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Aristotle 384–322 B.C. Athens and Mytilene 

Encyclopedia Entries

Aristotle	Oxford Companion to Philosophy
Aristotle	Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Aristotle	Encyclopedia Britannica
Aristotle	Encarta
Aristotle	Ency. of the Renaissance
Aristotle	Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)
Aristotle	Columbia Encyclopedia
Aristotle's Ethics	Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Aristotle's Ethics	Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

Questions of Virtue and Seeking the Good

What makes a human life good -- what makes it worth living and what must we do, not just merely to live, but to live well?

Assigned Reading

Nichomachean Ethics

Stanford Encyclopedia of  Philosophy-  Aristotle's Ethics

Commentaries

Ziniewicz on Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics I-II Commentary by Paula Gottlieb

"Moral Knowledge and the Acquisition of Virtue in Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics." 
The Review of Metaphysics 54; 3: 500-53, by Alex John London (Download PDF)

Notes on language

Other Writings

Physics  from 4Literature.net

Politics  from  4Literature.net

Rhetoric  from  4Literature.net

Virtues and Vices. from Perseus Project

Quotations

Geographical and Historical Situation

Biography  from Bjorn's Guide to Philosophy

Born at Stagira in Macedonia, the son of Nicomachus, Aristotle was together with Plato the most influential philosopher of the western tradition. At age 17 he entered Plato's academy in Athens, and remained there until Plato's death. Aristotle then accepted the invitation of Hermias to reside at Assos. Upon the death of Hermias (whose niece, Pythias, he married) in 345, Aristotle went to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Between 343/2 and 340 he acted as the tutor to the young Alexander the Great. In 335 he returned to Athens where he founded a school, the Lyceum. Here he organized and conducted research on many subjects, and built the first great library of antiquity. After the death of Pythias he lived with Herpyllis, by whom he had a son, Nicomachus. On the death of Alexander in 325 anti-Macedonian feeling in Athens caused Aristotle to retire to Chalcis where he died in 322.

Extensive Introduction

Recommended Books

Peters, F. E. Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon. New York University, 1967.

General works on Aristotle include

• Sir David Ross’s Aristotle
• W. K. C. Guthrie’s section on Aristotle in his A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Works specifically on his ethics include

• Nancy Sherman’s The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989);
• John Cooper’s Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975);
• W. F. R. Hardie’s Aristotle’s Ethical Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980);
• Richard Kraut's Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989);
• Troels Engberg-Pedersen’s Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight;
• Sarah Broadie’s Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991);
• Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Two excellent anthologies of articles on Aristotle’s ethics are

• Amélie Rorty’s Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)
• Barnes, Schofield, and Sorabji’s Articles on Aristotle: 2; Ethics and Politics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1977) contains an excellent bibliography.

One of the most fascinating treatments of Aristotle’s ethics is to be found in

• Part Three of Martha Nussbaum’s The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986);
• Martha Nussbaum's The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

For a perceptive discussion and evaluation of Aristotle’s ethics in light of current work in feminist ethics, see

• Marcia Homiak, "Feminism and Aristotle’s Rational Ideal," in A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 1-18.

Contemporary Virtue Theory

• The contemporary resurgence of interest in the virtues begins with
  Philippa Foot’s "Virtues and Vices" in her Virtues and Vices and Other Essays In Moral Philosophy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 1-18 and
• Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue, 2nd edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).

Several reviews of the recent literature are noteworthy:

• Arthur Fleming’s "Reviewing the Virtues," Ethics, Vol. 90 (1980), pp. 587-95;
• Gregory Pence’s "Recent Work on the Virtues," American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (October, 1984), pp. 281-97 and his
• "Virtue Theory," A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 249-58;
• Marcia Baron’s "Varieties of Ethics of Virtue," American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 22 (January, 1985), 47-53;
• Gregory Trianosky’s "What Is Virtue Ethics All About?" American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4 (October, 1990), pp. 335-44;
• Phillip Montague, "Virtue Ethics: A Qualified Success Story," American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January, 1992), pp. 53-61.

 For an insightful analysis into historical views of virtue, see

• Richard White, "Historical Perspectives on the Morality of Virtue," The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 25 (1991), pp. 217-31.
• Also see the excellent bibliography in The Virtues, edited by Robert B. Kruschwitz and Robert C. Roberts (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1987).

Other collections of contemporary articles on virtues and vices include

• Sommers and Sommers, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, 3^rd Edition (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1992);
• Vol. XIII of Midwest Studies in Philosophy (1988) on virtue theory; the special double issue on the virtues in Philosophia, Vol. 20 (1990);
• Flanagan and Rorty’s Identity, Character, and Morality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990);
• Halberstam’s Virtues and Values (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1988);
• Virtue, edited by John W. Chapman and William A. Galston (New York: New York University Press, 1992) and
• John Deigh’s Ethics and Personality: Essays in Moral Psychology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

On the more popular front, see

• William Bennett, The Book of Virtues (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
• Joel Kupperman’s Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) presents a character-based ethical theory that places the discussion of particular virtues and vices within the context of the individual’s character.
  

For a utilitarian approach to virtue, see John Kilcullen, "Utilitarianism and Virtue," Ethics, Vol. 93, No. 3 (April, 1983), pp. 451-66.