Aristotle (Greek: , Aristotls) (384 BC [1] 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and

d teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, musi c, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, eth ics,biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a [2] river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the [3] original works have survived. LIFE Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 mi) east of modern[4] day Thessaloniki. His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was trained and educated as a member of the aristocracy. At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years before quitting Athens in 348/47 BC. The traditional story about his departure reports that he was disappointed with the direction the academy took after control passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus upon his death, although it is possible that he feared anti-Macedonian sentiments [5] and left before Plato had died. He then traveled

with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. While in Asia, Aristotle traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Hermias's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander [6] the Great in 343 BC. Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings:Ptolemy and Cassander. In his Politics, Aristotle states that only one thing could justify monarchy, and that was if the virtue of the king and his family were greater than the virtue of the rest of [7] the citizens put together. Tactfully, he included the young prince and his father in that category. Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and his attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be 'a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal [8] with the latter as with beasts or plants'. By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. According to the Suda, he also [9] had an eromenos, Palaephatus of Abydus. It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many [6] of his works. Aristotle wrote many dialogues, only fragments of which survived. The works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication, as they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics. Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, economics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also studied education, foreign customs, literature

and poetry. His combined works constitute a virtual encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. It has been suggested that Aristotle was probably the last person to know everything there was to be known in [10] his own time. Near the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against himself, and threatened Aristotle in letters. Aristotle had made no secret of his contempt for Alexander's pretense of divinity, and the king had executed Aristotle's grandnephew Callisthenes as a traitor. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence [11] for this. Upon Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Eurymedon the hierophant denounced Aristotle for not holding the gods in honor. Aristotle fled the city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against [12][13] philosophy," a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates. He died in Euboea of natural causes within the year (in 322 BC). Aristotle named chief executor his student Antipater and left a will in which he asked to [14] be buried next to his wife.

Ross joined the army in 1915. During World War I, he worked in the Ministry of munitions and was a major on the special list. He received the Order of the British Empire in 1918 in recognition of his [1] service during the war, and was knighted in 1938. Ross was White's Professor of Moral Philosophy (19231928), Provost of Oriel College, Oxford (19291947), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1941 to 1944 and ProVice-Chancellor(19441947). He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1939 to 1940. He married Edith Ogden in 1906 and they had four daughters, Margaret, Rosalind, Eleanor and Katharine. Edith died in 1953 and he died in Oxford in 1971. W. D. Ross was a moral realist, a non-naturalist, and [2] an intuitionist. He argued that there are moral truths.

W.D. ROSS Sir (William) David Ross KBE (15 April 1877 5 May 1971) was a Scottish philosopher, known for work in ethics. His best known work is The Right and the Good (1930), and he is perhaps best known for developing a pluralist, deontological form of intuitionist ethics in response to G.E. Moore's intuitionism. However, Ross also critically edited and translated a number of Aristotle's works, and wrote on Greek philosophy. LIFE William David Ross was born in Thurso, Caithness in the north of Scotland. He spent most of his first six years as a child in southern India. He was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh. In 1895, he gained a first class MA degree in classics. He completed his studies at Balliol College, Oxford and gained a lectureship at Oriel College in 1900, followed by a fellowship in 1902.

The Nicomachean Ethics /nkmkin/ needed] is the name normally given to Aristotle's best known work on ethics. The English version of the title derives from Greek , transliterated Ethika Nikomacheia, which is sometimes also given in the genitive form as , Ethikn Nikomachein. The Latin, which is also commonly used, is thica Nicomacha. The work, which plays a pre-eminent role in defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum, which were either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus. The theme of the work is the Socratic question which had previously been explored in Plato's works, of how men should best live. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle described how Socrates turned philosophy to human questions, whereas Pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical. Ethics, as now separated out for discussion by Aristotle, is practical rather than theoretical, in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms. In other words it is not only a contemplation about good living, but also aims to create good living. It is therefore connected to Aristotle's other practical work, Politics, which similarly aims at people becoming good. However ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of

