The Nicomachean Ethics

The work consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and is understood to be based on notes said to be from his lectures at the Lyceum which were either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus. In many ways this work parallels the similar Eudemian Ethics, which has only eight books, and the two works can be fruitfully compared. 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, for example which was written first, and which originally contained the three common books, is divided. Aristotle describes his ethical work as being different from his other kinds of study, because it is not just for the sake of contemplating what things are, but rather to actually become good ourselves. It is therefore practical rather than theoretical in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms.

By : Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor (1758 - 1835)

01 - Book I 02 - Book II 03 - Book III 04 - Book IV 05 - Book V 06 - Book VI 07 - Book VII 08 - Book VIII 09 - Book IX 10 - Book X

The first philosopher to write ethical treatises, Aristotle argues that the correct approach for studying such controversial subjects as Ethics or Politics, which involve discussing what is beautiful or just, is to start with what would be roughly agreed to be true by people of good up-bringing and experience in life, and to work from there to a higher understanding.

Taking this approach, Aristotle begins by saying that the highest good for humans, the highest aim of all human practical thinking, is eudaimonia, a Greek word often translated as well-being or happiness. Aristotle in turn argues that happiness is properly understood as an ongoing and stable dynamic, a way of being in action (energeia), specifically appropriate to the human "soul" (psuchē), at its most "excellent" or virtuous (virtue translates aretē in Greek). If there are several virtues then the best and most complete or perfect of them will be the happiest one. An excellent human will be a person good at living life, who does it well and beautifully (kalos). Aristotle says that such a person would also be a serious (spoudaios) human being, in the same sense of "serious" that one contrasts serious harpists with other harpists. He also asserts as part of this starting point that virtue for a human must involve reason in thought and speech (logos), as this is an aspect (an ergon, literally meaning a task or work) of human living.

From this starting point, Aristotle goes into discussion of what ethics, a term Aristotle helped develop, means. Aristotelian Ethics is about what makes a virtuous character (ethikē aretē) possible, which is in turn necessary if happiness is to be possible. He describes a sequence of necessary steps to achieve this: First, righteous actions, often done under the influence of teachers, allow the development of the right habits. These in turn can allow the development of a good stable character in which the habits are voluntary, and this in turn gives a chance of achieving eudaimonia. Character here translates ēthos in Greek, related to modern words such as ethics, ethical and ethos. Aristotle does not however equate character with habit (ethos in Greek, with a short "e") because real character involves conscious choice, unlike habit. Instead of being habit, character is a hexis like health or knowledge, meaning it is a stable disposition that must be pursued and maintained with some effort. However, good habits are described as a precondition for good character.

Aristotle then turns to examples, reviewing some of the specific ways that people are thought worthy of blame or praise. As he proceeds, he describes how the highest types of praise, so the highest types of virtue, imply having all the virtues of character at once, and these in turn imply not just good character, but a kind of wisdom. The four virtues that he says require the possession of all the ethical virtues together are:

Being of "great soul" (magnanimity), the virtue where someone would be truly deserving of the highest praise and have a correct attitude towards the honor this may involve. This is the first case mentioned, and it is mentioned within the initial discussion of practical examples of virtues and vices at 1123b Book IV.

The type of justice or fairness of a good ruler in a good community is then given a similar description, during the special discussion of the virtue (or virtues) of justice at 1129b in Book V.

Phronesis or practical judgment as shown by good leaders is the next to be mentioned in this way at 1144b in Book VI.

The virtue of being a truly good friend is the final example at 1157a in Book VIII.

(In the Eudemian Ethics (Book VIII, chapter 3) Aristotle also uses the word "kalokagathia", the nobility of a gentleman (kalokagathos), to describe this same concept of a virtue containing all the moral virtues.)

This style of building up a picture wherein it becomes clear that praiseworthy virtues in their highest form, even virtues like courage, seem to require intellectual virtue, is a theme of discussion Aristotle chooses to associate in the Nicomachean Ethics with Socrates, and indeed it is an approach we find portrayed in the Socratic dialogues of Plato. Aristotle also does this himself, and though he professes to work differently from Plato by trying to start with what well-brought up men would agree with, by book VII Aristotle eventually comes to argue that the highest of all human virtues is itself not practical, being contemplative wisdom (theōria 1177a). But achieving this supreme condition is inseparable from achieving all the virtues of character, or "moral virtues".

The way Aristotle sketches the highest good for man as involving both a practical and theoretical side, with the two sides necessary for each other, is also in the tradition of Socrates and Plato—as opposed to pre-Socratic philosophy. As Burger (2008) points out (p. 212):- "The Ethics does not end at its apparent peak, identifying perfect happiness with the life devoted to theōria; instead it goes on to introduce the need for a study of legislation, on the grounds that it is not sufficient only to know about virtue, but one should try to put that knowledge to use." At the end of the book, according to Burger, the thoughtful reader is led to understand that "the end we are seeking is what we have been doing" while engaging with the Ethics. (p. 215)