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The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford World's Classics)

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"Every art or applied science and every systematic investigation, and similarly every action and choice, seem to aim at some good; the good, therefore, has been well defined as that which all things aim."

In his Ethics, Aristotle does little more than to search for and examine the "good." Aristotle examines the virtues and vices of man in all of his faculties.

Aristotle refers to three types of lives, the common life, the political life, and the contemplative life, to which he assigns the highest order. Certainly, this is the most difficult life. Similar to Plato, Aristotle believed that "the unexamined life is a life not worth living." Aristotle does nothing other to examine the life of man and what is the best life to live.

Unlike Plato, you do not need to read the entire work to walk away with some useful insight into life. Though the over 100 chapters, divided into ten books, flow and build upon each other, you can read just one of them and be benefited. Aristotle covers many different subjects such as the good, morals, virtue, vice, courage, generosity, justice, intelligence, art, science, friendship, love, pleasure, and pain.

I can not say enough for the depth of insight Aristotle has into living the good life. Nicomachean Ethics is well written and presented in a clear manner that should be accessible to most readers. This is a must read for everyone.

The Oxford edition (ISBN: 019283407X) is great, but stay away from the Dover Thrift edition and the Prometheus editions (those editions I give one star).

Aristotle's book is essential reading for the student of the history of Ethics, though it is certainly not the first ethical system in the history of philosophy.

About the Dover edition, not all of the words are translated in the text, which is rather annoying for anyone with no knowledge of the ancient Greek language. Also, it is far from an easy read, even in portions that are completely translated.

About the Prometheus edition, it is a reprint of the Welldon translation, but without his introduction or his index (Prometheus seems to be trying to save a little money, but it makes it much less valuable.) Also, Prometheus renumbered the pages WITHOUT renumbering the references in the margins (if you already purchased this poorly made edition, add 8 to all of the pages in the marginal notes). But wait, there is more that is wrong with this edition! Prometheus omitted a note that explains that the pages referred to in the footnotes are to a different standard edition, so don't bother trying to find those references within the book. All in all, a disgraceful job of reprinting the book. I advise staying away from Prometheus editions whenever possible; see the reviews of Hobbes' Leviathan for another example of their efforts.

Along with many other virtues, Aristotle has the characteristic of being extremely systematic and ordered in his exposition of subjects. It is believed that he, like Plato, wrote dialogues to illuminate his philosophy, and that those dialogues are lost and all we have is his notes for class. It is good we still keep so many notes, because of its said order and clarity. Of course, it is not an easy reading (although I wouldn't put him either among the obscure and dark philosophers). It is rigorous philosophy exposed without useless digressions.

Aristotle tells us that all extremes are bad. We have to find the "golden middle". Then he proceeds to expose different sets of extremes and the virtuous middle of the road. Being mad with fury is bad, but being insensible to outrageous actions is also a measure of inhumanity and extreme weakness of character. And so with the other virtues and vices.

Aristotle's system is still relevant because of the simple fact that he treats features of the human soul that are universal, regardless of time and place. His theories do not come from Divine revelation or from any mystical source. They come from common sense, and an acute observation of the humankind. Aristotle tells us that we must moderate our primal impulses and instincts, and live by the rule of reason and reasonability. No wonder Aristotle is the source of rigorous, systematic and realist Western philosophy, as opposed to the more literary, poetic and idealist school that comes from Plato, Aristotle's mentor. His is an almost scientific approach, certainly not "entertainment" or Tarot philosophy. It needs no recommendation; it has proved to be a universal work of the mind, one that will stay extant through the ages, as it has already been. Anyone interested in serious philosophy reads this at some point, hopefully an early one. It is of great help when trying to elucidate what is good and what is bad; when trying to figure out if there is a light to guide our behavior and attitude towards the world and our fellow humans. Follow the golden middle and you will eventually find a sense to everyday life, if not to the more torturing reflections on Being. For this last task, read the rest of Aristotle's work, especially the Metaphysics (which have absolutely nothing to do with what cheap deceivers know these days as metaphysics). This is rigorous philosophy, not courses on "excellence" and self-promotion.

The Nicomachean Ethics is the first systematic description of an ethical system. It has the clearest formulation of the questions that Ethics asks: 1. How should we live? 2. Why? 3. Why is that best? Aristotle's answer to 1. is that we should avoid extremes, because (answering 2.) every extreme is evil, and (answering 3.) since the opposite of any extreme is itself an evil extreme, we must therefore avoid extremes. The book has been read by every serious ethical philosopher since history began. Because of this, every serious ethical work can (and should) be read as a dialogue with Aristotle, as he sets the rules, and then challenges, "I know of no good that crosses all the categories . . . but in each category there is one particular good." Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals is an attempt to find a normative good that crosses all categories, a "categorical imperative." Likewise Bentham's discussion of what has come to be called utilitarian ethics. Really, a most important book.

