Aristotle's Ethics

It has been quite a while since I have posted to this blog. This was due to the fact that our group had not been meeting. Thankfully, we have recommenced.

On April 29th we discussed the first chapter of Aristotle's Ethics. Because of the length and complexity of the selection we used W.D. Ross's table of contents from his translation. This greatly aided our discussion .

The first book sets out to establish what the good for man is. Aristotle identifies this good with happiness and ultimately defines happiness either as 'life of the rational element' (1098^a 5). Life lived in line with a rational principle means that all one's actions are governed by this rational principle. The name for such a governing principle is virtue and so Aristotle says (1098^a 17):

...human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.

Because happiness rests on the virtues most of the other books of the Ethics are a discussion of those virtues.