Aristotle: Ethics

Ferrer AI Textual Investigations: Leibniz. By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. All Rights are Reserved. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content, and must include my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Enjoy reading and disagreeing. Warning. Warning philosophical ideas are present, (adult supervision required). Warning: this is an AI (...) Working Zone. Warning. Perhaps an impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. These are AI investigations into Leibniz’s texts. Language: English, Greek, and German. Yugārambha (युगारम्भ). Pages 1-371. Who am I, the author of these investigations? That is an important question. I, Daniel Fidel Ferrer, am the human copyright owner (©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026) of this work. Technically, I am the one guiding the process as the “prompt engineer.” Daniel Fidel Ferrer as the “Prompt Artist.” AI conducted by ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026. Maestro. I can consider myself the Maestro suggeritore. -/- Table of Contents. Twenty Statements summary. How Leibniz Influenced Kant: 20 Major Examples. How Leibniz Influenced Schelling: 20 Major Examples. How Leibniz Influenced Hegel: 30 Major Examples. How Leibniz Influenced Marx: 30 Examples and a Critical Assessment. The 10 Most Important Leibnizian Concepts That Developed Over Time. The 40 Most Important Writings of G. W. Leibniz (Ranked). The 30 Examination Questions on Leibniz With Model Answers for Advanced Graduate Students. Leibniz 30 Major Criticisms of His Philosophy. Schelling’s Transformation of Leibniz’s Concepts of Evil and Freedom: From Rational Optimism to the Metaphysics of Freedom. How Schelling's Concept of Evil Differs from Hegel's. Leibniz on Libraries: Knowledge, Memory, Classification, and the Universal Republic of Learning. When was Leibniz in Wolfenbüttel? Francisco Suárez and Leibniz: 30 Major Influences on Leibniz's Metaphysics. Aristotle's Influence on Leibniz: 30 Major Influences. Entelechy in Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Schelling. Hegel's Begriff as Entelechy. Why Leibniz Is the Missing Link. From Aristotle's Entelechy to Hegel's Begriff. Leibniz's ethics is closest to Aristotle. 30 Unresolved Questions in Leibniz. 30 Unresolved Ethical Questions in Leibniz. Leibniz's Philosophy of History: A Comparative Study with Kant and Hegel. Chinese Authors that Leibniz read. Glossaries in Greek, German, and English. (shrink)

Ferrer AI Textual Investigations: Introduction to the Basic Principles of Marxism (马克思主义基本原理). Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. All Rights are Reserved. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content, and must include my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Enjoy reading and disagreeing. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Warning. Warning: this is an AI Working Zone. Warning philosophical ideas, (...) (adult supervision required). Perhaps an impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. Pages 1-369. Who am I, the author of these AI investigations? That is an important question. I, Daniel Fidel Ferrer, am the human copyright owner (©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026) of this work. Technically, I am the one guiding the process as the “prompt engineer.” Daniel Fidel Ferrer as the “Prompt Artist.” AI conducted by ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026. Maestro. I can consider myself the Maestro suggeritore. Table of Contents. Summary. Marxism as a World-Historical Intellectual Event. 20 Most Important Passages. The Influence of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme on Basic Principles of Marxism. What “Elevated Spiritual Life” Means in This Marxist Context. Marxism’s “elevated spiritual life” is comparable to Aristotle’s Greek concept of eudaimonia. 10 major Chinese philosophers, each with two key passages in Chinese and English. Who is Wang Yangming? Synthetic Essay: What Marxism Does to Wang Yangming? Each topic: 唯物论 (Materialism), 辩证法 (Dialectics), 认识论 (Epistemology), and 唯物史观 (Historical Materialism) provided 20 main points with passages and page numbers with Chinese passages and translation into English. How to Separate Engels from Marx: 20 Points. Glossary: 500 Key Terms with Chinese texts, page numbers, and with English translation. (shrink)