Several reviewers have submitted that the highest life Aristotle proposes consists in "hard work" or is "the most difficult life." I am afraid this language does not accurately present Aristotle's description. Aristotle writes in these lecture notes that the contemplative life is "superior to the human level" (1177b27). Yet, he distinguishes it from the secondary lives by saying that these secondary lives "require trouble" (1177b18).

Aristotle calls the contemplative life the most pleasant life (1177a25ff). Certainly, study can be hard work; but this is not hard work in the sense of toil. To work towards the truth and contemplate it once attained requires little strain. It is done as the virtuous agent does the right action in any given circumstance: with ease. Through the influence of Kant (and possibly the Stoics), we often associate virtue with denying the passions and overcoming the greatest obstacles; likewise, we associate vice with the passions overcoming reason. In this sense, the most virtuous person would have no passions at all. However, Aristotle suggests that passions only conflict with reason in a lower moral character. When reason prevails and one does the right action against passion's urges, he calls this 'enkrasia'; when the passions overcome, he calls this 'akrasia'.

However, the internal discord present in these characters are not present in the virtuous (and the vicious). The virtuous character is the most reliable and participates in the definition of virtue itself because the agent has habituated the passions to follow reason. His or her passions actually encourage the agent to do what is right. (Note: the vicious agent, through doing base actions, no longer recognizes them as such, and so reason and passion coincide in doing what is wrong).

Applying these distinctions to the contemplative life, we see that this activity is not work at all in the sense of toil. The activity requires effort for sure; but, this effort is the most enjoyable for the agent. It engages what is highest in the human person and when it is carried out through a (morally and intellectually) virtuous character, this activity turns out to be the most pleasurable. So while pleasure is not the human good and not the measure of happiness, it is wrong to think that the good life is not pleasant for the eudaimon. It is only a stuggle for those still on the way to achieving it.

It seems rather foolish to 'review' Aristotle, THE Philosopher. Nothing in the Western intellectual tradition isn't touched by Aristotle's works. The Nichomachean Ethics, unlike say, the largely irrelevant Physics, or extremeley esoteric Metaphysics, is a very accessible. It's also the work that probably best sums up Aristotle's practical philosophy. To summerize in a way that is completely insulting to the work, Aristotle applies his idea of moderation, the Golden mean, to numerous ethical situatlions, in an attempt to discover what constitutes the Good life and the Good man. AS previous reviewers have said, there isn't a chapter of Aristotle that does not produce some revalation or insight. And with over 100 chapters...well, you get the idea. Anyway, in addition to providing a basis for understanding the very workings of ethics and morals in a timeless sense, reading Aristotle changes the way in which you think. Literally. He has a distinctive, ordered, logical philosophy that anyone who want to be taken seriously in argument needs to learn. Simply, this is only of the most important books ever written, and anyone, philosophy scholar or not, owes it to him or her self to read it.

A previous reviewer described Nicomachean Ethics as "the art of living." I would agree with this sentiment. Aristotle not only teaches the art of living - but he teaches us that it is hard work. Such a conviction stands in stark contrast to the facile solutions that are contrived for "happiness" today. Happiness is not easy. It may not even feel like what we assume it is in our contemporary society (i.e., a feeling of pleasure, self-esteem, material goods). It is much deeper. It is about living the good life. A must read for all those interested in psychotherapy, education, and "the art of living."

Not worth the read. Many phrases misleadingly translated. Reflects the large and un-Aristotelian preoccupation with rules of modern moral philosophy.

Alternative recommendation: J.A.K. Thomson's translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Penguin Classics.

After the reading of Plato the reading of his greatest pupil Aristotle seems difficult and uninspiring. Yet Aristotle is in many areas at the foundation of Western thought. He is the master of all who know whose thought about the universe and the way it works dominated Western thought for close to one thousand years. In the Nicomeanan ethics named after his son who edited the work Aristotle sets out his idea of what the good life is for the human being. For Aristotle every element of nature has its own essence that defines what its goal is . This is also true for the human being whose pursuit of good is to lead to eudaimonia ' happiness'. Aristotle talks about three areas of human endeavor, the common everyday area, the political area and the contemplative. For Aristotle the highest life is the life of contemplation and the few who attain this realize the human potential to the full. In his ethics Aristotle emphasizes the 'golden mean' as the path to right action. Between two extremes for instance timidity and rashness comes the virtue of courage. The Ethics aims to teach us what human beings are in essence and how to fully become themselves. In this realization of our own inherent nature we live in a true way.
This short summary does of course not do justice to the Ethics, or to the many subtleties of Aristotle's ethical thought. I believe to get to those subtleties more than reading of this great work is required. Only careful study will help here.

