Aristotle on Pain: Pain as hindering the energeia in Nicomachean Ethics

<i>Listening to Reason in Plato and Aristotle</i>

Reviewed by: Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy: Moral Goodness and Practical Wisdom by Anthony Celano Katja Krause Anthony Celano. Aristotle’s Ethics and Medieval Philosophy: Moral Goodness and Practical Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 263. Cloth, $99.00. Celano’s book focuses on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (NE) and thirteenth-century scholastic appropriations of it. Its objectives are to unravel the inconsistencies in Aristotle’s accounts of eudaimonia, to establish the prominence of phronesis (practical wisdom), and to reveal alterations of Aristotle’s phronesis in medieval moral thought (back-cover). Celano’s textual analyses are laborious, and some features of his story may be considered stimulating insights. His construal of phronesis as primary to Aristotle’s moral conception (viii), his emphasis on Albert’s contribution to medieval moral thought (chapters 5–6), and his inclusion of the largely uncharted anonymous Erfurt commentary (chapter 8) represent important contributions. Yet Celano tells a tale that others have already told (e.g. R. A. Gauthier 1947–48, quoted by Celano on 78): that Aristotle’s NE contains a single veracity which seemingly transcends history. With their decidedly Christian agenda, however, scholastic interpreters “misread Aristotle’s Ethics” (78) or provided readings “contradictory to his thought” (231). Celano’s story takes its impetus from his view that, with the passage of time, thirteenth-century thinkers (all with close ties to the University of Paris) arrive at an improved grasp of Aristotle’s NE. Celano suggests that, early in the century, when only parts of the NE circulated, William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, and six arts masters tried to get to the root of Aristotle’s ethics, but were “not entirely successful” (99). In the second half of the century, when the NE was translated and disseminated in its entirety, “more gifted theologians, such as Albert, Thomas and Bonaventure” achieved better results in understanding the text than their scholastic forebears had done (99). Celano reads Albert’s early De natura boni, [End Page 160] De bono, and De homine—the latter of which he misconstrues as an ethical work (100)—as preparations for Albert’s subsequent reconciliations of the NE “with the Christian ideals of perfect beatitude and natural law” in his two commentaries on the NE (130). Celano then argues that Albert’s commentaries decisively influenced later medieval commentaries on Aristotle, including that of Thomas Aquinas, while he equally portrays Thomas’s reading of Aristotle as departing from Albert’s (169). Finally, Celano discusses two commentaries on Aristotle’s NE written at the end of the thirteenth century: one by the anonymous Erfurt commentator and one by Radulphus Brito. In Celano’s view, they read Aristotle in “decidedly un-Aristotelian ways” to harmonise his NE with their own moral principles (231); and they replaced the “ground-breaking work” of Albert and Thomas (209) with their “reverence for tradition” (231). Celano’s book is a hero-narrative complete with denouement. Crucial to it is the thesis that the scholastic thinkers he discusses altered Aristotle’s intention in accordance with their Christian agenda. While, in Celano’s reading of the text, Aristotle founded his NE on the “human standard” of phronesis, the scholastic readers established it on “a divine foundation.” They read Aristotle through the lens of foreign concepts such as “natural law” or “synderesis” (viii, 64), and restricted Aristotle’s phronesis to moral decisions (231). Yet I wonder whether this is an accurate picture. The scholastic thinkers discussed here were more concerned with determining the truth about human prudence and happiness than with developing a truthful reading of Aristotle’s text. In their negotiations of this truth, they differed notably in accordance with their different historical contexts. Regrettably, Celano underplays these contexts, which constituted the ‘lifeworlds’ (Husserl’s term) within which they wrote. Indeed, it would be helpful to understand that early thirteenth-century moral theology, as propounded by William and Philip, arose within the theological framework established by Peter Lombard, and merely utilised some Aristotelian moral concepts. In contrast, early thirteenth-century moral philosophy conducted by the arts masters shifted the framework away from Lombard toward an Aristotelian one. This contrast could help evaluate important motives behind the early appropriations...

