth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Jackson, Henry, Henry Jackson (classicist), Cambridge University Press, 1879,archive.org/embed/thefifthbookofth00arisuoft,
- BOOK, Notes to Aristotle’s Ethics, Jelf, William Edward, William Edward Jelf, Oxford, John Henry & James Parker, 1856,archive.org/embed/notestoaristotle00jelf,
- BOOK, Aristotle on the Human Good, Kraut, Richard, Richard Kraut, 1989, Princeton University Press, Princeton,archive.org/embed/aristotle-on-the-human-good-kraut, 069107349X,
- BOOK, The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Kraut, Richard, 2006, Blackwell, Oxford,archive.org/embed/the-blackwell-guide-to-aristotles-nicomachean-ethics, 9781405120203,
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Ethics Moral Development and Human Nature, May, Hope, 2010, Continuum, London,
- BOOK, An Introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics, Moore, Edward, Edward Moore (scholar), London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1871, 1897, 6th,archive.org/embed/introductiontoar00arisrich,
- BOOK, Chapters from Aristotle’s Ethics, Muirhead, J.H., J. H. Muirhead, John Murray, 1900,archive.org/embed/chaptersfromaris0000muir,
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction, Pakaluk, Michael, 2005, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
- BOOK, Pangle, Lorraine, Lorraine Smith Pangle, 2003, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship, Cambridge University Press, New York,
- BOOK, Practices of Reason: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Reeve, C.D.C., C. D. C. Reeve, 1992, Oxford University Press, New York,
- BOOK, Rickaby, Joseph, Joseph Rickaby, The Aristotelian Division of Justice, Political and Moral Essays, 1902, Benziger Brothers, 285â286,
- BOOK, Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg, Amélie Rorty, 1980, University of California Press, Berkeley, 9780520037731,archive.org/embed/essaysonaristotl00ethi,
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Ethics: Critical Essays, Sherman, Nancy, Nancy Sherman, 1999, Rowman & Littlefield, New York,archive.org/embed/aristotles-ethics-critical-essays-sherman, 0847689158,
- BOOK, Chief Ancient Philosophies: The Ethics of Aristotle, Smith, I. Gregory, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1886, 1889, 3rd,archive.org/embed/aristotelianism00smit,
- BOOK, Stewart, J.A., John Alexander Stewart (philosopher), Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892, (in two volumes: 1 and 2)
- BOOK, Stock, St. George, Lectures in the Lyceum, or: Aristotle’s Ethics for English Readers, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1897,archive.org/embed/lecturesinlyceu00arisgoog,
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Ethics, Urmson, J.O., J. O. Urmson, 1988, Blackwell, New York,archive.org/embed/aristotlesethics0000urms, 0631156739,
- BOOK, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: Reader’s Guide, Warne, Christopher, 2007, Continuum, London,
- BOOK, Wilson, J. Cook, John Cook Wilson, Aristotelian Studies I: On the Structure of the Seventh Book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Chapters IâX, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1879,archive.org/embed/aristotelianstud00wilsrich,
External links
{{commons category}}{{Wikisource|Nicomachean Ethics|Nicomachean Ethics}}- {{StandardEbooks|url=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/f-h-peters|name=Nicomachean Ethics, translated by F. H. Peters|noitalics=true}}
- H. Rackham translation plus Greek version (The Perseus Project)
- WEB,www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/ethics/, Nicomachean Ethics Study Guide, sparknotes,
- {{librivox book | title=Nicomachean Ethics | author=ARISTOTLE}}
- PDFs of several (now) public domain translations and commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics
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