Aristotle was born (384 bce) in Stagira in the Chalcidicean peninsula of Macedon – now northern Greece – but his philosophical career is firmly associated with Athens. Arriving there when he was 18, he was a distinguished pupil of Plato’s at the Academy for nearly 20 years, until the latter’s death. On being passed over for the position of head of the Academy, Aristotle left Athens and was eventually summoned to the court of Philip II of Macedon to serve as tutor to his son, the 13-year-old Alexander. When the latter embarked on the military campaigns that, as it were, transformed him into the young Alexander the Great, Aristotle returned to Athens (in 335 bce) and founded his own institution, the Lyceum. Alexander was not popular in Athens, and when news of his death in 323 bce reached that city, Aristotle thought it prudent to leave, reputedly insisting that in doing so he would avoid Socrates’ fate, and therefore prevent Athens from ‘sinning twice against philosophy’. He himself died the following year.
Further details about his life are matters of speculation. Much has been written both about what some regard as the strained relationship between Plato and Aristotle, and about the extent of Aristotle’s influence on Alexander the Great. The one thing we can be sure of is that, together with Plato, Aristotle transformed the Greek philosophical scene and, as a result, the whole of philosophy up to the present. His work covered what today would be regarded as natural and social science as well as the more conventional philosophical topics of logic, metaphysics, ethics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of art. Very unfortunately, we seem to have only about a fifth of the writings he was known to have produced, and much of what we do have seems to be notes for lectures given in the Lyceum, perhaps even lecture notes taken by students.
The main text for this course is the work known as the Nicomachean Ethics, a treatise probably dedicated to his son Nicomachus (who was named after Aristotle’s father). There is another Aristotelian book on ethics – the Eudemian Ethics – which overlaps with the Nicomachean Ethics. However, the latter is thought to be more definitive of Aristotle’s thinking on morality and is the usual point of reference for scholarly interpretation. (Note that references below to the Ethics are always to the Nicomachean Ethics.) Though it is not very long, and I recommend that you read it in its entirety, I indicate below the parts of this work that should be studied most carefully.
Primary text
Nicomachean Ethics Books I, II–VI, VII (Chapters 1–3) and Book X (Chapters 6–9).
There are many translations of this work which are widely available and will serve for this course. One such version on the internet is the translation by W.D. Ross, which is the translation used for the various quotes in the text below (see http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html)
Note: References to Aristotle’s text follow the pagination of the Berlin edition of Bekker, as is now universal in Aristotelian scholarship. Thus, the reference to the opening sentence of the Ethics is 1094a1–3. This means: page 1094 of the Bekker edition, column a (the Bekker edition has columns a and b on each page), lines 1 to 3.
There are also translations with commentaries that can be helpful. One such is:
Rowe, Christopher Nicomachean Ethics. With philosophical introduction and commentary by Sarah Broadie. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) [ISBN 0198752717].
Recommended essential reading
Barnes, Jonathan ‘Aristotle and the methods of ethics’, Revue Internationale de la Philosophie, 34, 1981, pp.490–511.
Broadie, Sarah Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)
[ISBN 0195085604].
Charles, David ‘Aristotle’s Weak Akrates: What does her Ignorance Consist in?’ in Bobonich, Christopher and Pierre Destree (eds) Akrasia in Greek Philosophy. (Leiden: Brill, 2007) [ISBN 9789004156708] pp.193–214.
Charles, David ‘Aristotle on Well-Being and Intellectual Contemplation’, Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, 73, 1999, pp.205–23.
* Cooper, John Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1986)
[ISBN 0872200221] Chapter 1.
* Korsgaard, Christine ‘Aristotle on Function and Virtue’, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 3(3), 1986, pp.259–79. (Also reprinted in her The Constitution of Agency. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) [ISBN 9780199552740].
Kraut, Richard ‘Aristotle’s Ethics’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/aristotle-ethics/
Kraut, Richard (ed.) The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. (Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) [ISBN 1405120215].