Choice and Virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics ALFRED R. MELE COM~rNTATORS ON THr Nicomachean Ethics (NE) have long been laboring under the influence of a serious misunderstanding of one of the key terms in Aristotle's moral philosophy and theory of action. This term is prohairesis (choice), the importance of which is indicated by Aristotle's assertions that choice is the proximate efficient cause of action (NE 6. 1139a31--32) and that in which "the essential elements of virtue and character" lie (NE 8. x163a2'~-23). The accepted view is that Aristotle employs two importantly different notions of choice in the NE, one on which the term refers exclusively to means or things which are pros (toward, related to)' ends and another on which it does not have this reference? This "two notion" interpretation is motivated by the following three considerations: i. Aristotle's good or virtuous agent is said (NE 2. 11o5a28-33, cf. NE 6. 1144ax8-2o ) to choose actions for their own sakes; but, according to the This paper is derived in part from a chapter of my doctoral dissertation, which was submitted to the University of Michigan in January of 1979. 1 would like to express my gratitttde to the chairman of my dissertation committee, Nicholas P. White, for his comments and criticisms on the relevant sections during the preparation of my dissertation and to theJHP's anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms and queries. ' It has often been pointed out that things which are pros an end are not necessarily "means," in the ordinary sense of the word. E.g., constituents of an end are pros the end, but they are not means to it. See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, trans. Leonard H. G. Greenwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19o9), pp. 46-47, 53ff.: and John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 1o-22. ' Among the many proponents of this "two notion" interpretation are William D. Ross and Donald J. Allan. See Ross, Aristotle, 5th ed. (London: Methuen, t953), p. 2oo. See Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 197o), p. 132; idem, "Aristotle 's Account of the Origin of Moral Principles," Xlth International Congress of Philosophy 12 (1953):124; idem, "The Practical Syllogism," in Autour d'Aristote, Studies for A. Mansion (Louvain : Publications Universitaires, 1955). Richard Sorabji, in "Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue" (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74 l t973-74]:t t6), says that he has noticed sixteen commentators who take this view. [4o5] 406 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY so-called formal account of prohairesis (NE 3. 2-3, 6. 2), the object of choice is what has been decided upon by deliberation (bouleuais), and what is decided upon by deliberation is a "means" to an end. 2. Aristotle says that choice is "closely bound up with virtue" and "discriminates characters better than actions do" (1 1t lb5; cf. t i lob3t, 1117a 5, 1163a22, 1t64bi); but commentators argue that these claims about choice are false unless choice is "of ends." 3. Though Aristotle holds that the impetuous akrat~s (incontinent agent) does not deliberate (e.g., t 152a 18-19), he says that the akrat~s' choice is good (1152ax5--17; cf. l l51a5-- 7, 29--32); and this appears to contradict his position in Book 3 that the object of choice is what is decided upon by deliberation, s In this paper I shall show that only one (philosophically significant) notion ofprohairesis is employed in the NE, namely, the notion developed in the "formal account" of deliberation and choice (3- 2-3, 6. 2), according to which choice is specifically of things which are pros ends. This point has several interesting applications. For example, it makes it easier to find in Aristotle (as I shall briefly explain) a comprehensive theory of practical reasoning or inference rather than several unconnected accounts of what practical inference is like in different types of cases; and it is helpful in clarifying what is involved in the evaluation of character on Aristotle's view (see Sec. ~). However, though I do think that the main point to be made...

