Deliberation and Decision in the Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics

Abstract

The Magna Moralia has long been the ugly duckling in the Aristotelian pond, shunned on account of its ungainly composition, flat-footed argument, and peculiar linguistic habits. In this essay, I examine one influential argument against its authenticity, namely the hypothesis that the author of the MM was a student or a later compendium writer, attempting to reconstruct the argument of the Eudemian Ethics or Nicomachean Ethics. My test case is the analyses of deliberation (bouleusis) and decision (prohairesis) in the three ethics. I argue that the MM diverges on important points from the EE and the EN, and that even an inept compendium writer or note taker could not have extracted the analysis in the MM from the other treatises. I conclude that the MM may resemble the EE because the former is an early and immature version of the latter.