Nicomachean Ethics
[1]: II.2 (1103b) 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.
[2] 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 example, "NE II.2, 1103b1" means "Nicomachean Ethics, book II, chapter 2, Bekker page 1103, column b, line number 1".
The Kingdom of Pergamon conscripted books for a royal library, leading the heirs of Neleus hid their collection in a cellar to prevent its seizure.
It suggests "that the text [at that time] was very like what it is now, with little or no difference, for instance, of order or arrangement, and with readings identical for the most part with those preserved in one or other of our best [extant manuscripts]."
[20] Taking this approach, Aristotle proposes that the highest good for humans is eudaimonia, a Greek word often translated as "flourishing" or sometimes "happiness".
Aristotle argues that eudaimonia is a way of taking action (energeia)[21] that is appropriate to the human "soul" (psuchē) at its most "excellent" or virtuous (aretē).
Aristotelian Ethics is about how specific beneficial habits (virtues) enable a person to achieve eudaimonia and how to develop a virtuous character (ethikē aretē).
As Ronna Burger points out: "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.
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".
[29] The opening passage asserts that all technical arts, all investigations (every methodos, including the Ethics itself), indeed all deliberate actions and choices, aim at some good apart from themselves.
[31] Aristotle states that while most would agree to call the highest aim of humanity eudaimonia, and also to equate this with both living well and doing things well, disagreement about what this is persists between the majority (hoi polloi) and "the wise".
First, he considers a Socratic question (found for example in Plato's Meno) of whether eudaimonia might be a result of learning or habit or training, or perhaps divine grace or random chance.
Virtue, through which people "become apt at performing beautiful actions" is praiseworthy, while eudaimonia 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".
[43][1]: II.7 (1107a–1108b) Aristotle also mentions some "ways of observing the mean" that involve feelings or emotions: a sense of shame, for example, is sometimes praised, or said to be in excess or deficiency.
"[1]: III.5 (1113b–1115a) Aristotle then considers some specific character virtues, starting with two that concern "the irrational parts of the soul" (fear and desire): courage and temperance.
In contrast, the glory hound craves accolades even from dubious sources and whether or not they are deserved, while the improperly unambitious man does not desire appropriately to be honored for noble reasons.
)[1]: 1127a–1127b Aristotle said that no convenient Greek word names the virtuous and honest mean, describing someone who claims his good qualities without exaggeration or understatement.
It represents the discussion on justice (dikaiosunē) foreseen in earlier books, which covers some of the same material as Plato's Republic, though in a strikingly different way.
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.
[1]: V.3§13 The second part of particular justice is restorative; it concerns voluntary and involuntary transactions between people and looks to remediate harm (βέβλαπται) caused to an individual.
Although Aristotle describes sophia as the more serious (it is concerned with higher things), he mentions the earlier philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thales, as examples proving that one can be wise, having both knowledge and intellect, and yet lack practical judgement.
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".
[82] For Aristotle, akrasia ("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.
According to Aristotle's way of analyzing causation, a good or bad thing can either be an activity (energeia) or a stable disposition (hexis).
[1]: 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.
[94] 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.
Modern philosophy had, she believed, discarded Aristotle's human telos (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.
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".
