Aristotle's Ethics
- LAST REVIEWED: 27 November 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 November 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0079
- LAST REVIEWED: 27 November 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 November 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0079
Introduction
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (EN) is the first part of what Aristotle calls “a philosophy of human things” (EN X.9.1181b15), one which finds its completion in Aristotle’s Politics (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article Aristotle’s Politics). (Throughout this article, references to Ethics or EN are to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; for the relationship of the Nicomachean Ethics to Aristotle’s other ethical writings, including the Eudemian Ethics (EE), see Relationship between the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics.) The work inaugurates the study of “ethics” as an independent discipline, albeit a discpline which is broader than modern notions of morality, which is primarily practical rather than theoretical, and which is the companion study to politics. The Ethics sets as its goal the understanding of the human good, or eudaimonia, which Aristotle describes as “an activity of the soul in accord with virtue” (I.7.1098a16–17). Its analyses range over the nature of the human soul, the notion of moral responsibility, the ethical and intellectual qualities—called virtues—that are perfections of the nonrational and rational parts of the soul, ways in which reason and desire are unified and in conflict, the nature of pleasure, and the various kinds of friendship that contribute to the human good. Although the work includes a treasure trove of passages that paint a picture of 4th-century Greek social and linguistic practices, the work’s most lasting significance has been its articulation of a philosophical vocabulary and framework to address many of the central questions concerning human well-being.
General Overviews
Kraut 2010 is the best short introduction appropriate for students and nonspecialists. Pakaluk 2005 is the best book-length introduction for students and nonspecialists (with a select introduction to secondary literature for graduate level students); older, but still valuable is Urmson 1988, which is also addressed to undergraduates, as is Hughes 2013, which includes questions to stimulate classroom discussion at the beginning of each chapter. Meyer 2008 and Irwin 2007 share the virtue of providing a detailed consideration against the backdrop of Aristotle’s predecessors and successors. Although Annas 1993 situates Aristotle within the framework of ancient ethical theories, it seeks to do so in a way that makes ancient ethical theory intelligible to contemporary ethical theorists. Sachs 2005 introduces the Ethics through a focus on the notions (and what he believes are the mistranslations or misunderstandings) of the terms hexis (habit), meson (mean), and kalon (noble). Shields 2007 surveys basic themes within the framework of a general introduction to Aristotle’s thought.
Annas, J. 1993. The morality of happiness. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Survey of the structure of ancient ethical theories, organized into four main themes: the nature of the virtues, the appeal to nature, the nature of the good life, and the possibility of ethical change. Within each section, numerous chapters are devoted to the discussion of the relevant Aristotelian texts.
Hughes, G. J. 2013. The Routledge guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics. London: Routledge.
Introductory volume that includes chapters on Aristotle’s life, major topics within the Ethics, and a concluding chapter on the differences between contemporary and classical ethical theories. Individual chapters include study questions for students (e.g., “Is Aristotle’s view of moral training tantamount to indoctrination?”).
Irwin, T. H. 2007. The development of ethics: A historical and critical study. Vol. 1, From Socrates to the Reformation. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
First volume in a three-volume history of ethics by a preeminent Aristotle scholar. Includes four chapters on Aristotle’s ethics and situates his works against the backdrop of classical, Hellenistic, and medieval ethical theories.
Kraut, R. 2010. Aristotle’s Ethics. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Edited by E. N. Zalta.
Clear and concise overview of the major themes by a major Aristotle scholar; includes glossary and bibliography.
Meyer, S. S. 2008. Ancient ethics: A critical introduction. London and New York: Routledge.
Excellent introduction to ancient ethical theory generally, with a philosophically rich chapter devoted to Aristotle. Includes notes with references to major scholarly literature.
Pakaluk, M. 2005. Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics: An introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Superb introductory volume that not only explores the main problems within the work, but also includes pedagogic models for how to analyze the argumentative structure of Aristotle’s writings and philosophical analysis of major problems in the text. Designed for undergraduates but thought-provoking for more specialized readers.
