Nicomachean Ethics Demystified: The Path to Virtuous Living, Unraveling Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

By Fouad Sabry

What is Nicomachean Ethics Demystified

The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics: the science of the good for human life, that which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim. It consists of ten sections, referred to as books or scrolls, and is closely related to Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics. The work is essential in explaining Aristotelian ethics.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Nicomachean Ethics

Chapter 2: Aristotle

Chapter 3: Virtue

Chapter 4: Eudaimonia

Chapter 5: Hedone

Chapter 6: Virtue ethics

Chapter 7: Philia

Chapter 8: Kalos kagathos

Chapter 9: Arete

Chapter 10: Phronesis

Chapter 11: Summum bonum

Chapter 12: Eudemian Ethics

Chapter 13: Politics (Aristotle)

Chapter 14: Hexis

Chapter 15: Golden mean (philosophy)

Chapter 16: Aristotelian ethics

Chapter 17: Nous

Chapter 18: Magnanimity

Chapter 19: Flourishing

Chapter 20: Sage (philosophy)

Chapter 21: Philosophy of happiness

(II) Answering the public top questions about nicomachean ethics demystified.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of nicomachean ethics demystified in many fields.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Nicomachean Ethics Demystified.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Feb 1, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics (/ˌnaɪkɒməˈkiən/; /ˌnɪkəməˈkiən/; Ancient Greek: Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, Ēthika Nikomacheia) is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics: the science of the good for human life, that which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim.: I.2 It consists of ten subsections, Known as either books or scrolls, relates closely to Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics.

The text is preeminent in its explanation of Aristotelian ethics.

An elaborate Latin page of Nicomachean Ethics

First page of a 1566 edition of the Nicomachean Ethics in Greek and Latin

The subject of the piece is a Socratic query previously examined in Plato's writings, Aristotle's mentor and buddy, about how men should live.

The metaphysics of Aristotle, He explains how Socrates acted, the companion and instructor of Plato, applied philosophy to human concerns, while pre-Socratic philosophy was just hypothetical.

Ethics, Aristotle says, is pragmatic rather than abstract, Aristotelian definitions of these words.

It is not only a study of what constitutes a good, but it hopes to be of practical help in achieving the good.: II.2 (¹¹⁰³b)

It is related to one of Aristotle's major practical books, Politics, which also attempts to make people virtuous via the establishment and maintenance of social structures that promote human happiness. The study of ethics focuses on how individuals ought to live, while the study of politics examines the collective good from the standpoint of a lawmaker.

The Nicomachean Ethics is largely regarded as one of the most significant philosophical texts. It had a significant impact on the European Middle Ages and was a fundamental text of medieval philosophy. As so, it had a significant impact on the evolution of contemporary philosophy, European law, and religion. While different philosophers have impacted Christendom from its inception, Aristotle became the Philosopher in Western Europe (for example, this is how he is referred to in the works of Thomas Aquinas). Albertus Magnus popularized a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas' version of this synthesis was the most influential. Other Averroist Aristotelians, include.

With over fifty Protestant commentaries produced on the Nicomachean Ethics before 1682, the Nicomachean Ethics remained the primary source for the discipline of ethics in Protestant universities far into the seventeenth century.

Recently, the rebirth of virtue ethics has rekindled interest in Aristotle's ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre, G. E. M. Anscombe, Mortimer Adler, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Martha Nussbaum are recent philosophers in this topic.

Typically, the term refers to Aristotle's son Nicomachus.

One notion is that the author dedicated the piece to him, Another is that he modified it (albeit he is thought to have died at an early age), probably before he could have managed this alone: xi

In Greek the title is Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια (Ethika Nikomacheia), which is sometimes also given in the genitive form as Ἠθικῶν Νικομαχείων (Ethikōn Nikomacheiōn).

Ethica Nicomachea or De Moribus ad Nicomachum is the Latin translation.

The Nicomachean Ethics is often shortened as NE or EN. In addition to Roman and Arabic numerals, Bekker numbers are also used to refer to books and chapters. Therefore, NE II.2, 1103b1 refers to Nicomachean Ethics, book II, chapter 2, page 1103, column b, line 1 Note that chapter divisions and even the number of chapters per book are rather arbitrary, and that various compilers may split books into chapters in different ways.

There are overlaps between the Nicomachean Ethics and Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics: After Theophrastus' death, the peripatetic library was transferred to Neleus of Scepsis.

