Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book V, and the Law of Athens

Abstract

The publication posthumously in 1951 of Professor Joachim's commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics has raised again in an acute form the question of Aristotle's use of Athenian law as the basis of his discussion of justice in Book V. We are told that Joachim In his interpretation of this book made much use of an unpublished essay of Professor J. A. Smith. It is particularly unfortunate that it has not been found possible to trace the manuscript of this essay among Professor Smith's papers since there is a good deal that is new and unorthodox in the resulting interpretation. It is also unfortunate that, because Joachim's publication was posthumous, there could be no reciprocity as between his and some other relatively recent and important discussions of the subject, especially those of H. D. P. Lee and of L. Gernet, while these last two, publishing in the same year, were ignorant of each other's work. I have felt drawn to a brief re-examination of the question because I am sceptical of the general lines of Joachim's treatment, rash though it be to differ from both him and J. A. Smith on the interpretation of Aristotle.The specific question I propose to ask is whether in N.E. V Aristotle is basing himself at all closely on the substantive law of Athens, and my main conclusion is negative. I think that there is a tendency, particularly in Joachim, to read too much law into what Aristotle says, to force his discussion into a juristic mould into which it simply does not fit. Aristotle after all is attempting to describe a ἔζις, a tendency to feel and act in a certain way; and, close as may be in his thought the connection between the man and the citizen, we perhaps ought not tolook for too exact a mirror of the character of the good citizen in the external institutions of the city.