Kant AI Textual Investigations: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). By Daniel Fidel Ferrer, Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content, and must include my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Enjoy reading and disagreeing. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Language: English, German and Chinese. Yugārambha (युगारम्भ). Warning. Warning: this is an AI (...) Working Zone. Warning. Perhaps an impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. These are AI investigations into Kant’s text. Pages 1-295. Who am I, the author of these investigations? That is an important question. I, Daniel Fidel Ferrer, am the human copyright owner (©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026) of this work. Technically, I am the one guiding the process as the “prompt engineer.” Daniel Fidel Ferrer as the “Prompt Artist.” AI conducted by ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026. Maestro. I can consider myself the Maestro suggeritore. -/- Table of contents. Summary and Analysis of the First 20 Pages. Kant and Wolff. Kant and Aristotle. Aristotle Replies to Kant. Wolff Against Kant. Reaction to Kant’s Groundwork. 15 major Kantian critics of Kant’s Groundwork. Rational beings have dignity. Kant on Soldiers killing in War time. Kant morality say of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Kant on Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. How would Kant improve the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War? 20 unresolved questions Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. How does Kant’s Grundlegung fit in the context of his later writings on Morality. How is the Kritik der Urteilskraft / Critique of the Power of Judgment 1790 part of Kant’s Ethics. Glossary 50 key terms in German, English (definitions), and Chinese. Glossary 50 key terms in German and Chinese definitions. Kant is closest to Confucianism on moral seriousness and self-cultivation, closest to Xunzi on disciplining inclination, closest to Mohism on impartial universality, and most challenged by Confucian role-ethics and Daoist anti-formalism. Kant’s Ethics and Asian Indian Ethics. Kant and 25 theological concepts. Summary of Kant's 11 concepts of love? Ten examples of real-world moral dilemma using Kantian ethics. How can we apply Kant’s ethics to Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro? Seven Plato Dialogues that are closest to Kant’s Ethics. AI Working Zone. -/- . (shrink)

How essential then is friendship in happiness? What role does it play in the experience and realization of human ultimate good? And in what way can friendship help us understand and spell out the nature of happiness? These are some of the questions that I would like to address in this paper. In view of this, I have divided my paper in three parts. In the first, I argue why it is essential to view eudaimonia as actualization. In the second, (...) I take into account the nature of friendship, pointing out the evident parallelism between happiness and friendship. And in the third part, I explain how friendship, insofar as it is paradigmatic of eudaimonia, can clarify the Aristotelian notion of happiness. (shrink)

We offer a survey of the Aristotle Corpus (the Organon or logical works; the physics or natural works, the Metaphysics, the practical works, and the productive works (Rhetoric and Poetics) and discuss “protreptic aspects” pertinent to each, including: (1) direct discussion of protreptic rhetoric by Aristotle in the Rhetoric and Topics; (2) indirect employment of protreptic rhetoric in other works (such as On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On the Parts of Animals), and (3) text re-uses or parallels to arguments in (...) the lost Protrepticus, for example in the Metaphysics and Politics. We observe that Aristotle is generally reluctant to offer protreptic rhetoric in the Corpus, unless it is protreptic to some kind of specialized way of doing philosophy (such as psychology, biology, metaphysics, etc.); and in many cases he offers no protreptic whatsoever; interestingly, he avoids protreptic in cases where he seems to think that the matter has been sufficiently investigated, or at least exhorted to, for example logic (syllogistic) and meteorology. (shrink)

Aristotle theorized about exhortative (“protreptic”) rhetoric in his treatise on the Art of Rhetoric, and he also authored a popular work (the Protrepticus) that exhorted the youth to do philosophy. Although the popular work has been lost, efforts to reconstruct it have met with some success, and it is possible to detect its influence on various works in the Aristotle Corpus that have survived. The 13 original essays in this volume examine protreptic aspects of Aristotle’s works, including the account in (...) the Rhetoric, the adaptation of the Protrepticus in works such as On the Parts of Animals, the Metaphysics, and the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics, protreptics offered to specialized fields (such as medicine, biology, theology, and legislation), and the deployment of protreptic themes and argumentative strategies, particularly in ethical works. -/- The essays are: -/- 1. Towards a Model of Protreptic Discourse: Aristotle’s Account in Rhetoric I.3-8 (Cristina Pepe) -/- 2. Problemata XVIII.4-6 on the Status of Rhetoric (Robert Mayhew) -/- 3. Aristotle’s Protreptic to Medicine in the Parva Naturalia (P.-M. Morel) -/- 4. Aristotle’s Protreptic to the Study of Animals and Plants in On the Parts of Animals (Monte Ransome Johnson) -/- 5. Protreptic Themes in Aristotle’s Biological Works (Sophia Connell) -/- 6. Aristotle’s Protreptic to First Philosophy (Thomas Kjeller Johansen) -/- 7. Theoria Accomplished: Protreptic Aspects of Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII (Fabienne Baghdassarian) -/- 8. Protreptic Intentions in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Dorothea Frede) -/- 9. Protreptic Strategies and Conditional Goods (Chris Bobonich) -/- 10. Living with Philosophers in the Lyceum: Eudemian Ethics VII.12 (D. S. Hutchinson) -/- 11. Philosophers Enjoy Life Most! Parallels between Aristotle’s Topics and the Protrepticus (Katerina Ierodiakonou) -/- 12. Why Philosophers Truly Enjoy Living: Proper Pleasure in Aristotle’s Protrepticus and Nicomachean Ethics (Ronja Hildebrandt) -/- 13. Protreptic to Legislating or What it Takes to Be a Good Legislator (Pavlos Kontos). (shrink)

