Nicomachean Ethics Themes

Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century B.C., was the first philosopher to study ethics as a distinct field. For Aristotle, ethics is about discovering the highest good for an individual and a community, and that requires, first, an understanding of the end toward which all human beings ultimately strive. In the driving argument for the whole of his ethical treatise, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that the highest good is happiness, and…

To live a happy life, Aristotle claims, it’s necessary to know which virtues one must put into practice in order to attain happiness. Aristotle identifies two types of virtue—virtues of thought, which are associated with the rational part of the soul (these include prudence, understanding, and deliberation), and virtues of character, which are associated with the cooperation of the nonrational parts of the soul with reason (these include bravery, temperance, generosity, and truthfulness, among…

Because Nicomachean Ethics is the earliest systematic treatise on ethics, it’s not surprising that it contains extensive discussion of practical virtues and their concrete application in the everyday world (that is, political science). What’s more surprising is Aristotle’s digression near the end of the work, in which he elevates the life of contemplative study above even political science. He soon concludes, however, that the study of legislation, even if second best, is more…