The Nicomachean Ethics

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Summary: The Art of Living
Review: "Every art or applied science and every systematic investigation, and similarly every action and choice, seem to aim at some good; the good, therefore, has been well defined as that which all things aim."

In his Ethics, Aristotle does little more than to search for and examine the "good." Aristotle examines the virtues and vices of man in all of his faculties.

Aristotle refers to three types of lives, the common life, the political life, and the contemplative life, to which he assigns the highest order. Certainly, this is the most difficult life. Similar to Plato, Aristotle believed that "the unexamined life is a life not worth living." Aristotle does nothing other to examine the life of man and what is the best life to live.

Unlike Plato, you do not need to read the entire work to walk away with some useful insight into life. Though the over 100 chapters, divided into ten books, flow and build upon each other, you can read just one of them and be benefited. Aristotle covers many different subjects such as the good, morals, virtue, vice, courage, generosity, justice, intelligence, art, science, friendship, love, pleasure, and pain.

I can not say enough for the depth of insight Aristotle has into living the good life. Nicomachean Ethics is well written and presented in a clear manner that should be accessible to most readers. This is a must read for everyone.

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Summary: A foundation work in Western ethical thought
Review: After the reading of Plato the reading of his greatest pupil Aristotle seems difficult and uninspiring. Yet Aristotle is in many areas at the foundation of Western thought. He is the master of all who know whose thought about the universe and the way it works dominated Western thought for close to one thousand years. In the Nicomeanan ethics named after his son who edited the work Aristotle sets out his idea of what the good life is for the human being. For Aristotle every element of nature has its own essence that defines what its goal is . This is also true for the human being whose pursuit of good is to lead to eudaimonia ' happiness'. Aristotle talks about three areas of human endeavor, the common everyday area, the political area and the contemplative. For Aristotle the highest life is the life of contemplation and the few who attain this realize the human potential to the full. In his ethics Aristotle emphasizes the 'golden mean' as the path to right action. Between two extremes for instance timidity and rashness comes the virtue of courage. The Ethics aims to teach us what human beings are in essence and how to fully become themselves. In this realization of our own inherent nature we live in a true way.
This short summary does of course not do justice to the Ethics, or to the many subtleties of Aristotle's ethical thought. I believe to get to those subtleties more than reading of this great work is required. Only careful study will help here.

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Summary: Great book, bad translation
Review: Aristotle's Ethics is an excellent philosphical read and gives great insight into both greek philosphy and the history of philosphy. All of the above review are correct, my only concern, and the reason why I gave it a low rating, is that the translation is terrible in this version. It is meant to be a simple and easy to understand version. For more serious students, I would stick to more scholary versions.

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Summary: A response to Kenghis Khan...one of the best books ever writ
Review: Having spent an entire semester in a philosophy class studying ONLY Aristotle, I believe I can say that I have a good understanding of the subject matter on which he wrote. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is one of the greatest books of Western Civilization. It encompasses much more than just how to be a "good" person. Because it builds off of his other books, specifically the Categories and the Metaphysics, it is difficult to understand all the nuances of the book.
In response to "Kenghis Khan," succinctly put, you are wrong. Aristotle does not arbitrarily decide that the human telos, or goal, is to reach eudiamonia, or a fully flourishing life. Aristotle uses sound reasoning to come to this conclusion. Kenghis Khan makes Aristotle sound as though he has decided that the good life is only achievable by perfecting a talent that he has decided is inherently human. Aristotle believes that everything in nature has a purpose or goal. Because humans are the only animals that reason, (monkeys also pick their noses by the way) it is our reason that makes us unique. This is only a tiny aspect of living the virtuous life. Kenghis Khan mentions that being a good flute player and perfecting that talent makes us virtuous. This is not true. First, Aristotle believes that anyone who works with their hands, including musicians, is vulgar craftsmen. Therefore, he would not consider someone who is musically inclined to be good. Second, only developing the talent that one is good at does not constitute virtue. One must practice all the virtues-temperance, courage, mildness, and just-ness to name a few. However, habituation alone is not enough. Because we are rational animals, we must use our reasoning abilities to deliberate about what would be an appropriate action to a given situation. We should always aim for the mean reaction and avoid actions of excess or deficiency. A virtuous person must also have leisure time. Leisure time insures that we will have time to contemplate. The most perfect act of contemplation is the act of contemplating the telos of the human species. Aristotle also writes that in order to be truly virtuous, we must engage in political debate, because being political is our nature.
In conclusion, Aristotle does NOT tell us that we must simply develop on facet of ourselves to be considered virtuous. Instead, we must use our rational ability to deliberate about choices, we must spend time contemplating the meaning of our life, and we must engage in open debate, particularly political debate. So, even if Aristotle had said that nose-picking was an inherently human action, he would have never granted that merely perfecting it would make us virtuous.