At EN II.6 1107a8-15 Aristotle seems to say that certain act-types are always prohibited: adultery, theft, and murder. Yet scholars are divided on what this text means. Some assume—but don’t argue—that Aristotle affirms such absolute prohibitions. Others offer a “deflationary” reading, on which Aristotle isn’t actually committed to such prohibitions. Focusing on the case of adultery, I argue that Aristotle is indeed committed to absolute prohibitions. First, I will survey the motivations behind the deflationary reading and why we should reject (...) them. Second, I show there is very strong evidence that Aristotle affirms an absolute prohibition against adultery. Third, I turn to what might be Aristotle’s rationale for the prohibition. There is something not just deeply valuable but incommensurable about the marital relationship, such that the act of adultery will always involve a harm that cannot be compensated. It is always an injustice and so always prohibited. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on Eudoxus’ key argument for thesis T: pleasure is the good. It establishes first the text of the argument from universal pursuit and the basic framework of his hedonism. Steering clear of the psychological claim that pleasure is the only good at which animals aim, and of the extensional claim that pleasure is the only good at which all animals aim, the paper proposes that Eudoxus takes all animals to pursue pleasure in all natural and fitting choices. (...) This interpretation is further developed by examining the argument from opposites and the argument from addition. It is argued that Eudoxus is justified in taking pleasure to be the only good so pursued, which licenses T. His hedonism differs markedly from contemporary version. (shrink)

Aristotle apparently does not discuss piety in the Nicomachean Ethics, certainly not overtly. Against an ingenious proposal by Sarah Broadie, I argue that the passage she identifies as a covert discussion of piety does not give a special role to piety. By placing the passage in question in its context, I provide a reading of the context that can explain why Aristotle needs to discuss the connection between external resources and happiness. The dicta of the wise, Solon and Anaxagoras, fit (...) squarely into that project, and Solon in particular helps to lead over to the passage in question, without special attention to piety. Finally, I offer an interpretation of the passage that likewise makes do without piety. If my interpretation is right, I have eliminated yet another initially plausible candidate for an admittedly clandestine discussion of piety. (shrink)

The chapter explores whether we should take Aristotle to be a virtue ethicist, understood as distinct from consequentialist and deontological approaches. For Aristotle the decisive questions whether virtue is prior to ethically good action or vice versa is equivalent to the question which mean is prior, the one characterising virtue or the one characterising good action. I argue that Aristotle would not seem to be a virtue ethicist because a) the definition of virtue in EN 2.6 tends towards priority of (...) action, even if it also attributes an important role to the wise person, and b) an examination of the role of the good person in EN 3.4 confirms the priority of the good action over the virtuous state that aims at such actions. Aristotle’s status, however, need not be permanent: if virtue ethicists were to leave our classification of ethical systems aside to emphasise more what is distinctive about their approach — a sustained study of virtue — Aristotle would rightly be their forerunner. (shrink)

The chapter explores whether we should take Aristotle to be a virtue ethicist, understood as distinct from consequentialist and deontological approaches. For Aristotle the decisive questions whether virtue is prior to ethically good action or vice versa is equivalent to the question which mean is prior, the one characterising virtue or the one characterising good action. I argue that Aristotle would not seem to be a virtue ethicist because a) the definition of virtue in EN 2.6 tends towards priority of (...) action, even if it also attributes an important role to the wise person, and b) an examination of the role of the good person in EN 3.4 confirms the priority of the good action over the virtuous state that aims at such actions. Aristotle’s status, however, need not be permanent: if virtue ethicists were to leave our classification of ethical systems aside to emphasise more what is distinctive about their approach — a sustained study of virtue — Aristotle would rightly be their forerunner. (shrink)

The chapter explores whether we should take Aristotle to be a virtue ethicist, understood as distinct from consequentialist and deontological approaches. For Aristotle the decisive questions whether virtue is prior to ethically good action or vice versa is equivalent to the question which mean is prior, the one characterising virtue or the one characterising good action. I argue that Aristotle would not seem to be a virtue ethicist because a) the definition of virtue in EN 2.6 tends towards priority of (...) action, even if it also attributes an important role to the wise person, and b) an examination of the role of the good person in EN 3.4 confirms the priority of the good action over the virtuous state that aims at such actions. Aristotle’s status, however, need not be permanent: if virtue ethicists were to leave our classification of ethical systems aside to emphasise more what is distinctive about their approach — a sustained study of virtue — Aristotle would rightly be their forerunner. (shrink)

A philosophical meditation on merit and meritocracy in times when both have long been under fire and there is a pressing need to reconsider. Chapters within: 1. Running to and from BIG Monsters. 2. Grounding Merit Objectively. 3. Rethinking Meritocracy. 4. Nation, Utopia, Roots, Tradition. 5. A Summing Up. -/- The first chapter is geared toward a general readership; chapters two through four are primarily scholarly; chapter five engages everyone. Amazon Kindle offers a free preview of the front matter and (...) some of chapter one. (shrink)