[1][verification

politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, [2] looking at the good of a whole community. The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most important historical philosophical works, and had an important impact upon the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy. It therefore indirectly became critical in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Many parts of the Nicomachean Ethics are wellknown in their own right, within different fields. In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology, became widespread, especially in Europe. While various philosophers had influenced Christendom since its earliest times, in Western Europe Aristotle became "the Philosopher" under the influence of the Spanish Moslem philosopher Averroes. The most important version of this synthesis was that of Thomas of Aquinas. Other more "Averroist" Aristotelians such as Marsilius of Padua were controversial but also very important. A critical period in the history of this work's influence is at the end of the Middle Ages, and beginning of modernity, when several authors such as Niccol Machiavelli, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, argued forcefully and largely successfully that the medieval Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking had become a great impediment to practical political thinking in their time. However in more recent generations, Aristotle's original works (if not that of his medieval followers) have once again become an important source. More recent authors influenced by this work include Alasdair MacIntyre, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martha Nussbaum. Abbreviations often used The Nicomachean Ethics is very often abbreviated NE, or EN, and books and chapters are generally referred to by Roman and Arabic numerals, respectively, along with corresponding Bekker numbers. (Thus, NE II.2, 1103b1 means Nicomachean Ethics, book II, chapter 2, Bekker page 1103, Bekker column b, line number 1). In many ways this work parallels the similar Eudemian Ethics, which has only eight books, and the two works can be fruitfully compared. Books V, VI, and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics are identical to Books IV, V, and VI of the Eudemian Ethics. Opinions about the relationship between the two works, for example which was written first, and which originally contained the three common books, are divided.

[edit]Synopsis Aristotle argues that the correct approach in studying such controversial subjects as Ethics or Politics, which involve discussing what is true about what is beautiful or just, is to start with what would be roughly agreed to be true by people of good up-bringing and experience in life, and to [3] work from there to a higher understanding. Taking this approach, Aristotle begins by saying that the highest good for humans, the highest aim of all human practical thinking, is eudaimonia, a Greek word often translated as well-being orhappiness. Aristotle in turn argues that happiness is properly understood as an on-going and stable dynamic, a way of being in action (energeia), specifically appropriate to the human "soul" (psuch), at its most "excellent" or virtuous (virtue representing aret in Greek). If there are several virtues the best and most complete or perfect of them will be the happiest one. An excellent human will be a person good at living life, who does it well and beautifully (kalos). Aristotle says that such a person would also be a serious (spoudaios) human being, in the same sense of "serious" that one contrasts harpists and serious harpists. He also asserts as part of this starting point that virtue for a human must involve reason in thought and speech (logos), as this is an aspect (an ergon, literally [4] meaning a task or work) of human living. From this starting point, Aristotle goes into discussion of what ethics, a term Aristotle helped develop, means. Aristotelian Ethics is about what makes a virtuous character (ethik aret) possible, which is in turn necessary if happiness is to be possible. He describes a sequence of necessary steps in order to achieve this: righteous actions, often done under the influence of teachers, allow the development of the right habits, which in turn can allow the development of a good stable character in which the habits are voluntary, and this in turn gives [5] a chance of achieving eudaimonia. Character is thos in Greek, related to modern words such as ethics, ethical and ethos. Aristotle does not however equate character with habit (ethos in Greek, with a short "e") because real character involves conscious choice, unlike habit. Instead of being habit, character is a hexis like health or knowledge, meaning it is a stable disposition which must be pursued and maintained with some effort. However, good habits are described as a precondition for good character. (Similarly, in Latin,

the language of medieval European philosophy, the habits are mrs, giving us modern English words like "moral". Aristotle's term for virtue of character (ethik aret) is traditionally translated with the Latinate term "moral virtue". Latin virtus, is derived from the word vir meaning man, and became the traditional translation of Greek aret.) Aristotle then turns to examples, reviewing some of specific ways in which people are generally thought worthy of blame or praise. As he proceeds, he comes to describe how the highest types of praise, so the highest types of virtue, imply having all the virtues of character, and these in turn imply not just good [6] character, but a kind of wisdom. These four virtues which he says require the possession of all the ethical virtues together are: Being of "great soul" (magnanimity), the virtue where someone would be truly deserving of the highest praise and have a correct attitude towards the honor this may involve . This is the first case mentioned, and it is mentioned within the initial discussion of practical examples of [7] virtues and vices at 1123b Book IV. The type of justice or fairness of a good ruler in a good community is then given a similar description, during the special discussion of the virtue (or virtues) of justice at 1129b in Book [8] V. Phronesis or practical judgment as shown by good leaders is the next to be mentioned in this [9] way at 1144b in Book VI. The virtue of being a truly good friend is the [10] final example at 1157a in Book VIII.