BOOK REVIEWS 12 7 puzzled, or discontent? Since content is not an emotion that can be appropriately listed, perhaps that suggests how an enigmatic Plato functions as the efficient cause of our distress. Indeed, if one then recalls the man so frequently mentioned by those questioned by Socrates who complain of the aporia engendered in them by his strange questions, it becomes possible to appreciate why Plato recreates conversations that stop, without ending, forcing us back to his texts, why it may be helpful not to separate Socrates from Plato's aporetic texts. ELINOR J. M. WEST Long Island University Richard Kraut. Aristotle on the Human Good. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp. xi + 379. Cloth, $37.5 o. Interpreters of Aristotle's ethical theory disagree about whether he favors an exclusively theoretical life as ideally happy, or thinks instead that the happiness of even the most contemplative person must include some practice of the moral virtues. Proponents of the first view are called "strict intellectualists." Advocates of the second are said to favor an "inclusive ends" analysis of happiness. Given Aristotle's conception of the moral virtues, inclusivism entails that those with capacity and leisure for the0r/a can be fully happy only if they engage in some social and political activity as well, since such activity forms for Aristotle much of the content of morality. The problem then becomes determining how much. Some inclusivists think that unconstrained trade-offs are permissible among the theoretical and moral virtues and the natural goods they use and regulate. Others think that Aristotle denies a merely aggregative ideal and assumes a hierarchical ordering principle, according to which a person whose life is oriented toward contemplation can be fully happy only if he theorizes after the demands of justice and of the other moral virtues have been satisfied and counted as intrinsically good components of his happiness. (Charles Young has wistfully dubbed this the "department chairman view," an apt phrase when one remembers that Aristotle himself was something of a department chairman.) Inclusivism of one stripe or another has become the conventional wisdom. Its advocates include Ackrill, Cooper, Kenny, Keyt, Irwin, Nussbaum, Sherman, Gomez-Lobo, Roche and others--a not inconsiderable roster. In advocating an uncompromising brand of strict intellectualism Richard Kraut goes against this consensus. His book is to be welcomed to the extent that it gives inclusivists a run for their money. One difficulty with inclusivism is that while it apparently pervades the Euclemian Ethics (EE) and much of the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), Aristotle seems to lapse into strict intellectualism in NE X, which asserts categorically that the exclusively theoretical life (bios theoretikos) is better than the "second-rate" happiness available through political activity (biospolitikos), since contemplation better meets a range of criteria for happiness laid down in NE I. Some inclusivists have admitted the conflict, but denied that what appears in NE X is Aristotle's considered view. Kenny, for example, has tried to convince himself that NE X was an earlier work, while Nussbaum takes it to be little 128 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:1 JANUARY 1993 more than a thought experiment. Most inclusivists, however, have tried to meet the difficulty by trying to bring NE X into line with what they take to be Aristotle's considered inclusivism. Kraut attempts to establish not only that NE X cannot be assimilated to inclusivist models, but that the strict intellectualism he sees there is consistent with NE as a whole. (EE is more or less left out of the picture.) Inclusivism began to take hold with the recognition that Aristotle acknowledges the intrinsic worth of natural goods (goods of the body, such as health and beauty, and external goods, such as honor, wealth, and friendship). Kraut suggests that inclusivism follows from combining Aristotle's recognition of the goodness of the natural goods with the assumption that he was a "maximizing egoist," for whom happiness consists in getting as many good things, natural, ethical and intellectual, as one can, consistent with not treating the goods of the soul, the virtues, purely as instruments. Kraut tries to block this conclusion by denying that Aristotle was much of an ethical...

Whereas a great many academics have presumed to speak knowledgeably about Aristotle's work, comparatively few have actually studied his texts in sustained detail and very few scholars in the social sciences have examined Aristotle's work mindfully of its relevance for the study of human knowing and acting on a more contemporary or enduring plane.&#x0D; Further, although many people simply do not know Aristotle's works well, even those who are highly familiar with Aristotle's texts (including Nicomachean Ethics) generally have lacked conceptual frames for traversing the corridors of Western social thought in more sustained pragmatist terms. It is here, using symbolic interactionism (a sociological extension of pragmatist philosophy) as an enabling device for developing both transsituational and transhistorical comparisons, that it is possible to establish links of the more enduring and intellectually productive sort between the classical scholarship of the Greeks and the ever emergent contemporary scene.&#x0D; After (1) overviewing the theoretical emphasis of symbolic interactionism, this paper (2) locates Aristotle's works within a broader historical context, (3) situates Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics within the context of his own work and that of his teacher Plato, and (4) takes readers on an intellectual voyage through Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Not only does his text address a great many aspects of human lived experience, but it also has great instructive value for the more enduring study of human group life. Accordingly, attention is given to matters such as (a) human agency, reflectivity, and culpability; (b) definitions of the situation; (c) character, habits, and situated activities; (d) emotionality and its relationship to activity; (e) morality, order, and deviance; (f) people's senses of self regulation and their considerations of the other; (g) rationality and judgment; (h) friendship and associated relationships; (i) human happiness; and (k) intellectual activity.&#x0D; In concluding the paper, one line of inquiry that uses contemporary symbolic interaction as resource for engaging Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is suggested. However, as indicated in the broader statement presented here, so much more could be accomplished by employing symbolic interactionism as a contemporary pragmatist device for engaging Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