Eudaimonism is a richly complex ethical tradition. To distinguish eudaimonism from other ethical approaches and to demonstrate the diversity of eudaimonistic accounts, I outline five key distinctions: (i) form vs. content, (ii) weak vs. strong eudaimonism, (iii) perfectionism vs. non-perfectionism, (iv) intellectualism vs. materialism, and (v) dogmatism vs. non-dogmatism. This analysis escapes the traditional focus on eudaimonism through a predominantly Aristotelian lens. It also offers a rich conceptual framework for understanding the historical development of eudaimonism and the dialogue between ancient, (...) early modern, and modern eudaimonists. -/- . (shrink)

According to Aristotle, virtue is the mean between deficiency and excess. While Aristotle’s concept of “mean” has been the subject of some debate, his geometric and arithmetic comparisons suggest a natural interpretation according to which the virtuous mean lies on a straight path connecting the extremes. We critically discuss this interpretation, first by focusing on the mathematical elaboration of the concept of mean offered by Aristotle, and then by investigating how contemporary English speakers conceptualize the relation between some of the (...) moral character traits discussed in the Nicomachean Ethics. Our main finding, based on studies of five Aristotelian triads, is that for most of them, alleged extreme traits tend to be roughly as opposed to each other as they are to the alleged mean. We use these findings to defend a more nuanced interpretation of the doctrine of the mean, situating the relevant character traits in a higher-dimensional space. This higher-dimensional interpretation remains compatible with the Aristotelian idea that reaching the mean involves finding the right balance between several dimensions. However, a philosophical consequence we draw is that simply moving away from deficiency toward excess may not always bring one closer to virtue. Going from one extreme to the other will sometimes lead one further astray and is no substitute for aiming at virtue proper. (shrink)

Aristotle believes that, since ethics is a practical discipline, we would waste our time if we described virtues that we cannot reasonably aim at. We can see that we are capable of acquiring virtue, if we examine legal practice, because it assumes that we are capable of doing good and bad actions and of being virtuous and vicious. The actions that legislators prescribe are those that are open to praise and blame, and these are voluntary actions. Athenian orators agree with (...) Aristotle’s claim that voluntary actions are subject to praise and blame. But the explicit distinction that Athenian laws draw is a different distinction, between forethought (pronoia) and the lack of it. The conditions for acting from forethought, and hence being liable to punishment, are matters of controversy in Athenian forensic speeches. Similarly, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between acting on forethought and acting on election (prohairesis). In his three ethical works Aristotle seeks to expound and to clarify the relevant distinctions by replacing the legal category of forethought with his category of the voluntary. He seeks to clarify claims about the relation of action on election to voluntary action, by presenting an improved account of election. (shrink)

Should anyone ever rule above the law? Interpreters have thought that Aristotle makes an exception to the rule of law for an absolute king outstanding in virtue. By charting the dialectic of Politics 3.15–16, this paper shows that Aristotle in fact rejects the arguments for absolute kingship: (1) Plato's crafts analogy and (2) the law's need for particularistic, equitable exceptions. This weighs against counting Aristotle a particularist about political and, perhaps also, practical wisdom.

Even today, some Thomists follow the Early Modern, Neo-Scholastic tradition in reading Thomas Aquinas’s ethics as an Aristotelian, reason-dominant model in which emotions play a secondary role in the virtuous life. The virtuous person is one for whom reason is superior to and rules over the emotions. Alternatively, Eleonore Stump dissociates Thomas Aquinas’s ethics from Aristotle in an effort to overcome intellectualist interpretation. In this paper, I draw on Eugene Garver’s Aristotle scholarship to offer a reading of Aristotle’s ethics free (...) of its Neoplatonic intellectualist reception in the Thomistic Commentary tradition. In doing so, I support Thomists who see emotivist elements in Thomas Aquinas’s ethics but do not yet see them in Aristotle. For these Thomists, Thomas Aquinas’s ethics will turn out, once again, Aristotelian. (shrink)

"This book gives a systematic account of the development of the "function argument" from Plato's Republic to the Nicomachean Ethics, with an explication of the interdependence between different versions of the argument which appear in Aristotle's ethical writings. In close readings of Aristotle's ethical writings in the Proptrepticus, the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics, Jirsa makes the case that the function (ergon) argument serves to differentiate between happiness (eudaimonia) and the happy life (eudaimon bios). The book then evaluates Aristotle's (...) function argument against contemporary critiques"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