Aristotle was a philosopher in search of the chief good for human beings. This chief good is eudaimonia, which is often translated as 'happiness' (but can also be translated as 'thriving' or 'flourishing'). Aristotle sees pleasure, honour and virtue as significant 'wants' for people, and then argues that virtue is the most important of these.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes the claim that happiness is something which is both precious and final. This seems to be so because it is a first principle or ultimate starting point. For, it is for the sake of happiness that we do everything else, and we regard the cause of all good things to be precious and divine. Moreover, since happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with complete and perfect virtue, it is necessary to consider virtue, as this will be the best way of studying happiness.

How many of us today speak of happiness and virtue in the same breath? Aristotle's work in the Nicomachean Ethics is considered one of his greatest achievements, and by extension, one of the greatest pieces of philosophy from the ancient world. When the framers of the American Declaration of Independence were thinking of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there is little doubt they had an acquaintance with Aristotle's work connecting happiness, virtue, and ethics together.

When one thinks of ethical ideas such as an avoidance of extremes, of taking the tolerant or middle ground, or of taking all things in moderation, one is tapping into Aristotle's ideas. It is in the Nicomachean Ethics that Aristotle proposes the Doctrine of the Mean - he states that virtue is a 'mean state', that is, it aims for the mean or middle ground. However, Aristotle is often misquoted and misinterpreted here, for he very quickly in the text disallows the idea of the mean to be applied in all cases. There are things, actions and emotions, that do not allow the mean state. Thus, Aristotle tends to view virtue as a relative state, making the analogy with food - for some, two pounds of meat might be too much food, but for others, it might be too little. The mean exists between the state of deficiency, too little, and excessiveness, too much.

Aristotle proposes many different examples of virtues and vices, together with their mean states. With regard to money, being stingy and being illiberal with generosity are the extremes, the one deficient and the other excessive. The mean state here would be liberality and generosity, a willingness to buy and to give, but not to extremes. Anger, too, is highlighted as having a deficient state (too much passivity), an excessive state (too much passion) and a mean state (a gentleness but firmness with regard to emotions).

Aristotle states that one of the difficulties with leading a virtuous life is that it takes a person of science to find the mean between the extremes (or, in some cases, Aristotle uses the image of a circle, the scientist finding the centre). Many of us, being imperfect humans, err on one side or the other, choosing in Aristotle's words, the lesser of two evils. Aristotle's wording here, that a scientist is the only one fully capable of virtue, has a different meaning for scientist - this is a pre-modern, pre-Enlightenment view; for Aristotle, the person of science is one who is capable of observation and calculation, and this can take many different forms.

Aristotle uses different kinds of argumentation in the Nicomachean Ethics. He uses a dialectical method, as well as a functional method. In the dialectical method, there are opposing ideas held in tension, whose interactions against each other yield a result - this is often how the mean between extremes is derived. However, there are other times that Aristotle seems to prefer a more direct, functional approach. Both of these methods lead to the same understanding for Aristotle's sense of the rational - that humanity's highest or final good is happiness.

There is a discussion of the human soul (for this is where virtue and happiness reside). Aristotle argues that virtue is not a natural state; we are not born with nor do we acquire through any natural processes virtue, but rather through 'habitation', an embedding process or enculturation that makes these a part of our soul. However, it is not sufficient for Aristotle's virtue that one merely function as a virtuous person or that virtuous things be done. This is not a skill, but rather an art, and to be virtuous, one must live virtuously and act virtuously with intention as well as form.

Of course, one of the implications here is that virtue is a quantifiable thing, that periodically resurfaces in later philosophies. How do we calculate virtue?

This is a difficult question, and not one that Aristotle answers in any definitive way. However, more important than this is the key difference that Aristotle displayed setting himself apart from his tutor Plato; rather than seeing the possession of 'the good' or 'virtue' as the highest ideal, Aristotle is concerned with the practical aspects, the ethics of this. Based on Aristotle's lectures in Athens in the fourth century BCE, this remains one of the most important works on ethical and moral philosophy in history.