Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

The purpose of this research is to examine Aristotle's account of moral habituation and responsibility as articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which Aristotle's description of private virtue and social responsibility emerges, and then to discuss Aristotle's reasons for claiming that the habits of moral excellence (virtue) are formed in childhood on one hand and how that view can be reconciled with the view that virtue involves choice on the other.

To appreciate Aristotle's explanation of virtue and responsibility as aspects of ethics, it is first necessary to realize the world view from which that explanation arises. Aristotle views ethics as a so-called practical science, which is to say that ethics is something that has application to real life beyond the merely theoretical. That means ethics entails action and behavior and that any actions undertaken have a purpose beyond their ethical nature. Action itself aims at what eventually comes to be called a good, and the good is something not simply to be thought about but rather to be experienced directly and practically by human beings. "It makes no difference," Aristotle says, "whether the activities themselves are the ends of the action, or something beyond the activities" (I.i.87). As a practical science, the central figure of the human being as the actor or the practitioner of the science is important. But for Aristotle, it is not enough that the individual be the practitioner of ethics. The individual's purpose, while not irrelevant, is not the ultimate purpose of the practice of ethics; his practice of ethics within the larger social context of the state, which is for Aristotle the "supreme good," is.

Does it not follow then that the knowledge of this good is of great importance for the conduct of life? . . . [S]ince politics makes use of the other sciences and also rules what people may do and what they may not ...

Page 1 of 11 Next >

More on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:06, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712136.html