One of the most contentious issues in the contemporary philosophy of luck is the account of the so-called significance condition. Consideration of the significance condition pulls in two opposite directions: either into subjectivism and relativism about luck, which may result in the admission that luck cannot have the philosophical use attributed to it, or into eliminativism about the significance condition, which may result in an account of luck that does not do justice to the common usage of the term. In (...) this paper, I discuss whether contemporary philosophers of luck can benefit from considering Aristotle’s view of luck (tyche) and offer a cautiously affirmative answer. Aristotle develops an objective account of luck that avoids problems plaguing contemporary theories, especially those concerning the significance condition. However, the use of Aristotle’s analysis in the context of current debates is limited due to at least three reasons: (1) Aristotle’s analysis depends on his peculiar understanding of teleology, which in turn presupposes a specific conception of the good that is difficult for many to accept today; (2) Aristotle’s analysis requires unexpected and sometimes strained explanations of our everyday attributions of luck; and (3) it seems that Aristotle does not treat cases of good luck and bad luck symmetrically. (shrink)

This volume assembles nine of the author’s essays on determinism, freedom, and moral responsibility in Western antiquity, ranging from Aristotle via the Epicureans and Stoics to the third century. It is representative of the author’s overall scholarship on the topic, much of which emphasizes that what commonly counts as ‘the problem of free will and determinism’ is noticeably distinct from the issues the ancients discussed. It is true that one main component of the ancient discourse concerned the question how moral (...) accountability can be consistently combined with certain causal factors that impact human behaviour. However, it is not true that the ancient problems involved the questions of the compatibility of causal determinism with our ability to do otherwise or with free will. Instead, we encounter questions about human rational and autonomous agency and their compatibility with preceding causes, external or internal; with external impediments; with divine predetermination and theological questions; with physical theories like atomism and continuum theory, and with sciences more generally; with elements that determine character development from childhood, such as nature and nurture; with epistemic features such as ignorance of circumstances; with necessity and modal theories generally; with folk theories of fatalism; and also with questions of how human autonomous agency is related to moral development, to virtue and wisdom, to blame and praise. In Classical and Hellenistic philosophy, these questions were all debated without reference to freedom to do otherwise or free will—. This volume considers all of these questions to some extent. (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtue of character is a state of the non-rational part of the soul that makes one prone to making and acting on decisions in virtue of that part’s standing in the right relation to (correct) reason, namely, a relation that qualifies the agent as a true self-lover. In effect, this central feature of virtue of character is nothing else than love of practical wisdom. As I argue, it not only explains how reason can hold direct (...) authority over non-rational desires but also why Aristotle defines virtue of character as hexis prohairetikē. (shrink)

In the last lines of Politics VII, 3, Aristotle states that the happy city acts nobly. This implies that the city has a practical life, and that this life has its end in itself. This claim seems to contradict the famous distinction, which has been made elsewhere by Aristotle, between the practical and theoretical (or contemplative) lives. It is argued in this paper that there is, here, neither contradiction nor inconsistency in Aristotle’s conception of human action. Some readings, according to (...) which this passage deals with the role of the philosophers in the happy city, are also ruled out. The proposed solution consists in showing that this text refers to a broader conception of action, one that is beyond the sphere of human practical activities: any genuine praxis has its goal in itself, even when it produces external effects. (shrink)

Why do human beings, on Aristotle’s view, have an innate tendency to badness, that is, to developing desires that go beyond and against their natural needs? Given Aristotle’s teleological assumptions (including the thesis that nature does nothing in vain), such tendency should not be present. I argue that the culprit is to be found in the workings of rationality, in particular in the (necessary) presence of theoretical reason. As theoretical reason requires that human beings have unlimited non-rational desires for the (...) fine (to kalon), it also gives rise to a tendency to form unlimited non-rational desires for other things. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the efficient cause of one’s actions qua individual. I also argue that Aristotle’s conception of the efficient cause of an action brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame even in the case of non-rational animals. In the case of rational agents, this practice involves a further normative layer: they can be praised or blamed not only (...) for acting in a certain way, but also for being, and having become, individuals of a certain sort. (shrink)

I have sought to keep a running tabulation of all books, edited collections, translations, and journal articles that are substantially devoted to Aristotle’s ethical and political writings (excluding their historical reception and neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, both of which are subjects that require their own bibliographies). Criteria for inclusion in this bibliography are: (1) published after January 1, 2011 and before December 31, 2020 in a peer-reviewed journal or volume published by an academic press; (2) devoted to one of Aristotle’s ethical (...) or political works (e.g., Politics, Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Magna Moralia, Oeconomica, Athenian Constitution, Protrepticus); and/or (3) devoted to ethical or political concepts examined elsewhere in Aristotle’s corpus (e.g., Rhetoric, Poetics, zoological treatises, etc.). Although this bibliography includes primarily Anglophone scholarship, it aims to include scholarship written in all modern languages. I encourage scholars to notify me about published works that I have omitted or listed incorrectly. (shrink)

