Acknowledgements Several friends and colleagues have offered helpful advice and comments on parts of this translation. I wish here to thank the following: Elizabeth Ashford, Lesley Brown, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, R. M. Hare, Rosalind Hursthouse, Christopher Kirwan, Christopher Megone, Dominic Scott, Robert Wardy, and David Wiggins. Errors that remain are, of course, my own responsibility, and I would be grateful to be informed of them. I am obliged also to Will Allan for help with literary references, and to Desmond Clarke for his encouragement and for his comments on the penultimate draft of the translation. First drafts were completed during a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship held at University College, Oxford, 1989±91. I am grateful to both institutions for their support. vi
Introduction `All human beings, by their nature, desire understanding.' The ®rst sentence of Aristotle's Metaphysics is paradigmatically true of its author. He sought to understand, and to help others to understand, logic, mathematics, the nature of reality, physics, knowledge, the mind, language, biology, physiology, astronomy, time, theology, literature, rhetoric, the nature of human happiness, and much else. A full translation of his works ± of which only one ®fth has survived ± runs to over one-and-a-half million words. Aristotle was born in Stagira, in Macedonia (now northern Greece), in 384 BCE. His father was a doctor, and this may partly explain his fondness for medical analogies in the Ethics (see, e.g., 1138b). Aristotle arrived in Athens in 367, and spent the next twenty years there as a member of Plato's Academy. Plato died in 347, and Aristotle left Athens for thirteen years, during some of which he was tutor to Alexander. In 334 he founded the Lyceum in Athens, remaining there till shortly before his death in 322. The Nicomachean Ethics (NE, or the `Ethics') is almost certainly the product of Aristotle's developed intellect, consisting in a revision of around 330 of his earlier Eudemian Ethics (though some scholars believe the Eudemian to be later, and indeed better). NE contains ten books, of which three ± books V±VII ± are shared with the Eudemian Ethics, and usually thought to belong to that earlier work. Another work on ethics traditionally ascribed to Aristotle ± the Magna Moralia ± is now generally considered not to have been written by him, but perhaps by a student of his. Like most of his works, the Ethics was not written for vii
Book I Noblest is that which is the
Book I life into his old age and di
Book I contrary to what people thin
Book I indeed, in that political sc
Book II Chapter 1 Virtue, then, is
Book II start, the accounts we dema
Book II choice, because what is nob
Book II feelings (the person who is
Book II For good people are just go
Book II honour, sometimes the one w
Book II osity. The greatest dissimi
Book III Chapter 1 Since virtue is
Book III pleasant or noble do so wi
Book III closely tied to virtue, an
Book III do; this is what remains.
Book III the individual it is the a
Book III the start it was open to t
Book III money in good heart. Nor i
Book III of a coward; for it is sof
Book III and to be courage if it is
Book III A distinction should be dr
Book III enjoy things more than mos
Book III harmony with reason; for t
Book IV giving, while taking and ke
Book IV he can be cheated, since he
Book IV Both, then, because they wi
Book IV weddings and suchlike; and
Book IV goes to excess in relation
Book IV towards people at the middl
Book IV nameless, it seems as if th
Book IV serious, and very much so i
Book IV while the dissemblers are b
Book IV make himself. He will not,
Book V Chapter 1 We must consider j
Book V Justice in this sense, then,
Book V and similarly what is just a
Book V part. But this proportion is
Book V party with more, and add to
Book V from the fact that whenever
Book V namely, honour and privilege
Book V one of the people present, a
Book V involuntary, as acting unjus
Book V that justice is an easy matt
Book V the equitable person is. He
Book VI Chapter 1 Since we have alr
Book VI practical. Such thought gov
Book VI and its contrary, lack of s
Book VI some people we think are wi
Book VI science, the latter being s
Book VI must ®rst inquire into the
Book VI the last. The intellect rel
Book VI Practical wisdom is not the
Book VII Chapter 1 Next we must mak
Book VII on the supposition that he
Book VII the same or different? Sim
Book VII The explanation of how the
Book VII children or parents; for t
Book VII with the same things as in
Book VII to those that most people
Book VII thus like a disease such a
Book VII who does something for the
Book VII happiness involves pleasur
Book VII The fact that no pleasure
Book VII states and processes, ther
Book VIII Chapter 1 After this, the
Book VIII Chapter 2 Perhaps the mat
Book VIII another's company, since
Book VIII true friendship that they
Book VIII since one ®nds more of a
Book VIII goods, though presumably
Book VIII differs as well, and the
Book VIII superior. Sometimes, howe
Book VIII or to a lesser degree. Pa
Book VIII Nor are complaints genera
Book VIII thinking it is characteri
Book IX wished, then that would hav
Book IX when he lent to you as some
Book IX Chapter 4 The origin of rel
Book IX Chapter 5 Goodwill seems to
Book IX Chapter 7 Benefactors seem
Book IX all to a person's relation
Book IX being self-suf®cient, need
Book IX or think); and if perceivin
Book IX But it is nobler in good fo
Book X Chapter 1 After this our nex
Book X choice with the addition of
Book X Against those who bring up d
Book X be so described, but only wh
Book X This is even more evident fr
Book X Chapter 6 Now that we have d
Book X and its objects are the high
Book X practical wisdom, since the
Book X done what he regarded as the
Book X heed necessity rather than a
Book X cians? For we did think that
Glossary Many of the English words
Glossary kalos noble. Alternative t
Index activity, 206 distinct from c
Index between master and slave, 158
Index Scythians, 42, 132 self-love,
Malebranche The Search after Truth
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