The end of ends? Aristotelian themes in early modern ethics

Abstract

In his Life of Plotinus, Plotinus' pupil Porphyry lists the authors whom Plotinus read in the philosophical group gathered around him in Rome between AD 245 and BC 269. This list includes various Platonist and Aristotelian commentators of the Roman imperial period (the Aristotelians Aspasius, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Adrastus are named). This chapter discusses the nature of happiness and the distinction and relation between higher and lower virtues. It begins, however, with a passage where Plotinus speaks of ethics as a part of philosophy. In the Nicomachean Ethics (N.E.), Aristotle qualifies the life of practical virtue as secondarily happy. To understand this better, one should clarify the relation between theoretical and practical virtue. Aristotle's ethics appear to develop fairly independently of his own metaphysics, moving in the sphere of common human experience, of common opinions and their critique.