Lawrence, Gavin ‘The Function of the Function Argument’, Ancient Philosophy, 21, 2001, pp.445–75.
* McDowell, John ‘Eudaimonism and Realism in Aristotle’s Ethics’ in The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009)
[ISBN 9780674031647] pp.23–40.
Pakaluk, Michael Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) [ISBN 9780521520683].
* Williams, Bernard Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) [ISBN 000686001X] Chapter 3.
Whiting, Jennifer ‘Aristotle’s Function Argument: A Defense’, Ancient Philosophy, 8, 1988, pp.33–48.
Further reading
Barnes, Jonathan, Malcolm Schofield and Richard Sorabji (eds) Articles on Aristotle. Volume 2: Ethics and Politics. (London: Duckworth, 1977) [ISBN 0715609300].
Barnes, Jonathan (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Aristotle. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) [ISBN 0521422949].
Cooper, John Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1986) [ISBN 0872200221].
Lear, Jonathan Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000) [ISBN 0674003292].
Miller, Jon (ed.) A Critical Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) [ISBN 9780521514484].
Nussbaum, Martha C. The Fragility of Goodness. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) [ISBN 0521277027].
The Ethics is a rich and varied work, some of it dealing with foundational questions about morality, some of it with issues that can seem tangential to moral theory. In an important sense, this variety is precisely what makes Aristotle’s contribution to moral philosophy so special. One can think of Aristotle as setting out to tell us – and argue for – a conception of a good and worthy life. Because the life in question is a human life, and because human beings are rational, social, political and, above all, moral creatures, this project is bound to look in detail at what explains – and what follows from – the specialness of human beings. Along the way, one would therefore expect to find philosophical discussions of what it is to make choices of an ethical sort, discussions of what it is to be sensitive to moral value and disvalue. One would also be unsurprised to find discussions of values that are related to – but not always understood as – part of morality in any narrow sense. Thus, as well as fundamental discussions of moral choice, one finds discussions of good temper, pride, vanity, meanness, wit, ambition, vulgarity and a whole book devoted to friendship. In the survey below, there won’t be space to consider the things Aristotle says about these human qualities and defects; our main focus will be on certain more foundational issues. But I urge you to read the whole of the Ethics to get a sense of the roundedness of Aristotle’s conception of human life, and because it helps flesh out a number of the things Aristotle says about narrower moral issues.
The opening sentence of the Ethics reads:
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
It is evident that this claim is partly dependent on what others have said or thought. The careful consideration of others’ opinions, especially philosophical predecessors, is a hallmark of Aristotle’s writing. Also evident shortly after this (1094b12–14) is Aristotle’s insistence that we must recognise that each subject matter has a precision appropriate to it. Ethics is thus likely to be less rigidly precise than logic or mathematics.
The opening sentence and its explication essentially put down a marker for further work. He says that what we aim at, in every case, is the good – not a single thing for everything we do, and likely different in each case – but ‘good’ here is really a kind of place-holder. Any attempt to say more substantially what human beings do or should aim at in acting must fill in this place-holder. And Aristotle doesn’t waste any time in so doing. He writes: ‘Verbally, there is general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness; and identify living well and doing well with being happy’ (1095a16–19), where ‘happiness’ is the translation of the Greek eudaimonia. (This translation has its own problems, as you will appreciate from your reading, but it is difficult to think of a better one.) As soon as he notes that the place-holder ‘the good we aim at’ is filled by ‘happiness’, Aristotle notes that there is little agreement about what constitutes happiness. Working out how best to decide this, and considering the constraints on doing so, sets the agenda both for Book I, and for much of the remainder of the Ethics.
At around 1097b1, he notes that eudaimonia is rather special: we value honour, pleasure and reason for themselves, but ‘we choose them also for the sake of happiness’. Whereas, happiness is itself not something we choose for the sake of anything else – it is a self-sufficient good. Still, he notes that we have yet to say exactly what it is, and in one of the most well-known and controversial arguments of the Ethics (beginning at 1097b23), he sets out to do just that.
