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Book I of Aristotle's Ethics

The purpose of this research is to examine Book I of Aristotle's Ethics. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms Aristotle's ethical theory, and then to discuss the goals and achievements of the Ethics in respect of the main arguments made in the work, especially relative to analyses of the highest achievable good and the aim of happiness as functions of ethics and virtue.

Aristotle's theory of ethics is that it is one of the practical sciences, which is to say that ethics is something that has application to real life, beyond the merely theoretical. Ethics therefore involves action as well as a discussion about contingent ethical decisions. Just as ethics involves something beyond theory, any actions undertaken have a practical purpose beyond their mere ethical nature. Actions on this view point in the direction of what eventually come to be called goods. "It makes no difference," Aristotle says, "whether the ends of the actions are the activities themselves or something apart from them" (Aristotle, 1976, p. 63). In this regard, Ackrill notes that Aristotle's making certain actions have relevance to results that may be connected to the actions but that extend beyond such actions implies that the results or consequences of the actions are of paramount. Success or failure of an action, he says, "depends on the outcome, and that is the point" (Ackrill, 1980, p. 19). Actions have consequences, and that means that the moral quality attached to projection of any actions into the world has implications for the character and fate of that world.

As a practical science, ethics perforce involves the figure of the rational human being as the central actor or the practitioner of the science. While the individual as the practitioner of ethics is not unimportant, the individual's purpose, like ethical theory and action, extends beyond itself. On the other hand, there is a limit of extension beyond which the a...

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Book I of Aristotle's Ethics. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:29, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690113.html