This article resolves some difficulties with Aristotle's discussion of the choice-worthy (haireton). Nicomachean Ethics I posits goods that are choice-worthy for themselves and for something else, but Nicomachean Ethics X appears to present being choice-worthy for itself as mutually exclusive with being choice-worthy for something else; moreover, Nicomachean Ethics X seems to claim that action is choice-worthy for itself and, therefore, not choice-worthy for something else but also seems to claim that action is choice-worthy for something else and, therefore, not choice-worthy for itself. As for the latter problem internal to Nicomachean Ethics X, I argue that Aristotle is ultimately committed to the idea that action is choice-worthy for something else. As for the problem between Nicomachean Ethics I and X, I argue that Nicomachean Ethics X only claims something admitted by Nicomachean Ethics I: being choice-worthy for something else is mutually exclusive with being choice-worthy only for itself.

The End of Practical Wisdom: Ethics as Science in the Thirteenth Century ANTHONYJ. CELANO ThE DESCRIPTION of the nature of ethics in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) presented a difficult problem to the masters of the thirteenth-century university, who viewed an important element of their philosophical task to be the rigorous classification of human knowledge. The specific problem of moral speculation concerns its nature as science: is ethics truly a "science," similar to other philosophical pursuits, such as metaphysics or natural philosophy, or is it more akin to what we call art, in the manner of sculpture or literary endeavors ? Despite Aristotle's own statement about ethics as science--that concerning it we can indicate truth only roughly and in outline (NE lo94bze-z3)--his meaning is far from clear. The greatest part of the NE examines the origin and practice of moral virtue, which admits a variety of human customs and habits. The principles of the "science" of ethics depend not upon the immutable laws that govern natural phenomena, but rather upon the actions of human beings. The variety and diversity of human practices which may be called good seriously undermine the scientific nature of ethics. While many modern commentators on the NE may ignore the problem of a science that speaks of subjects, premisses, and conclusions that are, at best, "true only for the most part" (NE lo94b16-2~), Aristotle acknowledged those who thought ethics existed merely by convention.' Aristotle's ethics is, in a sense, more art than science, since he knew that a subject without demonstrative conclusions de- ' NE lo94b14-~ 7. Aristotle's raises the question here whether moral excellence exists by nature or by convention. He does not answer the question until VI.11 where innate talents of judgment, intelligence, and understanding are combined with the conventional teachings of wise persons within the societyto produce moral wisdom (l 14366- 14).Like many of his philosophical conclusions, this one transcends previous solutions by incorporating aspects of conflicting ac counts into his finalposition. [~5] 226 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:2 APRIL 199 5 duced from immutable first principles was not strictly scientific. Aristotle maintains a semblance of scientific reasoning in his ethical treatises not by mimicking scientific method, but rather by appealing to a standard which, though flexible, is not entirely dependent upon individual desires and societal practices . That standard is the phronimos or practically wise person. The unity of Aristotle's ethics arises from his understanding of phronesis, the virtue of practical wisdom, which allows human beings to judge correctly in the practical matters that comprise a moral life. The phronimos, the practically wise person, is able to judge correctly about the ends of actions as well as the proper means to attain them. Despite Aristotle's appeal to the standard of the practically wise person, the difficulties associated with locating the standard of conduct in particular human beings can lead to doubt concerning the validity and efficacy of his moral teachings. One could argue that if the criterion for judging the rectitude of a moral act lies in an appeal to what the phronimos or spoudaios~would do in similar circumstances, the one who judges must already have accepted the moral worth of the standard's actions. In a very real sense, Aristotle's ethics begs the question of moral goodness, since the actions of the phronimos are said to be good, and moral goodness is measured by how an act compares to the conduct of the phronimos.3 Aristotle would likely agree with this criticism of his position, but would respond that ethics, unlike other sciences, does not seek independently verified principles. He would argue further that the science of ethics depends upon the actions of human beings, and its goal is to affect human behavior. When Aristotle says "regarding practical wisdom we shall get at the truth by considering those who are the persons we credit with it" in Book VI of the NE (114oa24-25), he reconsiders the question of the unity of ethical experience that he mentioned in Book I. Ethics is structured not so much by nature or eudaimonia (admittedly important considerations), but by the actions of...

