Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
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In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics we are treated to the great philosopher’s ideas on justice, both natural and legal forms of justice. In Nichomachean Ethics, we see that Aristotle views happiness as the highest goal of life. However, he is not talking about the kind of happiness that is associated with material objects and pursuits such as pleasure, fame, and wealth. These do not afford the individual the highest form of happiness, one that may be achieved only through the contemplation of philosophy. This is because man’s unique feature and the characteristic that distinguishes him from all other animals is his virtue of ration. Aristotle believes the contemplation of philosophic truth is crucial to achieving the highest form of happiness because it exercises man’s ration.When it comes to justice, the good of the individual is akin to the good of the city-state. Human good is really a political concern in Aristotle. In Nicomachean Ethics we see that self-sufficient contemplation of truth by the individual constitutes the ideal good life, but we also see that man is a political animal in nature who needs friendship and other-directed virtues like courage, generosity and justice if he is to achieve well-being. Justice in nature was teleological to Aristotle. A thing’s just nature was determined by its successful operation in achieving its goal “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every acti
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A city-state has its goal, i.e., it is designed to achieve, the well-being of the city-state, one which ideally achieves well-being for all citizens. Laws, therefore, to be just must be designed with this aim. Democracy is a preferable form of government to Aristotle because it allows for a more stable form of governing than say an oligarchy, and its laws are more likely to be based on ration and wiser because of Aristotle’s belief that groups of individuals were wiser than a few individuals. Further, we do not achieve virtue or wisdom just because we are humans but because being human we are equipped with unique capacities that allows us to achieve them if we lead the right life, i.e., exercise of ration through contemplation if philosophical truth. Like builders, lyre players, or others, by virtue of beings these things men are either good builders and lyre players or bad ones. Likewise with virtue, they either lead good lives or bad lives. It is our exercise, our practice, our actions by which we become just or unjust much as through its own the city-state becomes just or unjust “This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, a
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Approximate Word count = 1241
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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