The way in which Aristotle sketches the highest good for man involving both a practical and not only a theoretical side, with the two sides necessary for each other, is also in the tradition of Socratesand Plato, as opposed to pre-Socratic philosophy. As Burger (2008) points out (p. 212):"The Ethics does not end at its apparent peak, identifying perfect happiness with the life devoted to theria; instead it goes on to introduce the need for a study of legislation, on the grounds that it is not sufficient only to know about virtue, but one should try to put that knowledge to use." At the end of the book, according to Burger, the thoughtful reader is led to understand that "the end we are seeking is what we have been doing" while engaging with the Ethics (p. 215). [edit]Book I Book I attempts to both define the subject matter itself and justify the method which has been chosen (in chapters 3, 4, 6 and 7). As part of this, Aristotle considers common opinions along with the opinions of poets and philosophers. [edit]Who should study ethics, and how Concerning accuracy and whether ethics can be treated in an objective way, Aristotle points out that the "things that are beautiful and just, about which politics investigates, involve great disagreement and inconsistency, so that they are thought to belong only to convention and not to nature". For this reason Aristotle claims it is important not to demand too much precision, like the demonstrations we would demand from a mathematician, but rather to treat the beautiful and the just as "things that are so for the most part". We can do this because people are good judges of what they are acquainted with, but this in turn implies that the young (in age or in character), being inexperienced, are not suitable for [13] study of this type of political subject. Chapter 6 contains a famous digression in which Aristotle appears to question his "friends" who "introduced the forms", what is now known as the Theory of Forms, by which he is understood to be referring to Plato and his school, for while both "the truth and one's friends" are loved "it is a sacred thing to give the highest honor to the truth". The section is yet another explanation of why the Ethicswill not start from first principles, which would mean starting out by trying to discuss "The Good" as a universal thing which all things called good have in common. Aristotle says that while all

This style of building up a picture wherein it becomes clear that praiseworthy virtues in their highest form, even virtues like courage, seem to require intellectual virtue, is a theme of discussion which Aristotle chooses to associate in the Nicomachean Ethics with Socrates, and indeed it is an approach we find portrayed in the Socratic [11] dialogues of Plato. Aristotle also does this himself, and though he professes to work differently from Plato by trying to start with what well-brought up men would agree with, by book VII, Aristotle eventually comes to argue that the highest of all human virtues is itself not practical, being contemplative wisdom (theria 1177a). But achieving this supreme condition is inseparable from achieving all the virtues of character, or "moral [12] virtues".

the different things called good do not seem to have the same name by chance, it is perhaps better to "let go for now" because this attempt at precision "would be more at home in another type of philosophic inquiry", and would not seem to be helpful for discussing how particular humans should act, in the same way that doctors do not need to philosophize over the definition of health in order to [14] treat each case. [edit]Defining Happiness and the aim of the Ethics The main stream of discussion starts in Chapter 1, from an assertion that all making, investigating (every methodos, like the Ethics itself), all deliberate actions and choice, all aim at some good. Aristotle points to the fact that many aims are really only intermediate aims, and are desired only because they make the achievement of higher aims [15] possible. In chapter 2, Aristotle asserts that there is one highest aim, happiness, and it must be the same as politics should have, because what is best for an individual is less beautiful (kalos) and divine (theios) than what is good for a people (ethnos) or city (polis). The aim of political capacity should include the aim of all other pursuits, so that "this end would be the human good (tanthrpinon agathon)" a term which contrasts with Plato's references to "the Good itself". He concludes what is now known as Chapter 2 of Book 1 by stating that ethics ("our investigation" [16] or methodos) is "in a certain way political". Chapter 3 goes on to elaborate on exactness in its relation to the sought conclusions of actions. It is determined that the degree of exactness required in concluding arguments made for actions is not universally the same, and he goes on to explain that all actions, as with the conclusions made of them, vary in exactness and indeed for this reason are not universally true and therefore not universally applicable. It is for this reason that the continuing conclusions made throughout the processes of these examinations should be considered only in "outline" and that the premises on which the conclusions are drawn are on actions that hold the conclusions only usually. Chapter 4 states that while most would agree to call the highest aim of humanity happiness (eudaimonia), and also to equate this with both living well and doing things well, there is dispute between people, and between the majority (hoi [17] polloi) and "the wise". Chapter 5 distinguishes

three distinct ways of life which different people [18] associate with happiness. The slavish way of pleasure, which is the way the majority of people think of happiness. The refined and active way of politics, which aims at honor, honor itself implying the incompleteness of this way also, and the higher divinity of those who are wise and know and judge, and potentially honor, political people. The way of contemplation.

Aristotle also mentions two other possibilities that he argues can be put aside: Having virtue but being inactive, even suffering evils and misfortunes, which Aristotle says no one would consider unless they were defending a hypothesis. (As Sachs points out, this is indeed what Plato depicts Socrates doing in his Gorgias.) Money making, which Aristotle asserts to be a life based on aiming at what is pursued by necessity in order to achieve higher goals, an intermediate good.