In Aristotle the universal is the object of art, philosophy and science. Some famous passages in his works say it very clearly. In the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) as well, when speaking about episteme , Aristotle says what is typical of episteme is to have an account of the universal and the necessary. The definition of happiness is the central point of the NE , on which all the pragmateia depends. In NE chapter I Aristotle repeats this definition, and begins a very wide section of the work, starting from here and going to the end of NE IV, dedicated to the notion of arete . The discussion in NE II starts with an explicit reference to the conclusion of book I. Aristotle calls the particular virtues kath' hekasta . This chapter discusses the origin of Aristotle's list of moral virtues; some have remarked that Aristotle does not follow Plato's list of four main virtues. Keywords: Aristotle's list ofmoral virtues; definition of happiness; Nicomachean Ethics (NE)

BOOK REVIEWS 511 or anything like it, but is a rhetorical device for inducing what Thayer calls "reflexive reference" to whatever is currently under discussion. If this is true, it might be little short of absurd to "rationally reconstruct" something called a "Platonic Theory of Forms," unless ontological commitments cling to rhetorical devices more tenaciously than I presume they do. I hope that the research program advocated here is vigorously pursued so that issues like these can be more explicitly and intensely debated, and I highly commend this volume to those who wish to pursue it productively. Davin J. DzPEw California State University,Fullerton Francis Sparshott. Taking Life Seriously: A Study of the Argument of the "Nicomachean Ethics." Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 461. Cloth, $60.oo. Georgios Anagnostopoulos. Aristotleon the Goalsand Exactnessof Ethics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Pp. xiii + 468. Cloth, $50.oo. These are both large books, written by mature scholars in the analytic tradition; each takes a word as the key to Aristotle's theory: Sparshon begins from ouov6ctk0g (seriously ), Anagnostopoulos works with a• (exactness). Sparshott's explicit goal is to make sense of the NicomacheanEthics as a systematic whole, rather than as a collection of individually interesting but somewhat disconnected arguments. He presents a persuasive image of an overall argument in EN, and clarifies many relationships between widely separated passages. The book is thus a running commentary with a purpose. It may also be seen as a master course on the Nicomachean Ethics in one volume, the product of a lifetime of study and teaching this treatise. Sparshott avoids getting entangled in the secondary literature; his interpretations usually have plenty of support, but most of the scaffolding is hidden in the footnotes. He does sometimes digress to talk about "sexism in Aristotle," "the common books," "leisure," or the like; these digressions are printed in italics. Spoudaios means "serious," and being good is serious business, takes practice, concern , attention. "It is the people who are careless and negligent about what they do who make a mess of their lives, and these same poeple who are socially worthless and vicious" (51). "One starts to become moral when and if one starts taking life seriously" (85). Those who are not spoudaioi"do not take life seriously because it has not occurred to them that any such attitude to life is possible" (111). It's easy to think of Aristotle as a personally serious person, but not as easy to think that the concept of seriousness is as central as Sparshott makes it. Still, it has the virtue of unifying the many disparate themes of the Ethics, and that's Sparshott's goal. Sparshott occasionally criticizes Aristotle's tendency to suppose that one sort of life, or a narrow range of possible lives, is best, without recognizing the values of alternative lifestyles. For example, Sparshott says, "... our generic account of the good must not only make general provision for the dimensions of diversity [which Aristotle does, more or less], but must recognize the maximizing of diversity in individual develop- 512 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:3 JULY 1995 ment as an important aspect of human function. This is what Aristotle fails to do" (335). It seems to me that Sparshott here captures an aspect of the Aristotelian ethic that makes us (and our students) uneasy as we read the text. We may easily be struck by the idea that Aristotle really believes that the best sort of lifestyle is one very similar to his own, and that not many other lifestyles have significant value. But none of the lifestyles envisaged by the Nicomachean Ethics is possible for us; the world in which they were possible is gone. Could Aristotle believe that historical change would make eudaimonia or a virtuous life impossible? Hardly. But Sparshott is absolutely right to point out that Aristotle seems to modern readers to have an excessively narrow view of the variability of good (serious) human lives. No doubt students most quickly catch on to this disturbing aspect of Aristode's thought when they read what Aristotle has to say about slaves and women in the first book of the...