The beginning of the argument seems simple enough. Things have functions (or uses or purposes), and if we know what the function of something is, we can say what constitutes its excellence (or virtue). (If the function of a saw is to cut wood, then cutting well is what a saw’s excellence consists in.) So if we could work out the function of humankind, we could presumably say what doing well and living well would be for us. Aristotle suggests that we can only understand this function when we understand what is special about us and the lives we lead. Because rationality and active engagement with life are both key features of humankind, he concludes that what is best for us – what could plausibly constitute our happiness – ‘is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue…’ (1098a16–17), where he has made it clear that this activity must involve both our rational and social nature.
There are two particular areas of controversy about this argument: the first concerns the plausibility of thinking that there is such a thing as the function or purpose of a human being; and the second concerns the studied vagueness of the conclusion. Your further reading will help you to a deeper appreciation of these issues, but this brief pointer might be helpful. The ordinary understanding of ‘function’ or ‘purpose’ might not serve one well in understanding Aristotle’s point. It might be better to think here not of ‘function’, but of ‘characteristic nature’, and that our happiness therefore consists in our living up to human potential, something which for Aristotle means living an active life based on intellect and social cohesion.
After investigating this formulation in some detail, Aristotle concludes Book I (and opens Book II) with a division of virtues into two sorts: the intellectual and the moral. Moral virtues, he insists, come from instilling habits, something that requires education (a good upbringing) and practice. He says: ‘… none of the moral virtues arise in us by nature’ (1103a19), and it is the moral virtues that form the subject matter of Books II–V. After giving a definition of moral virtue, Aristotle discusses in some detail a whole range of familiar virtues (and vices): courage, temperance, liberality, prodigality, pride, vanity, ambition, good temper, irascibility, friendliness, obsequity, shame and – finally, and at some length – justice. Perhaps the most well-known feature of his discussion is his claim that in virtually every case, virtue is the mean between a pair of vices which lie at some extreme end of a scale. Thus, courage is a character trait that can be understood to lie between, on the one hand, foolhardiness and, on the other, cowardice. It is controversial – and requires a careful reading of his text – to see whether this doctrine of the mean fits every case. As Aristotle himself points out at the beginning of Book VI, knowing that in respect of virtues one should aim for something that is neither too little nor too much is not yet knowing very much.
The introduction to Book VI repeats the division of virtues into the moral and intellectual, and makes a strong case for saying that the intellect plays the crucial role in our understanding of human good. More specifically, Aristotle argues that a particular virtue of the intellect – practical wisdom – is the key to living well, in that it leads us to choose the right goals and to achieve them in the most rational way. This virtue he regards as rationality in action, and contrasts it with scientific (or theoretical) wisdom and also with the practical wisdom required for making things – for art and craft.
It is very important to understand specifically why Aristotle thinks practical wisdom is both different from any other sort and so important to moral life generally. He thinks that philosophical and theoretical (scientific) wisdom are concerned with things that are unchanging or necessary. Thus, knowing that two plus two equals four, or knowing that a certain plant produces edible fruit, are different kinds of theoretical knowledge, but both have a claim to being unchanging in this sense: once true, their truth is fixed. (The plant may change genetically in future so as to produce inedible fruit, but the truth about the original plant remains true.) However, Aristotle points out that practical knowledge is deliberative, it is about what to do, and thus it depends on an ability to know appropriate general truths, perceive particular circumstances and combine these two in working out the best course of action. Though this might be a bit more definite than anything Aristotle actually says, we could say that the results of investigations like those in science can be described as true or false, the upshot of practical deliberation is an act, something that in itself is neither true nor false. (See 1143a8–10.)
In Chapter 13 of Book VI, Aristotle compares his view to that of Socrates. He says:
‘This is why some say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom, and why Socrates in one respect was on the right track while in another he went astray; in thinking that all the virtues were forms of practical wisdom he was wrong, but in saying they implied practical wisdom, he was right’ (1144b17–21).
