Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle

I suppose the only logical text to read after Plato is that of his most famous pupil, Aristotle.  Now, I definitely liked reading Aristotle much more than Plato, but that doesn't mean I totally agree with him.  It's also very important to remember that Aristotle is not responsible for actually writing Nichomachean Ethics.  It is his brain-child, but most scholars are in agreement that this book is a compilation of student notes from Aristotle's lectures held at the Lyceum. 

In most texts, I can honestly say that there is usefulness that I agree with and ignorance with which I vehemently disagree.  Aristotle is an excellent example.  The mindset in Ancient Greece was so derogatory towards women.  This may upset some to read, but in this time period, homosexuality was often encouraged.  It is highly likely that Plato and Aristotle had sexual relations as the teacher-pupil relationship often involved intimacy.  Many men had young boys that they would mentor in such ways.  Women were so disliked that they were viewed only as a means of reproduction, were often sequestered away from men, and, when married, would sometimes have their heads shaved so that their husband could pretend they were a boy.  I don't write this to disturb anyone, I just want you to understand, or at least accept, the perspective of men in Ancient Greece.  Sparta is the exception as a Greek city-state, they afforded women more freedoms, but still did not care to have sexual relations.  Hell, Sparta nearly ruined itself because the population fell drastically due to not enough procreation.

Alright, enough of that.  I think that's enough information for you today.  Besides, this isn't a lecture, it's a blog, and you're really only here for the review.  Hell, some of you may be college students scouring the internet in hopes of finding some kind of help in writing about this book.  So, here you go.  Remember to cite.  Plagiarism is a bitch, and you don't want to deal with the repercussions. 

This is the exact edition that I used and cited:

Aristotle’s work, Nicomachean Ethics, reads much like a how-to manual for living a good, or virtuous, life.  Like Plato before him, Aristotle was concerned with the Greek concept of arete, meaning virtue or goodness.  Unlike his late teacher, Aristotle differs in his view of what makes one virtuous.  The variance between the two philosophies makes Aristotle’s perspective the more widely practiced and applicable to modern life and societies. 

The Republic and Nicomachean Ethics both center around the question of how do we create good people, and, more importantly, how do we create a good society?  To answer, Aristotle has presented his belief on what makes one virtuous.  He believes that all people desire to be happy and virtuosity is a conduit for which happiness can become present in life.  To understand what Aristotle is saying, we must define happiness as he understood the term.  For Aristotle, happiness was less of an emotional state of being and more of a state of blessedness.  To achieve a blessed life, one had to act in accordance with virtue because happiness is a result of virtue (p 15).  This is a key difference between his philosophy and Plato’s, which claimed that knowledge was the true virtue.  Plato’s theory of forms suggests that the ideal virtue is an intellectual concept which cannot be achieved from the physical realm.  In contrast to Plato, Aristotle believes the act of pursuing knowledge is more virtuous.  Therefore, Plato relies more on the ideal intellectual thought and Aristotle with the functionality of putting that thought into action.

In an attempt to achieve a blessed and virtuous life, Aristotle gives guidelines for different concepts which are considered to add to one’s virtuosity.  He discusses courage, temperance, liberality, justice, pride, and patience in regards to their deficiencies and excesses.  It is from these guidelines that we get the Golden Mean.  Shakespeare may have coined the term, “too much of a good thing” but it was Aristotle who first identified the harm in the excesses of anything, including something good.  For too much courage is recklessness and too much generosity will become prodigality (p 49, 62). 

Along with the Golden Mean, Aristotle has proposed the concept of nurture and its effects on people.  The question, “how do we make good people?” is concerned with the raising of citizens, and where better to start that childhood?  Aristotle agrees that ethical action requires a cognitive process, for one cannot act virtuously if one does not know what virtuous action is.  Unlike Plato, Aristotle does not believe that individuals will reach this level of cognitive thought due to pre-endowment.  On the contrary.  He believed that habituation would enable humans to develop the ability to become virtuous (p 15). 

Aristotle also introduced the concept of the means used to obtain something else.  For example, wealth is not an indication of a virtuous life because wealth is not gained for the sake of money alone.  Money is the means with which we purchase other things.  A mean, then, becomes something which one employs to assist them in reaching an end (p 44, 60). Likewise, wealth cannot be a virtue any more than there can be a virtue found in the intermediate of an evil action.  In other words, there is no mean of an evil, only evil, but there is a mean in regards to doing a good.

Unlike Plato, Aristotle recognizes the variability in human life and applies that to his philosophy.  Plato is much less accepting of variations among the individual.  Aristotle not only accepts these variations, but he also applies them to society as a whole.  To have a happy society is to have happy citizens and happy citizens create a happy and virtuous society.  Not only does Plato ignore the sheer magnitude of variability in the lives of people, but he also fails to acknowledge that virtue can be obtained in one area of life and lacking in others, coining the term “Unity of Virtues.”  Again, 

Aristotle differs from his instructor and acknowledges that one can be virtuous in some, but not all, areas of life.  Aristotle does agree with Plato in the sense that wisdom is the highest virtue attainable, but he denies that it is responsible for all remaining virtues. 

In modern society, we tend to lean more towards Aristotle’s proposed guide-book of what qualities and actions make a person virtuous and, in conjunction, the society becomes good and virtuous.  We have come to view the individual as competent and lacking in different areas of life and label them as either virtuous in an area or deficient of virtue in said area.  Had we adopted a more Platonic viewpoint, as a society we would determine a person to be corrupt of all virtue for the lacking of one.  

We differentiate between virtues rather than unifying them.  Likewise, we believe in habitual training and raising up of an individual in society to create a bond with the society and a desire to be virtuous for the good of oneself and one’s fellow citizen.  It is the acceptance of variation between the individuals which make up a society that proves Aristotle’s philosophy much more applicable to modern American society.