This paper has two aims: First, to provide an elucidation of the kind of meta-ethical programme at work in Mary Midgley's (1919-2018) Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (published in 1978). Second, to make the case for Midgley's placement within the philosophical and philosophical-historical canon, specifically, as an important figure within the meta-ethical movement of ‘Neo-Aristotelian naturalism'. On historical and systematic grounds, I argue that Midgley should be classified as a neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalist notwithstanding the distinctive features of (...) Midgley’s specific brand of neo-Aristotelianism. In doing so, I suggest a more generally applicable family resemblance approach to the history of philosophy in order to classify and re-introduce into the canon figures in the history of philosophy that are in danger of falling into oblivion. (shrink)

Heidegger’s debt to Aristotle is, of course, vast: Volpi went so far as to ask whether Being and Time was a translation of the Nicomachean Ethics. In this chapter, I want to investigate a fundamental divergence between the two, a rejection by early Heidegger of one of the central tenets of Aristotelian ethics. This rejection begins in the years before Being and Time and the forces behind it extend into the post-war period. I will focus in particular on Ga18, 1924’s (...) Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy: what Heidegger’s Aristotle rejects there, in effect, is the notion of character. -/- What makes this rejection so complex and so revealing is that Heidegger’s interpretative approach forces him to present disagreement as discovery, as an insight into a true Aristotle who has remained concealed. My claim here is not the familiar one that Heideggerian history of philosophy is exegetically ‘violent’ or that it frequently tells us more about Heidegger than about its supposed target. Rather, it is more specific. Texts such as Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy present a unique exegetical situation. This is because Heidegger lacks several of the interpretative tools that will justify his radical reading of Kant just a few years later: I will examine in particular his changing conception of “philology”. The result is that, whilst commentators routinely talk of Heidegger’s “appropriation” of Kant, Heidegger’s early use of Aristotle is simultaneously more complex and less refined. “Perversion” is, one might think, scarcely a rigorous term, but it is, I will argue, the best description of what follows. (shrink)

Aristotle recognises preternatural affections in numerous passages from his ethical writings, where he claims that some desires and emotions are beyond human nature, too strong for our nature to withstand, and that an action motivated by them is συγγνωμονικὸν: something excusable. However, there has been some reluctance among scholars to explicitly acknowledge that Aristotle recognised preternatural affections as a category of excuse in its own right. The aim of this paper is to remove the obstacles that stand in the way (...) of such a recognition, and to show that Aristotle developed a normative account of preternatural affections, based on the natural human capacity to withstand, allowing him to class them as genuine cases of βία, compulsion. (shrink)

Aristotle tells us that engaging in shared activity with friends involves ‘co-perception’ (συναίσθησις). On my reading, such co-perception is valuable because it enables an agent to perceive her own being or activity more fully. Since self-awareness is an essential dimension of living well as a rational creature but is only possible in its ideal form through friendship, Aristotle can, on this basis, show why even the self-sufficient person needs friends.

In Nicomachean Ethics v 5, Aristotle holds that the measure of a just exchange is need (χρεία), since need serves as the motive for exchange. This article attempts to make sense of that puzzling inference from motive to measure. The solution is to appreciate the political dimension of Aristotle’s treatment of exchange: equal need-meeting is just because it keeps the polis together and, in that way, promotes the common benefit.

The question of whether there is a distinct kind of practical truth has its source in Aristotle's claim that "[I]n the case of thought that is theoretical, and not practical nor productive, ‘well’ and ‘badly’ consist in the true and the false (that is, after all, the function of any faculty of thought), but that of a faculty of practical thought is truth in agreement with the correct appetite." (EN 6.2.1139a27-30) Although medieval philosophers do not share many of the presuppositions (...) common to contemporary philosophers and historians of ancient philosophy, they do share their puzzlement over the same Aristotelian texts. I will argue that both Thomas Aquinas and John Scotus shed light on the issue in that they avoid the more extreme positions of either severing practical truth from action entirely or of holding that the truth of practical statements is entirely different from our ordinary notions of truth. Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus plausibly understand Aristotle to hold that practical truth includes the ordinary truth and falsehood of statements. They also show that in addition to such truth and falsehood there must be some real or possible connection with appetite. Thomas interprets practical truth as importantly and essentially distinct from theoretical truth without arguing that it can be severed from the truth of statements, or that such truth primarily belongs to actions rather than statements. In contrast, Scotus’s account prefigures those contemporary accounts that make the actual connection to action in some way inessential to the practically true statement, even though on Scotus's account a kind of relation to the action is essential. Both accounts are reasonable and preferable to many contemporary accounts. (shrink)