His idea seems to be that one requires practical wisdom – an intellectual virtue – to be good, but that goodness itself isn’t identical to it. Thus, human goodness can only be achieved if, in addition to having health and other external advantages, one possesses the moral virtues as well. Practical wisdom may well be the crucial element in a happy life – a life of doing well – but it requires the other virtues as well. He sums this up by saying: ‘… it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral virtue’ (1144b30–32).
Suppose yourself to be practically wise in the sense Aristotle has explained. You are able to consider some situation, know the general truths appropriate to it and are also aware of the special features of the situation that, together with your general knowledge, allow you to act appropriately. Let us say, formulaically, that acting appropriately is doing A. In spite of all this, could it happen that, though you do possess the relevant practical wisdom, you fail to do A? Could it happen, for example, that some strong desire, or passion (such as anger), overpowers your practical knowledge? If this can happen – if you can know what is best and yet fail to do it because of some contrary pull – it will be said that you are weak-willed, incontinent, or, to use the Greek term, ‘akratic’.
As Aristotle notes, Socrates didn’t think that akrasia in the above sense was possible. If an agent knew what was best in the full sense, the agent couldn’t help but to do A. Failure to do A would be tantamount to ignorance, to not really knowing what was best. Aristotle doesn’t want to accept the Socratic account, but he struggles to offer a different one. At several points, he suggests that the akratic agent might well know what is best, but that this knowledge is somehow rendered ineffective. Perhaps, he suggests, it is rather like someone who is drunk: such a person may well have knowledge, but be in no condition to exercise it. Aristotle also distinguishes (in the first chapter of Book VII) between akrasia and the virtue of temperance (which, in spite of recent associations, has nothing to do with abstinence from alcohol). Whereas a non-akratic (continent) agent will fight to resist the temptation of pleasure, desire and passion, a temperate agent somehow rises above any of these temptations.
The discussion of these matters in the opening chapters of Book VII have proved very important to the subject now known as ‘moral psychology’. This is the study of the context and sources of human actions, and it plays an important role in both the history and contemporary understanding of morality. For insofar as a main source of our actions – especially those relevant to morals – is knowledge, we get a picture of ethics that is different from one in which the sole or main sources are desire and passion. The issue of akrasia is one of a number which help to clarify this issue.
Aristotle’s account of the good for humankind seems fairly settled after Book VI: the moral virtues are instilled by training and habit, and these support, and are supported by, the deliberations of an acquired capacity for practical wisdom which lead to the right actions and choices in the many particular circumstances that occur in life. The aim of practical wisdom and its supporting virtues is a happy life, one that fully realises human capacities. (Chapter 6 of Book X summarises his overall view, though not in great detail.) Aristotle does show a degree of realism about such a life: in addition to practical wisdom and habits of virtue, one has to have a certain amount of luck. For having friends, goods and scope to realise one’s plans is often outside our control.
The picture we get of Aristotle’s recommended life is one in which persons exercise their abilities, not only to make wise choices and act on them, but also to have some degree of material, social and political status in the community. This conception of happiness is not one that will appeal to all readers – some views of the morally worthy life see it as in some sense its own reward, and as achievable without requiring goods and power. However, in Book X, Aristotle seems to take back some of what has gone before, and this has become a problem for generations of interpreters of the Ethics. Describing a life pursuing knowledge – a life of contemplation – he writes: ‘… 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’ (1178a6–9). At the very beginning of the next chapter, he notes: ‘the life in accordance with other kinds of virtue is happy’, but he now describes it as of ‘secondary’ value to the life of contemplation.
Perhaps it is no surprise that, like Plato, Aristotle comes down so firmly on the side of reason and contemplation. Many have felt that what he says in Book X is at the very least in tension with the conclusions – and the effort expended in reaching them – of the preceding books.