In this chapter I explore the possibility that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics are parts of a unitary project of investigation. I propose that Aristotle’s pivotal goal is to supply the addressees of his works with adequate theoretical understanding of both the most relevant principles for a good human life and the strategies through which these values are to be effectively realized. The project worked out by Aristotle is ultimately of political nature, given that the education of people to virtue is best carried out by means of an expertise of political kind. Then, I explore some aspects of Aristotle’s theory of friendship and propose that his notion of “political friendship” conceptualized in books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics can be adopted as an adequate conceptual tool for an exploration of some relationships between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. Although political friendship is mostly based on utility, the best possible realization of such an ideal is patterned on the model of friendship between equally good persons who share an interest in virtue. I argue that political friendship can be instantiated in various forms and degrees in political reality, even when concrete examples of it fail to approximate its level of perfection. More specifically, I contend that such an ideal finds expression in those constitutions that assign equal opportunities of political participation to people equal in civic and human worth. Such communities include not only the most perfect in absolute (which I take to be constituted by good citizens that prove at the same time good men in the Aristotelian sense), but also forms of government of inferior level, which allow rule in relays for people of average virtue. In the light of the possible applications of political friendship in Aristotle’s Politics, I will conclude that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics complement each other in a variety of ways and offer reciprocal philosophical buttressing. More to the point, the Politics seems to offer a suitable terrain for a fluid and dynamic interaction of concepts which, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is instead more inclined to handle separately.

Aristotle's two treatises on ethics, Nicomachean (EN) and Eudemian Ethics (EE), have three books in common (EN books V–VII = EE books IV–VI), the so-called "common books," one of which is a book on justice (EN book V = EE book IV). 1 Aristotle's treatment of justice is the most detailed treatment of any of the virtues in either the EN or the EE. At the same time, it is less polished than the treatment of the other virtues in the undisputed books of the Nicomachean Ethics and in the Eudemian Ethics and shows signs of editorial compilation. 2 It is also the only treatment of a moral virtue common to the EN and the EE; for the others, the EN and the EE have independent treatments. The book on justice is commonly read as part of the Nicomachean Ethics, and only rarely considered in the context of the Eudemian Ethics. In this chapter, I will consider the book on justice in the context of both Ethics, and will consider what the Eudemian Ethics says about justice if we read it with the common book on justice.

Because Robert Grosseteste's translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is now seen as having provided the framework for a dynamic study of Aristotle's moral philosophy, more significance must be attached to what itself became the standard translation in the Middle Ages. That Grosseteste was responsible both for the full translation of Aristotle's text and for the translation of the Greek commentaries which accompany the Ethics in twenty-one known manuscripts modern scholars are now in agreement. Grosseteste's work on the Nicomachean Ethics has been dated confidently to the 1240s, arguably to 1246–47, and scholars have tended to stress the rapidity with which the Aristotelian ethics were assimilated in the thirteenth century, in contrast, for example, with the slow progress recorded by John of Salisbury on the Posterior Analytics in the twelfth. These results of recent research seem, it should be notd in passing, strangely at odds with the verdict of Roger Bacon, that there was comparatively little work on the Ethics in his period. He, Grosseteste's most ardent admirer, appears not to have known that this master translated the text and comments: ‘Tardius communicata est Ethica Aristotelis et nuper lecta a magistris et raro.’

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe "Faerie Queene," Book II, and the "Nicomachean Ethics"Ernest SirluckErnest Sirluck Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 49, Number 2Nov., 1951 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/388905 Views: 6Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:James A. Knapp Looking for Ethics in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, (Jan 2011): 67–98.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117136_4Matthew A. Fike Prince Arthur and Christ's Descent into Hell: The Faerie Queene , I.viii and II.viii, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 12, no.22 (Jan 1999): 6–14.https://doi.org/10.1080/08957699909598049