Sachs, J. 2005. Aristotle’s Ethics. In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by J. Fieser and B. Dowden.
Introduction to the text that focuses on three central terms or concepts within the Ethics: habit, the mean, and the noble.
Shields, C. 2007. Aristotle. London and New York: Routledge.
Book-length general introduction to Aristotle’s life and all his writings. Includes chapters on all the major aspects of Aristotle’s thought,(including a chapter devoted to the Ethics.
Urmson, J. O. 1988. Aristotle’s Ethics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Brief introductory treatment of the main doctrines of the Ethics, primarily for an undergraduate audience, which refrains from engaging scholarly conundra.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Academy, The
- Acropolis of Athens, The
- Aeschylus
- Aeschylus’s Oresteia
- Aesthetics, Greek and Roman
- Africa, Roman
- Agathias
- Agriculture in the Classical World
- Agriculture, Roman
- Alcibiades
- Alexander of Aphrodisias
- Alexander the Great
- Amicitia
- Ammianus Marcellinus
- Amyklaion
- Anatolian, Greek and
- Anaxagoras
- Ancient Classical Scholarship
- Ancient Greek and Latin Grammarians
- Ancient Greek Terracotta Sculpture
- Ancient Mediterranean Baths and Bathing
- Ancient Olympia
- Ancient Skepticism
- Ancient Thebes
- Antisthenes
- Antonines, The
- Aphrodite
- Apollodorus
- Apollonius of Rhodes
- Appendix Vergiliana
- Apuleius
- Apuleius's Platonism
- Ara Pacis Augustae
- Arabic “Theology of Aristotle”, The
- Aratus
- Archaeology, Greek
- Archaeology, Roman
- Archaic Latin
- Architecture, Etruscan
- Architecture, Greek
- Architecture, Roman
- Arena Spectacles
- Aristophanes
- Aristophanes’ Clouds
- Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
- Aristotle
- Aristotle, Ancient Commentators on
- Aristotle's Categories
- Aristotle's Ethics
- Aristotle's Metaphysics
- Aristotle's Philosophy of Mind
- Aristotle’s Physics
- Aristotle's Politics
- Art and Archaeology, Research Resources for Classical
- Art, Etruscan
- Art, Greek
- Art, Late Antique
- Artemis
- Asconius
- Athena
- Athenaeus of Naucratis
- Athenian Agora
- Athenian Economy
- Attic Middle Comic Fragments
- Augustine
- Augustus
- Aulularia, Plautus’s
- Aulus Gellius
- Ausonius
- Bacchylides
- Banking in the Roman World
- Bilingualism and Multilingualism in the Roman World
- Biography, Greek and Latin
- Birds, Aristophanes'
- Boethius
- Britain, Roman
- Bronze Age Aegean, Death and Burial in the
- Caecilius Statius
- Caere/Cerveteri
- Callimachus of Cyrene
- Carthage, Punic
- Casina, Plautus’s
- Cato the Censor
- Cato the Younger
- Catullus
- Christianity, Early
- Chronicles
- Cicero
- Cicero’s Philosophical Works
- Cicero's Pro Archia
- Cicero's Rhetorical Works
- Cicero's Speeches: Individual Speeches
- Cicero's Speeches: Overviews and Themes
- Cities in the Roman World
- Classical Architecture in Europe and North America since 1...
- Classical Architecture in Renaissance and Early Modern Eur...