Rating:
Summary: Extremely readable for any individual
Review: Irwin's translation is extremely readable for any individual and I urge any individual to read "Nicomachean Ethics". It is not necessary to have a formal background in philosophy to read and appreciate the concepts developed by Aristotle in "Nicomachean Ethics". It is in my personal opinion that Aristotle was a remarkably gifted individual whose ideas seem to emanate from a divine truth. I can not imagine any individual with a mind open to new ideas who would not benefit greatly from reading this book; especially, those who require a reaffirmation of their own truth developed through the course of their own life, such as: the concept of genuine happiness and a parallel one could draw with regards to the sanctification of human activity/ human life/ human spirit.

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Summary: Foundation of Western ethical thought
Review: It seems rather foolish to 'review' Aristotle, THE Philosopher. Nothing in the Western intellectual tradition isn't touched by Aristotle's works. The Nichomachean Ethics, unlike say, the largely irrelevant Physics, or extremeley esoteric Metaphysics, is a very accessible. It's also the work that probably best sums up Aristotle's practical philosophy. To summerize in a way that is completely insulting to the work, Aristotle applies his idea of moderation, the Golden mean, to numerous ethical situatlions, in an attempt to discover what constitutes the Good life and the Good man. AS previous reviewers have said, there isn't a chapter of Aristotle that does not produce some revalation or insight. And with over 100 chapters...well, you get the idea. Anyway, in addition to providing a basis for understanding the very workings of ethics and morals in a timeless sense, reading Aristotle changes the way in which you think. Literally. He has a distinctive, ordered, logical philosophy that anyone who want to be taken seriously in argument needs to learn. Simply, this is only of the most important books ever written, and anyone, philosophy scholar or not, owes it to him or her self to read it.

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Summary: The Pleasures of Contemplation
Review: More than any other of Aristotle's writings, the Nicomachean Ethics speaks in a powerful voice to our own age; not only as an artifact of thought, or as a key to the historical interpretation of "Western Metaphysics", but as a challenge to our values, our assumptions, and, above all else, the complacency with which we approach the task of living life. Yet precisely because of its apparent immediacy, we must remain vigilant regarding the prejudices that we bring to the act of reading. Even the title, in this regard, presents difficulties. Ethics, for Aristotle, is not the same as "morality" or "right conduct": rather it means the cultivation of habit of the soul, --- a disposition towards the passions --- that is conducive to virtuous action. The very notion of virtuous action is itself misleading. Aristotle is not so much concerned with individual "actions" - let alone with the "moral dilemmas" so many so-called "ethicists" - as with the activity that, as the proper work or function (ergon) of human beings, grants a unifying purpose to all the "doings" that constitute life. This "work," - which must be nothing else that the work of our entire lives -, is either the political life or the life of contemplation. The first is the highest purely human life; the latter, in contrast, is divine. Perhaps the strangest notion of the Nicomachean Ethics, however, is pleasure: pleasure is neither a passive sensation, nor some sort of activity, but rather that which brings the activity to perfection, supervening on the activity like "the bloom of health in the young and vigorous."
If we have learned our lessons from Darwin, and have the strength of mind to behold a nature without purpose and a human race with no proper and essential function, what can then remain for us of an ethics grounded upon a natural and immanent teleology? Must we insist upon the fact/value distinction in all its rigor and exile ethics into the stars? Or are we left only with an act of pure, groundless will - a will that exists only through the act of positing values, of assigning to things their worth and thus giving human kind its end and meaning? Perhaps Aristotle's "pleasure" points towards another possibility: the joyful contemplation of this life in the blossom of its ephemerality and contingency.

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Summary: Modern translation eschews original meaning
Review: Not worth the read. Many phrases misleadingly translated. Reflects the large and un-Aristotelian preoccupation with rules of modern moral philosophy.

Alternative recommendation: J.A.K. Thomson's translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Penguin Classics.

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Summary: The Book that Created Ethics; Don't Miss It!
Review: The Nicomachean Ethics is the first systematic description of an ethical system. It has the clearest formulation of the questions that Ethics asks: 1. How should we live? 2. Why? 3. Why is that best? Aristotle's answer to 1. is that we should avoid extremes, because (answering 2.) every extreme is evil, and (answering 3.) since the opposite of any extreme is itself an evil extreme, we must therefore avoid extremes. The book has been read by every serious ethical philosopher since history began. Because of this, every serious ethical work can (and should) be read as a dialogue with Aristotle, as he sets the rules, and then challenges, "I know of no good that crosses all the categories . . . but in each category there is one particular good." Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals is an attempt to find a normative good that crosses all categories, a "categorical imperative." Likewise Bentham's discussion of what has come to be called utilitarian ethics. Really, a most important book.