In his recent book 'Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity,' Alasdair MacIntyre argues that expressivist metaethics invalidates NeoAristotelian first-order moral theory. In this paper, I will challenge this claim by developing an expressivist reading of NeoAristotelian first-order theory that is inspired by Harry Frankfurt. I will then show how this reading is able to make sense of the moral transformations that MacIntyre thinks are only intelligible within a NeoAristotelian metaethical framework. Specifically, I will focus on the transformation of desire under (...) the tutelage of one’s elders, and the acquisition of sociological self-awareness through shared deliberation with one’s friends. While MacIntyre offers an interesting NeoAristotelian account of these moral transformations, he has failed to show how these transformations are invalidated by expressivism. (shrink)

Introducing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to undergraduates, which is the explicit goal of Michael Pakaluk’s volume, is both easy and difficult. On one level, Aristotle’s text takes a common-sense view of human goodness and the qualities productive of it, a view which resonates with students when they reflect upon the general question of what they seek in life or whom they admire. Topics such as friendship, recognition (a.k.a., ‘honor’), self-improvement, and well-being are part of every student’s lived-experience and Aristotle’s discussion of (...) such topics reaches students ‘where they live’, as it were. And yet, on another level, as any student or teacher of the Nicomachean Ethics has discovered, Aristotle’s text presents numerous philosophical, exegetical, and editorial difficulties. For instance, Aristotle’s discussion of whether friendship is necessary for happiness (EN ix 9) is eminently practical and its conclusion almost trivially commonsensical; and yet Aristotle’s argument in support of the claim that friendship is necessary for happiness contains one of the most impenetrable discussions in the Ethics, namely the account of the apparently reflexive perceptions which only two friends can share (1170a13-b17), a phenomenon that goes to the very question of whether Aristotle possesses a notion of self-consciousness. (shrink)

Virtue ethics seems to be intertwined to the very fabric of Marine Corps leadership development, yet I have not seen it referred to by name in any doctrinal publication or formal schoolhouse curriculum. It permeates everything from our Leadership Traits to the NCO Creed, yet I have not seen virtue ethics given the credit it is due. I argue that because we regularly quote military strategists, cite military commanders from all of human history, and rightly use real life leadership examples (...) in much of our Professional Military Education we should also give virtue ethics a formal place in the Marine Corps leadership lexicon. (shrink)

Happiness, then, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world.'In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle's guiding question is: what is the best thing for a human being? His answer is happiness, but he means, not something we feel, but rather a specially good kind of life. Happiness is made up of activities in which we use the best human capacities, both ones that contribute to our flourishing as members of a community, and ones that allow us to engage (...) in god-like contemplation. Contemporary ethical writings on the role and importance of the moral virtues such as courage and justice have drawn inspiration from this work, which also contains important discussions on responsibility for actions, on the nature of practical reasoning, and on friendship and its role in the best life. This new edition retains David Ross's justly admired translation while updating certain key terms. It also includes a valuable introduction to this seminal work, and notes designed to elucidate Aristotle's arguments. (shrink)

The standard view of the relationship between the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics, and their shared “Common Books” ( AE ) holds that the NE and the AE share a more sophisticated moral psychology compared to the EE. I argue that this is backwards. The undisputed books of the NE (I–IV, VIII–X) are committed to a three-part soul, which combines theoretical and practical wisdom. The AE argues for a four-part soul, distinguishing theoretical and practical wisdom. The undisputed EE books (I–III, (...) VII–VIII) endorse the same four-part model. This suggests two conclusions: (a) the AE and EE are harmonious, while the AE and NE conflict on point of fundamental doctrine; (b) the EE does better than the NE on the standard view’s own criteria that a model of the soul with more distinctions and parts is more sophisticated. (shrink)

Pleasure (hêdonê), the topic of Nicomachean Ethics VII 11–14 and X 1–4, is an indispensable element of happiness; a painful or sorrowful happiness would be a contradiction in terms. The discussion about pleasure starts from what everyday people or the wise ones say about it. There are three prevalent views: (1) that pleasure is not at all a good, (2) that some pleasures are good while some are base, and (3) that pleasure is something good, but not the highest good. (...) Aristotle disagrees with all of them. Yet one can hardly give a definition of pleasure. To do so, we should explain why pleasures don’t fit to what we call “movement” (kinêsis); at least, not all of them or not the most paradigmatic ones. If we accept this conclusion and if the pair “movement vs activity” is our main clue for understanding pleasure, then it makes sense to maintain that pleasure is not a movement but rather an activity. Nonetheless, there is something obscure in the claim that pleasure is an activity. Human beings are engaged in many different activities, such as seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering, acting justly or unjustly, etc., and each one of them has its proper pleasure. But there is no activity named “pleasure” that stands next to the activities of seeing, thinking, remembering, etc. Thus, although nothing but an activity can be a pleasure in the full sense of term and although the definition of pleasure as an activity will not be abandoned, it needs further unpacking. The chapter offers a detailed and unitary reconstruction of Aristotle’s views about pleasure in Books VII and X and an analysis of the definition of pleasure as a sort of supervenient end. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to establish a connection between Heidegger’s conception of authenticity and the Aristotelian σπουδαῖος. Through an exploration of Heidegger’s reference to authenticity, Aristotle’s concept of σπουδαῖος, and a reinterpretation of Heidegger’s reappropriation of certain Aristotelian concepts, such as αἴσθησις, πίστις and προαίρεσις, we wish to show that the authentic Dasein has assumed full responsibility of its role in life, and it has developed ontologically, in the same way a σπουδαῖος man acknowledges one’s full potentiality in purposeful (...) action. The σπουδαῖος as the authentic Dasein grasps the moment, gives rise to the occasion by directing one’s judgement towards the praxis, and comes to provide its own stance in the facticity of life. In fact, the σπουδαῖος, like an authentic Dasein, in a way, comes to reflect the synthesis between θεωρία and πράξις as well as an implicit effort for Dasein to uncover itself to the world and to allow the world to uncover to it. (shrink)

