Aristotle's Handling of endoxa in Nicomachean Ethics 9.4 and Eudemian Ethics 7.6

2019 ◽  
pp. 137-154
Author(s):  
Arthur Madigan
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Eudemian Ethics

scholarly journals I FATTORI DELLA VIRTÙ E LA CRONOLOGIA DELLE ETICHE DI ARISTOTELE

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Donini
Keyword(s):  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Joint Effect ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Made In

In this paper the author summarizes the main contentions made in his new book Abitudine e saggezza. Aristotele dall’Etica Eudemia all’Etica Nicomachea. In the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle makes moral virtue as the joint effect of reason and the gifts of nature, but in the Nicomachean Ethics, on the contrary, he does not even name nature and sees virtue as the product of habits and education. On this very point the NE quotes and praises Plato’s Laws, which Aristotle did not know when writing the EE. It seems clear, then, that in the interval between the two Ethics he had known Plato’s last work.

On the So-Called Common Books of the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics

Phronesis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-116
Author(s):  
Dorothea Frede
Keyword(s):  
Self Control ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
The Common ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics

AbstractIn recent decades the view that the disputed central books of Aristotle’s ethics are an integral part of the Eudemian rather than of the Nicomachean Ethics has gained ground for both historical and systematic reasons. This article contests that view, arguing not only that the Nicomachean Ethics represented Aristotle’s central text throughout antiquity, but that the discussion in the common books of such crucial concepts as justice, practical and theoretical reason, self-control and lack of self-control, are more compatible with the undisputed books of the Nicomachean Ethics than with those of the Eudemian Ethics.

scholarly journals Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-342
Author(s):  
Melina G. Mouzala
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Relational Goods ◽  
Absolute Good ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Eudemian Ethics

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

scholarly journals Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6

2017 ◽  
pp. 309-342
Author(s):  
Melina G. Mouzala
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Relational Goods ◽  
Absolute Good ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Eudemian Ethics

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle’s Metaethics

2019 ◽  
pp. 128-160
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Naturalistic Ethics ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Do So

Aristotle’s critique of attempts to ground ethics in metaphysical abstractions would be the logical place for him to have articulated the case for a naturalistic ethics, but he does not do so. Rather, we find, in Eudemian Ethics, a contrary case for a distinction between the natural good and the practical good. Given Aristotle’s well-known emphasis on the nature of action, and his practice of beginning normative treatises from the nature of action, we can see implicit in this focus an argument that, for rational agents, the fact that we aim at some good commits us to seeking the genuine or true good. This chapter argues that an apparent fallacy in the first sentence of Nicomachean Ethics yields—if properly understood—an insistence that rational agency requires consideration of the truly best goal.

Virtue and Goals of Actions in Aristotle’s Ethical Treatises

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-218
Author(s):  
Hendrik Lorenz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
The Way

The present paper focuses on Aristotle’s claim in the Eudemian Ethics that the virtues of character are ‘states to do with decision’, by which he means that they are somehow responsible for decisions. In the paper’s first two sections, I explicate the way in which he thinks the character-virtues contribute to the correctness of the virtuous person’s decisions. In two subsequent sections, I articulate two philosophical objections to the picture that will have emerged. I defend Aristotle against the first objection. In articulating the second objection, I rely on texts from the Nicomachean Ethics and the De motu animalium that John Cooper’s work on Aristotle’s moral psychology has greatly illuminated. I argue that the second objection cannot be answered in a satisfactory way, and that it identifies a philosophical weakness in the moral psychology of the Eudemian Ethics, namely that it operates with an overly restrictive conception of practical reason.

scholarly journals A Monistic Conclusion to Aristotle’sErgon Argument: the Human Good as the Best Achievement of a Human

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Theoretical Wisdom ◽  
Eudemian Ethics ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractScholars have often thought that a monistic reading of Aristotle’s definition of the human good – in particular, one on which “best and most teleios virtue” (Nicomachean Ethics I 7, 1098a17–18) refers to theoretical wisdom – cannot follow from the premises of the ergon argument. I explain how a monistic reading can follow from the premises, and I argue that this interpretation gives the correct rationale for Aristotle’s definition. I then explain that even though the best and most teleios virtue must be a single virtue, that virtue could in principle be a whole virtue that arises from the combination of all the others (and this is what kalokagathia seems to be in the Eudemian Ethics). I also clarify that the definition of the human good aims at capturing the nature of human eudaimonia only in its primary case.

Deliberation and Decision in the Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Margrethe Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
Eudemian Ethics

The Magna Moralia has long been the ugly duckling in the Aristotelian pond, shunned on account of its ungainly composition, flat-footed argument, and peculiar linguistic habits. In this essay, I examine one influential argument against its authenticity, namely the hypothesis that the author of the MM was a student or a later compendium writer, attempting to reconstruct the argument of the Eudemian Ethics or Nicomachean Ethics. My test case is the analyses of deliberation (bouleusis) and decision (prohairesis) in the three ethics. I argue that the MM diverges on important points from the EE and the EN, and that even an inept compendium writer or note taker could not have extracted the analysis in the MM from the other treatises. I conclude that the MM may resemble the EE because the former is an early and immature version of the latter.

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