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Nicomachean Ethics

By Aristotle

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics examines the highest human good and the character required for a flourishing life. Across ten Books, it develops influential accounts of happiness, habituation, the moral virtues, the doctrine of the mean, voluntary action, justice, practical wisdom, self-control, friendship, pleasure and contemplation. Aristotle presents ethics as a practical discipline concerned with forming judgement and desire, while showing that individual flourishing also depends upon education, friendship, law and political community.

Translator or editor
D. P. Chase
Publication
4th century BCE; Chase translation published 1847
Genre
Virtue ethics; moral and political philosophy
Era
Ancient Philosophy

About this work

Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's major investigation of happiness, character and human flourishing. It begins from the claim that every action aims at some good and asks whether there is a highest end desired for itself. Aristotle identifies this end as eudaimonia: active flourishing across a complete life. Human flourishing consists in rational activity performed excellently. Moral virtue is not acquired merely by reading definitions; it is formed through habituation. People develop character by repeatedly acting, feeling and choosing in particular ways. The doctrine of the mean describes virtue as the fitting response between opposed errors of excess and deficiency. This mean is relative to circumstances and determined through practical reason, not calculated as a simple average. The ten Books examine voluntary action, courage, temperance, generosity, justice, intellectual virtue, weakness of will, friendship and pleasure. Practical wisdom connects an understanding of the good with sensitive judgement about particular situations. The final Book considers contemplation as the highest activity and then turns towards legislation and education. Aristotle's ethics is therefore inseparable from politics: people need friendships, material conditions and institutions capable of supporting excellent activity throughout a whole life.

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