This paper argues that Aristotle in Eudemian Ethics (EE) 8.2 invalidates the question of whether good luck, understood as irrational but continuous success in performing virtuous actions, can produce happiness. The ‘lucky’ people in EE 8.2 possess what Aristotle elsewhere calls ‘natural virtue’. By attributing their success to nature and god instead of luck, he denies they have genuine good luck. This denial reveals that the question of whether such ‘good luck’ can lead to happiness is inherently misconceived. On this (...) interpretation, the examination of good luck in the EE takes a significantly different approach than its counterpart in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). (shrink)

This entry presents an exploration of Aristotle’s perspectives on economics, underscoring his seminal influence on economic thought and his distinctive approach that intertwines economics with ethics and moral philosophy. Aristotle defines economics (oikonomia) as “household management”, focusing on household organization and the production and consumption of goods. A pivotal aspect of Aristotle’s economic thought is the intrinsic linkage between ethics and economics, with ethics pertaining to the individual aspects of behaviour, like virtue, profit and its relation to happiness (eudaimonia). Aristotle’s (...) approach is normative, encompassing reflections on actions and alternatives, considering both facts and values. He emphasizes moderation as the guiding principle of ethical virtues related to economics, advocating for the avoidance of extremes in the pursuit of wealth and in economic transactions. (shrink)

Yong Huang defends a meta-ethical moral realism (as opposed to anti-realism) that is naturalistic (as opposed to non-naturalistic) and focused on agents (as opposed to actions). In my response, I focus on two questions that Huang’s paper raises: (1) Do we have good reason to reject Aristotelian naturalism? (2) Do we have good reason to hold that the virtues are objective in the way that Zhu Xi suggests, viz., as strongly constitutive of human nature? In response to (1), I argue (...) that Aristotelian naturalism has resources for addressing Huang’s worries. In response to (2), I argue that alternative Mencian and Aristotelian views can account for the phenomena to which Zhu Xi appeals, yet without insisting that the virtues are strongly constitutive of human nature. (shrink)

In this article, we present a neo-Aristotelian formulation of the doctrine of the mean. We begin by describing the classical formulation of the doctrine by Aristotle, as presented in the Nicomachean Ethics. We also introduce the fundamental elements that govern the matrices of concepts (Franceschi 2002). We then propose a new formulation of the doctrine of the mean, directly derived from the very structure of the matrices of concepts. We also compare the present formulation of the doctrine of the mean (...) with that of Aristotle, highlighting the similarities and differences. We further offer an interpretation of the Aristotelian formulation of the doctrine of the mean. Finally, we demonstrate how the neo-Aristotelian version of the doctrine of the mean addresses several objections, particularly those traditionally raised against its Aristotelian version. (shrink)

The Ruse of Techne offers a reappraisal of Heidegger’s entire work by focusing on the forms of activity he regards as separate from instrumentality. Non-instrumental activities like authenticity, poetry, and thinking—in short, the ineffectual—are critical for Heidegger as they offer the only path to the truth of being throughout his work. -/- By unearthing the source of the conception of non-instrumental action in Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle, Vardoulakis elaborates how it forms part of Heidegger’s response to an old problem, namely, (...) how to account for difference after positing a single and unified being that is not amenable to change. He further demonstrates that an action without ends and effects leads to an ethics and politics rife with difficulties and contradictions that only become starker when compared to other responses to the same problem that we find in the philosophical tradition and which rely on instrumentality. -/- Heidegger’s conception of an action without ends or effect forgets the role of instrumentality in the tradition that posits a single, unified being. And yet, the ineffectual has had a profound influence in how continental philosophy determines the ethical and the political since World War II. The critique of the ineffectual in Heidegger is thus effectively a critique of the conception of praxis in continental philosophy. Vardoulakis proposes that it is urgent to undo the forgetting of instrumentality if we are to conceive of a democratic politics and an ethics fit to respond to the challenges of high capitalism. (shrink)