- Classical Art History, History of Scholarship of
- Classics and Cinema
- Classics and Dance
- Classics and Opera
- Classics and Shakespeare
- Classics and the Victorians
- Claudian (Claudius Claudianus)
- Cleisthenes
- Cleopatra
- Codicology/Paleography, Greek
- Collegia, Roman
- Colonization in the Roman Empire
- Colonization in the Roman Republic
- Columella
- Constantine
- Corippus
- Corpus Tibullianum Book Three
- Countryside, Roman
- Crete, Ancient
- Critias of Athens
- Death
- Death and Burial in the Roman Age
- Declamation
- Democritus
- Demography, Ancient
- Demosthenes
- Dio, Cassius
- Diodorus Siculus
- Diogenes Laertius
- Dionysus
- Donatus
- Doxography, Ancient
- Drama, Latin
- Economy, Roman
- Education
- Egypt, Hellenistic and Roman
- Emotions
- Empedocles
- Ennius
- Epictetus
- Epicurean Ethics
- Epicureanism
- Epigram, Greek Inscribed
- Epigrams, Greek Poetry
- Epigraphy, Greek
- Epigraphy, Latin
- Eratosthenes of Cyrene
- Etruscans
- Etymology, Greek Lexicon and
- Euripides
- Euripides' Alcestis
- Euripides’ Bacchae
- Euripides’ Electra
- Euripides' Orestes
- Euripides’ Trojan Women
- Fabius Pictor
- Family, Roman
- Federal States, Greek
- Festus
- Fishing and Aquaculture, Roman
- Flavian Literature
- Fragments, Greek Old Comic
- Frontiers of the Roman Empire
- Galen
- Gardens, Greek and Roman
- Gaul, Roman
- Geography
- Gracchi Brothers, The
- Greek and Roman Logic
- Greek Colonization
- Greek Domestic Architecture c. 800 bce to c. 100 bce
- Greek Epic, The Language of the
- Greek New Comic Fragments
- Greek Originals and Roman Copies
- Greek Prehistory Through the Bronze Age
- Greek Vase Painting
- Hellenistic Tragedy
- Heracles
- Heraclitus
- Herculaneum (Modern Ercolano)
- Herculaneum Papyri
- Heritage Management
- Hermes
- Herodas
- Herodotus
- Hesiod
- Historia Augusta
- Historiography, Greek
- Historiography, Latin
- History, Greek: Archaic to Classical Age
- History, Greek: Hellenistic
- History of Modern Classical Scholarship (Since 1750), The
- History, Roman: Early to the Republic
- History, Roman: Imperial, 31 BCE–284 CE
- History, Roman: Late Antiquity
- Homer
- Homeric Hymns
- Homo novus/New man
- Horace
- Horace's Epistles and Ars Poetica
- Horace’s Epodes
- Horace’s Odes
- Horace's Satires
- Imperialism, Roman
- Indo-European, Greek and
- Indo-European, Latin and
- Intertextuality in Latin Poetry
- Isocrates
- Isthmia
- Jews and Judaism
- Juvenal
- Knossos, Prehistoric
- Koine, The
- Lactantius
- Land-Surveyors
- Language, Ancient Greek
- Languages, Italic
- Latin, Medieval
- Latin Paleography, Editing, and the Transmission of Classi...
- Latin Particles and Word Order
- Latin Poetry, Epigrams and Satire in
- Law, Greek
- Law, Roman
- Lexicography, Greek
- Lexicography, Latin
- Linguistics, Indo-European
- Literary Criticism, Ancient
- Literary Languages of Greek, The
- Literary Letters, Greek
- Literary Letters, Roman
- Literature, Hellenistic
- Literature, Neo-Latin
- Livy
- Looting and the Antiquities Market
- Lucan
- Lucilius
- Lucretius
- Lysias
- Macedonia
- Macrobius
- Maecenas
- Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World
- Maps
- Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
- Marcus Cornelius Fronto
- Marcus Manilius
- Maritime Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean
- Marius and Sulla
- Martial
- Maximianus
- Mechanics
- Medea, Seneca's
- Menander of Athens
- Metaphysics, Greek and Roman
- Metrics, Greek
- Middle Platonism
- Military, Greek