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Summary: A theistic interpretation of Aristotle's ethic
Review: The system of ethics devised by Aristotle rests on his theory of goodness -- what is it for a thing to be considered "good"? According to Aristotle, to determine what constitutes a good X one must first determine the function of an X, and then determine whether it fulfills this function effectively and efficiently. Consider a lawnmower. A lawnmower has an inherent function: to cut overgrown blades of grass. A "good" lawnmower does this; a lawnmower that doesn't isn't fulfilling its inherent function. A car that's reliable, gets good gas mileage, has a comfortable interior, is spacious and safe is generally considered good by the standards appropriate for cars. Now, notice that cars and lawnmowers each possess their own distinct type of goodness -- there is no all-embracing definition of "goodness" that applies to all things. Also, no-one calls something "good" in a purely abstract sense without assigning it to a specific context, with reference to a standard appropriate to the type of thing being evaluated.

Aristotle applied this reasoning to morality. What constitutes a good human being? To determine this, one must first determine the function of a human being. That is, what is the function a human being when considered just as a human being, and not as an engineer, scientist, mother, father, teacher, etc? Once this has been determined, then Aristotle's system of ethics can be understood. But first, another Aristotelian idea must be examined -- the concept of human nature.

Think for a moment about change. What happens when something undergoes a change? When a thing X changes, it has at one time a property that it lacks at a later time. Each thing is limited by the type of thing it is, to a certain range of changes. A puppy can turn into a dog, but it can't turn into a tree. A piece of paper can turn into ashes, but it can't turn into a rock. Aristotle reasoned that this inner "something" that sets limits or controls what a thing can become is its "nature." According to Aristotle, change is the actualization of inner potentialities; and when the inner potential of a thing becomes actual, that potential is said to be "realized." When a thing's specific potential is realized, a specific form of life results, a form of life involving the realization of the thing's inner potential. Each kind of thing has a unique potential. When a thing is living up to its potential it is functioning in its own unique way. For instance, when a puppy grows into a dog and does the things dogs do when they fulfill their dog potential, the dog is functioning as a dog.

When a thing is functioning well, it is "flourishing." So, each species has its own distinctive form of flourishing. Of course, the flourishing of an individual living thing is not always guaranteed. Certain conditions must be present before an individual can function well or flourish, and these conditions vary from species to species. For example, under proper conditions, a rose will flourish. These conditions include a proper temperature, proper quantity of moisture, proper soil conditions, and so on.

Aristotle's theory of goodness -- an X is a good X if X is functioning effectively and efficiently, in a manner appropriate for an X -- suggests that a living thing is living a good life when it is functioning well, in a manner appropriate for a thing of its nature. In other words, a being is living the good life when it is "flourishing."

Under the right conditions, Aristotle argued, any living thing will naturally order its activities toward the realization of its natural potencies. It thus seems that each kind of thing has an inner desire urging it towards its own flourishing -- a built in orientation towards a distinctive end. This inner desire or drive to develop the natural potentials within can only be explained as proceeding from the inner nature, since it is present within each thing.

Aristotle claimed that human beings share a common set of potentials. These shared potentials are part of what constitute our common human nature. This specific set of human capacities or potentials is oriented toward a pattern of activity unique to humans. Aristotle argued that we develop these capacities, we are developing our uniquely human potential; we are doing what it is in our nature to do; we are actualizing or realizing our human nature. Those persons who develop their human capacities fully will achieve a state called by Aristotle "eudaimonia." This is the state of true flourishing, the state of genuine fulfillment. Eudaimonia concerns the overall nature of one's life. Eudaimonia thus constitutes the truly "good life."

The good life described by Aristotle, the state of eudaimonia, has sometimes been characterized as a state of "self-realization," for it involves the actualization or realization of one's true potentials as a human being, i.e., those potentials that make up one's human capacity, a capacity common to all humans and only to humans. Those potentials include, according to Aristotle, the potentials to reason, to know, to love, to befriend, to appreciate beauty, to plan our lives rationally, and to philosophize. Those persons who achieve eudaimonia, who develop their human capacities fully, are being most truly themselves. They are "realizing" themselves. In so doing, they are realizing the good life.