Each of these three commonly proposed happy ways of life represents a target that people aim at for its own sake, just like they aim at happiness itself for its own sake. Concerning honor, pleasure, and intelligence (nous) and also every virtue, though they lead to happiness, even if they did not we would still pursue them. Happiness in life then, includes the virtues, and Aristotle adds that it would include self-sufficiency (autarkeia), not the self-sufficiency of a hermit, but of someone with a family, friends and community. By itself this would make life choiceworthy and lacking nothing. In order to describe more clearly what happiness is like, Aristotle next asks what the work (ergon) of a human is. All living things have nutrition and growth as a work, all animals (according to the definition of animal Aristotle used) would have perceiving as part of their work, but what is more particularly human? The answer according to Aristotle is that it must involve articulate speech (logos), including both being open to persuasion by reasoning, and thinking things through. Not only will happiness involve reason, but it will also be an active being at work (energeia), not just potential happiness, and it will be over a lifetime, because "one swallow does not make a spring". The definition given is therefore:

the Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them. Moreover, to be happy takes a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring Rackham translation of I.7.1098a.
[19]

or perhaps divine lot or even chance. Aristotle says that it admits of being shared by some sort of learning and taking pains. But despite this, even if not divine, it is one of the most divine things, and "for what is greatest and most beautiful to be left to chance would be too [23] discordant".

And because happiness is being described as a work or function of humans, we can say that just as we contrast harpists with serious harpists, the person who lives well and beautifully in this actively rational and virtuous way will be a "serious" (spoudaios) [20][21] human. As an example of popular opinions about happiness, Aristotle cites an "ancient one and agreed to by the philosophers". According to this opinion, which he says is right, the good things associated with the soul are most governing and especially good, when compared to the good things of the body, or good external things. Aristotle says that virtue, practical judgment and wisdom, and also pleasure, all associated with happiness, and indeed an association with external abundance, are all consistent with this definition. If happiness is virtue, or a certain virtue, then it must not just be a condition of being virtuous, potentially, but an actual way of virtuously "being at work" as a human. For as in the Ancient Olympic Games, "it is not the most beautiful or the strongest who are crowned, but those who compete". And such virtue will be good, beautiful and pleasant, indeed Aristotle asserts that in most people different pleasures are in conflict with each other while "the things that are pleasant to those who are passionately devoted to what is beautiful are the things that are pleasant by nature and of this sort are actions in accordance with virtue". External goods are also necessary in such a virtuous life, because a person who lacks things such as good family and friends might find it [22] difficult to be happy. [edit]Questions that might be raised about the definition In chapters 9-12 Aristotle confronts some objections or questions that might be had to his definition of happiness so far. First he considers the definition of happiness in contrast to an old Socratic question (found for example in Plato's Meno) of whether happiness might be a result of learning or habit or training,

Neoptolemus killing Priam. Aristotle believed it would be wrong to call Priam unhappy only because his last years were unhappy. Aristotle justifies saying that happiness must be considered over a whole lifetime because otherwise Priam, for example, would be defined as unhappy only because of his unhappy old [24] age. Concerning the importance of chance to happiness, Aristotle argues that a happy person at work in accordance with virtue "will bear what misfortune brings most beautifully and in complete harmony in every instance". Only many great misfortunes will limit how blessed such a life can be, but even then "even in these circumstances something beautiful shines [25] through". Addressing an opinion that he expected amongst his contemporaries about happiness, Aristotle says that it "seems too unfeeling and contrary to people's opinions" to claim that "the fortunes of one's descendants and all one's friends have no influence at all". But he says that it seems that if anything at all gets through to the deceased, whether good or the reverse, it [26] would be something faint and small". Once again turning to the divinity of happiness Aristotle distinguishes virtue and happiness saying that virtue, through which people "become apt at performing beautiful actions" is praiseworthy, while happiness is something more important, like god, "since every one of us does everything else for the sake of this, and we set down the source and cause of good things as [27] something honored and divine". [edit]From defining happiness to discussion of virtue: introduction to the rest of the Ethics Aristotle asserts that we can usefully accept some things which are said about the soul (clearly a cross reference to Plato again), including the division of the soul into rational and irrational parts, and the

further division of the irrational parts into two parts also: One irrational part of the human soul is "not human" but "vegetative" and at most work during sleep, when virtue is least obvious. A second irrational part of the human soul is however able to share in reason in some way. We see this because we know there is something "desiring and generally appetitive" in the soul which can on different occasions in different people either oppose reason, or obey itthus being rational just as we would be rational when we listen to a father being rational.

The virtues then will be similarly divided, into intellectual (dianoetic) virtues, and the virtues of character (ethical or moral virtues) pertaining to the irrational part of the soul which can take part in [28] reason. These virtues of character, or "moral virtues" as they are often translated, become the central topic in Book II. The intellectual aspect of virtue will be discussed in Book VI.