- Military, Roman
- Miltiades of Cimon
- Minor Socratics
- Mosaics, Greek and Roman
- Mythography
- Mythology
- Narratology and the Classics
- Neoplatonism
- Neoteric Poets, The
- Nepos, Cornelius
- Nonius Marcellus
- Nonnus
- Novel, Roman
- Novel, The Greek
- Numismatics, Greek and Roman
- Onomastics
- Optimates/Populares
- Orosius
- Orpheus and Orphism
- Ovid
- Ovid’s Exile Poetry
- Ovid’s Love Poetry
- Ovid's Metamorphoses
- Painting, Greek
- Panaetius of Rhodes
- Panathenaic Festival, the
- Pantheon
- Papyrology: Literary and Documentary
- Parmenides
- Parthenon
- Parthian Empire, The
- Pausanias
- Performance Culture, Greek
- Perikles (Pericles)
- Petronius
- Philo of Alexandria
- Philodemus of Gadara
- Philoponus
- Philosophy, Dialectic in Ancient Greek and Roman
- Philosophy, Greek
- Philosophy of Language, Ancient
- Philosophy, Presocratic
- Philosophy, Roman
- Philostratus, Lucius Flavius
- Pindar
- Plato
- Plato’s Apology of Socrates
- Plato’s Crito
- Plato's Laws
- Plato’s Metaphysics
- Plato’s Phaedo
- Plato’s Philebus
- Plato’s Sophist
- Plato's Symposium
- Plato’s Theaetetus
- Plato's Timaeus
- Plautus
- Plautus’s Amphitruo
- Plautus’s Curculio
- Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus
- Pliny the Elder
- Pliny the Younger
- Plotinus
- Plutarch's Moralia
- Poetic Meter, Latin
- Poetry, Greek: Elegiac and Lyric
- Poetry, Greek: Iambos
- Poetry, Greek: Pre-Hellenistic
- Poetry, Latin: From the Beginnings through the End of the ...
- Poetry, Latin: Imperial
- Polis
- Political Philosophy, Greek and Roman
- Polybius
- Pompeii
- Porphyry
- Posidippus of Pella
- Posidonius
- Poverty in the Roman World
- Proclus
- Prometheus
- Prometheus, Aeschylus'
- Propertius
- Prosopography
- Protagoras
- Prudentius
- Pyrrho of Elis
- Pythagoreanism
- Quintilian
- Religion, Greek
- Religion, Roman
- Rhetoric, Greek
- Rhetoric, Latin
- Roman Agricultural Writers, The
- Roman Consulship, The
- Roman Italy, 4th Century bce to 3rd Century ce
- Roman Kingship
- Roman Patronage
- Roman Roads and Transport
- Sacrifice
- Sallust
- Samnites
- Samothrace
- Sappho
- Sardis, Ancient
- Scholia
- Science, Greek and Roman
- Sculpture, Etruscan
- Sculpture, Greek
- Sculpture, Roman
- Seneca the Elder
- Seneca the Younger's Philosophical Works
- Seneca’s Oedipus
- Seneca's Phaedra
- Seneca's Tragedies
- Severans, The
- Sexuality
- Silius Italicus
- Slavery, Greek
- Slavery, Roman
- Socrates
- Solon
- Sophocles
- Sophocles’ Ajax
- Sophocles’ Antigone
- Sophocles’ Electra
- Sophocles’ Fragments
- Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
- Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
- Sophocles’ Philoctetes
- Sophocles’ Trachiniae
- Sosipatra
- Spain, Roman
- Sparta
- Sport
- Statius
- Stesichorus of Himera
- Stoicism
- Strabo
- Suetonius
- Symposion, Greek
- Tacitus
- Technology, Greek and Roman
- Terence
- Terence’s Adelphoe
- Terence’s Eunuchus
- Tertullian
- The Sophists
- The Tabula Peutingeriana (Peutinger Map)
- Theater Production, Greek
- Theocritus of Syracuse
- Theoderic the Great and Ostrogothic Italy
- Theophrastus of Eresus
- Thucydides
- Tibullus
- Topography of Athens
- Topography of Rome
- Tragic Chorus, The
- Translation and Classical Reception
- Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature
- Valerius Flaccus
- Valerius Maximus
- Varro, Marcus Terentius
- Veii
- Velleius Paterculus
- Virgil
- Vitruvius
- Wall Painting, Etruscan
- Xenophanes
- Xenophon
- Zeno of Elea
- Zeus