Reading 32. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Outline with Study Questions
I.Book I
A.Chapter 1
1.What is the end (goal) that all things seek?
2.When an end is pursued for the sake of a further end, which end is more desirable?
B.Chapter 2
1.If there were no chief (highest) good, why would our desires be “empty and vain”?
2.Why is knowledge of the chief good important?
3.Why is the inquiry into the chief good a political inquiry?
C.Chapter 3
1.Why cannot political expertise attain the same kind of precision as mathematics?
D.Chapter 4
1.With regard to the highest achievable good, what do people generally agree on? What do they dispute?
E.Chapter 5
1.What do most people consider happiness to be? Why does Aristotle reject this view?
2.For what two reasons cannot honor be the highest good?
3.For what two reasons cannot excellence be the highest good?
4.Why is wealth not the highest good?
F.Chapter 7
1.Why is happiness complete without qualification?
2.In what sense is happiness self-sufficient?
3.Why is it reasonable to assume that a human being has a function?
4.What is the human function?
5.What kind of activity constitutes the human good?
G.Chapter 13
1.Which part of the soul does not share in reason in any way?
2.In what way does the appetitive and desiring part of the soul share in reason?
3.Which part of the soul has reason in the proper sense?
4.Which part of the soul possesses intellectual excellences? Which part possesses excellences of character?
II. Book II
A.Chapter 1
1.How do intellectual excellences originate and increase?
2.How does one acquire excellences of character? bad traits of character?
B.Chapter 4
1.What apparent problem does Aristotle point out with his claim that, in order to become just or moderate, a person must do what is just or moderate?
2.For an action to be done in accordance with excellence of character, what three conditions must the agent fulfill? Which two conditions do not apply to actions done in accordance with skill?
C.Chapter 6
1.What two features does excellence give to the thing that has the excellence?
2.What is the difference between an intermediate “with reference to the object” and an intermediate “relative to us”?
3.Which kind of intermediate is the goal of excellences of character?
4.What are the two bad states between which the intermediate of excellence lies?
5.Why do some actions and affections not admit of intermediacy?
D.Chapter 7
1.What are the excellence and the two bad states of character with regard to boldness? with regard to pleasures? with regard to giving and receiving money?
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
1.Is happiness the ultimate goal that everyone seeks?
2.Do human beings have a function? If so, do we all have the same function?
3.Is happiness a kind of activity, or is it a feeling? If the former, is it the activity of acting rationally?
4.Should we always act rationally?
5.How can one determine what the intermediate between extremes would be for oneself in a particular situation?
6.Do excellences of character always aim at the intermediate between extremes, or is it sometimes better to seek an extreme?
For Further Reading
Broadie, Sarah. Ethics with Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. 462 pp.
See Chapter 1, “Happiness, the Supreme End” (pp. 3–56), and Chapter 2, “Virtues and Parts of the Soul” (pp. 57–123).
Cooper, John M. Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975. 192 pp.
Chapter 2, “Moral Virtue and Human Flourishing” (pp. 89–143), discusses Aristotle’s doctrines on excellences of character and on happiness.
Hughes, Gerard J. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics: New York: Routledge, 2001. 234 pp.
Chapter 3, “The Fulfilled Life” (pp. 21–51) discusses Aristotle’s notion of happiness and his function argument.
Lear, Jonathan. Aristotle: The Desire to Understand. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 328 pp.
In Chapter 5, “Ethics and the Organization of Desire,” see Section 2, “Happiness and Man’s Nature” (pp. 160–64), and Section 3, “Virtue” (pp. 164–74).
Urmson, J. O. Aristotle’s Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1988. 130 pp.
Chapter 1, “The Ideal Life: A Preliminary Discussion” (pp. 9–24), and Chapter 2, “Excellence of Character” (pp. 25–37), examine, respectively, the key doctrines in Books I and II of the Nicomachean Ethics.