Later, when the Kingdom of Pergamon started collecting books for a royal library, the descendants of Neleus concealed their collection in a basement to keep it from being confiscated. There, the library was kept for about 150 years under less than optimal circumstances for document preservation. On the death of Attalus III, which terminated the royal library aspirations, the existence of the Aristotelian library was revealed, and Apellicon acquired and restored it to Athens about 100 BCE.

Apellicon attempted to retrieve the manuscripts, many of which were severely deteriorated at this time owing to their storage circumstances. He had them transcribed into new manuscripts and used his best judgment to fill in the illegible portions of the originals.

When Sulla conquered Athens in 86 BCE, he took the library with him to Rome. There, Andronicus of Rhodes compiled the first comprehensive collection of Aristotle's writings (and works attributed to him). The current Aristotelian works, notably the Nicomachean Ethics, are derived from them.

In the early second century CE, Aspasius composed a commentary on Nicomachean Ethics. It implies that the text [at that time] was extremely similar to what it is today, with few or no differences in order or organization, and with readings largely identical to those preserved in one or more of our finest [manuscripts]. Aspasius remarked the presence of variations, which indicates that there was textual doubt even at this very early point in the book's development.

The oldest manuscript that exists today is the Codex Laurentianus LXXXI.11 (referred to as Kb) which dates to the 10th century.

Aristotle was the first philosopher to write ethical treatises,: ⁴¹⁶ and begins by considering how to approach such a subject.

He contends that the proper approach for issues such as Ethics and Politics is the same, which entail a dialogue on aesthetics or justice, is to begin by evaluating what would be broadly accepted to be true by persons with a solid education and extensive life experience, and then to build upon that base a more rigorous comprehension.

The four qualities that, according to him, necessitate the combined possession of all the ethical virtues are::

Having excellent spirit (magnanimity), The virtue wherein a person earns the greatest acclaim and has a proper attitude towards the honor this entails.

This is the first instance mentioned by Aristotle, in the initial discussion of practical examples of virtues and vices in Book IV.: 1123b

The justice or fairness shown by a good leader in a decent community.

He discusses this during the investigation of the virtue (or virtues) of justice in Book V.: 1129b

Phronesis, or sensible judgment, in Book VI.: 1144b

The quality of a genuinely excellent buddy, in Book VIII.: 1157a

(The Eudemian Ethics VIII.3 also employs the term kalokagathia, or the nobility of a gentleman (kalokagathos), to represent this notion of a virtue including all moral qualities.)

The belief that the most laudable qualities exist in their purest form, even qualities such as bravery, demand mental excellence, is a subject associated by Aristotle with Socrates; it is an approach portrayed in the Socratic dialogues of Plato.: 215

Book I attempts to both define the subject matter of ethics and justify the method that Aristotle has chosen with which to examine it.: I.3,4,6,7 As part of this, Aristotle takes into account commonsense beliefs alongside those of poets and philosophers.

Aristotle asserts that beautiful and righteous things are the best, concerning which politics conducts research, include much discord and contradiction, such that they are believed to be the product of tradition and not nature".

Therefore, according to Aristotle, we should not require rigorous rigor (akribeia), what one could anticipate from a mathematician, instead seek answers about things that are generally true.

People are adequate assessors of such matters with which they are familiar, however adolescents (in age or in character), being inexperienced, are less likely to benefit from this kind of study.: I.6 (1096a–1097b) Aristotle insists on treating ethics as a practical discipline rather than a theoretical one.

The first paragraph states that all technical arts, every inquiry (each technique), including the very Ethics), in fact, all purposeful acts and decisions, pursue a cause separate from oneself.

Many of these items are intermediate, desired only as means to higher goods.: I.1 (¹⁰⁹⁴a)

Aristotle maintains that there is a single ultimate good, eudaimonia (traditionally rendered as happiness or flourishing), which is also the objective of good politics, Because what is best for an individual is less lovely and divine than what is best for a nation or city (ethnos or polis) (polis).

Politics coordinates collective existence, Therefore, the right purpose of politics should include the proper purpose of all other endeavors, and this end would be the human good (tanthrōpinon agathon).

The human good is a pragmatic objective, unlike Plato's allusions to the Good itself.

Aristotle concludes that ethics (our investigation or methodos) is "in a certain way political.

The enslaving pursuit of pleasure, which most people associate with happiness.

The polished and aggressive approach to politics that seeks honor

The contemplative path

Aristotle also gives two other alternatives that, according to him, might be discounted:

Possessing virtue while being inert and quietly enduring ills and tragedies. Aristotle asserts that no one would submit such an idea unless they were willing to bite the bullet to defend a tenuous theory (as Sachs points out, this is indeed what Plato depicts Socrates doing in his