This chapter introduces Aristotle’s work on ethics, focusing on the Nicomachean Ethics, though it makes some reference to the Eudemian Ethics and to Magna Moralia — a work traditionally attributed to Aristotle but whose authorship is questioned (Brewer, 2005). My intention is not to draw on the latter two texts to surface differences in nuance or even inconsistencies across these three texts, which might be a fruitful activity for other purposes. Instead, it is to make reference to instances where there may be something additional that can help to consolidate or emphasize important points in the Nicomachean Ethics. This reflects the established view that it is in the Nicomachean Ethics that we find Aristotle’s most complete and considered view of ethics and important themes such as friendship, happiness, the good life and virtue; as well as the grounds for compassion and mercy (Gallagher, 2009; Nussbaum, 2001b). The chapter begins by situating the Nicomachean Ethics in relation to other ideas within Aristotle’s work, before summarizing and then reviewing some of the main arguments in the text, focusing in particular on his account of intellectual virtues and the notion of phronēsis (Reeve, 2006). It concludes with a consideration of the continuing relevance of the Nicomachean Ethics from a contemporary perspective on organizations, society and politics.KeywordsBusiness EthicPractical WisdomApplied EthicNicomachean EthicIntellectual VirtueThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

BOOK REVIEWS Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics by ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Translated by C. I. Litzinger, 0. P. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1964. Vol. I, pp. xiii and 534. Vol. II, pp. xiii and 535-1000. (Both volumes contain the same Index of Names and Index of Subjects.) $25.00. It would be difficult, from all relevant points of view, to give too much praise to the careful, scholarly work of translation Fr. I"itzinger has achieved in this rendition of the Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics by St. Thomas Aquinas. While there can never be any substitute for going to the original language when reading St. Thomas, still many of us over the years have often wished we could turn to a readable and accurate translation to supplement our examination of the text. Fr. Litzinger has provided us with such a translation and has superlatively achieved the middle course he designated between a slavishly literal translation and a free one that would, in a bid for popularization, distort the meaning of the original and introduce, as well, unfounded interpretations . Fr. Litzinger's "middle course" is an Aristotelian mean: it is literal when the text is best served thereby and it is freer in rendition when the thought accordingly benefits. As one who has wrestled with the problems of translating St. Thomas readably, I marvel at the apparent ease with which Fr. Litzinger has mastered the various difficulties, for the ease can only be apparent. Underneath the appearances lie the hours and hours of translating, phrasing , polishing and refining. The finished form amply justifies the toil and mental sweat; to speak of it as a faithful and sound rendition of the original is to pay it the highest compliment. The format is an admirable complement to the work of translation . Each book of Aristotle's text is preceded by a listing of the lectures of the commentary (I am not too happy with the translation of lectio by "lecture," but it is hard to pick a word free from all objection; the idea is a reading or an exposition of the text, but no one word in English seems to convey the meaning sufficiently). Each lecture begins with two parallel columns. The column on the right is a translation of the text of Aristotle from the Latin versio antiqua, generally attributed to William of Moerbeke, interspersed with numbers indicating the paragraphs as commented on by St. Thomas. (The decision to translate Aristotle from the Latin version has the merit Fr. Litzinger notes: it is a translation of a 332 BOOK REVIEWS 333 text more closely conformable to the one St. Thomas used; however , if I may make a domestic, and not wholly a personal, point, my wife's translation of On Interpretation from the Greek has the added advantage of being more conformable to the text of Aristotle without any detriment to the commentary of St. Thomas on that work.) The column on the left reproduces the analytical outline of St. Thomas as expressed in explanatory phrases and sentences taken from the Commentary itself. These sentences have been numbered and lettered to correspond with the bracketed marks found directly in the Commentary. The Bekker enumeration of Aristotle's text has been included, a desirable and even necessary inclusion in order to facilitate reference to other translations . The Commentary of St. Thomas thereupon follows in double columns, nicely spaced and in very legible print. One of the most important points treated in the Nicomachean Ethics, and sometimes not sufficiently paid attention to by moral philosophers, is the method of moral science and the degree of certitude attainable in it. Aristotle discusses this matter chiefly in Book I, Chapter 3 and Book II, Chapter 2. St. Thomas is clear and explicit in his Commentary in underlining the point that "the matter of moral study is of such a nature that perfect certitude is not suitable to it" (N. 32). It is particularly important that the Commentary on this matter be well and carefully translated, since it is imperative to understand the proper method of moral science. On the whole, Fr. Litzinger's translation continues to hold up well, but the following passages...