The Nicomachean Ethics

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Lost in translation - Rated
Previous reviewers have provided an excellent overview of Ethics, which I shall not try to match. However, I should like to make an observation concerning the Dover Thrift edition of the work.

Despite being published in 1998, the translation itself dates from 1911. This creates certain problems for readers new to Aristotle and not versed in Ancient Greek.

Firstly, the translation, although at times quite fascinating and even beautiful in its use of English, takes a remarkably esoteric approach to the English language, with a highly individual choice of vocabulary and word order. Aristotle's logic is already difficult to follow, given its density and context. The style used in the translation compounds the difficulty, meaning that more often than not one has to decipher the English before deciphering Aristotle's own train of thought. This makes an already difficult document even harder, and at times (in my view) virtually impossible, to follow.

The second problem is that where untranslatable words are encountered, they are left in the original Greek. This is a perfectly reasonable approach, provided that the notes explain the word and help one to understand why it was not translated. Now, the author has provided 29 pages of notes, but on several occasions no such explanation is forthcoming, making the translation rather pointless for somebody with no Greek.

Overall, I would simply say that the art of translation has come on in leaps and bound in the last 96 years, and suggest that anybody new to Aristotle look for a more accessible version. This translation appears to have been written either for the sheer pleasure of translating, or for students who already have a fair knowledge of Greek and Greek philosophical thought. I could not recommend it to the general reader, who will probably learn more from the introduction to this edition than from the translation itself.

Doing the right thing - Rated
Aristotle was a philosopher in search of the chief good for human beings. This chief good is eudaimonia, which is often translated as 'happiness' (but can also be translated as 'thriving' or 'flourishing'). Aristotle sees pleasure, honour and virtue as significant 'wants' for people, and then argues that virtue is the most important of these.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes the claim that happiness is something which is both precious and final. This seems to be so because it is a first principle or ultimate starting point. For, it is for the sake of happiness that we do everything else, and we regard the cause of all good things to be precious and divine. Moreover, since happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with complete and perfect virtue, it is necessary to consider virtue, as this will be the best way of studying happiness.

How many of us today speak of happiness and virtue in the same breath? Aristotle's work in the Nicomachean Ethics is considered one of his greatest achievements, and by extension, one of the greatest pieces of philosophy from the ancient world. When the framers of the American Declaration of Independence were thinking of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there is little doubt they had an acquaintance with Aristotle's work connecting happiness, virtue, and ethics together.

When one thinks of ethical ideas such as an avoidance of extremes, of taking the tolerant or middle ground, or of taking all things in moderation, one is tapping into Aristotle's ideas. It is in the Nicomachean Ethics that Aristotle proposes the Doctrine of the Mean - he states that virtue is a 'mean state', that is, it aims for the mean or middle ground. However, Aristotle is often misquoted and misinterpreted here, for he very quickly in the text disallows the idea of the mean to be applied in all cases. There are things, actions and emotions, that do not allow the mean state. Thus, Aristotle tends to view virtue as a relative state, making the analogy with food - for some, two pounds of meat might be too much food, but for others, it might be too little. The mean exists between the state of deficiency, too little, and excessiveness, too much.

Aristotle proposes many different examples of virtues and vices, together with their mean states. With regard to money, being stingy and being illiberal with generosity are the extremes, the one deficient and the other excessive. The mean state here would be liberality and generosity, a willingness to buy and to give, but not to extremes. Anger, too, is highlighted as having a deficient state (too much passivity), an excessive state (too much passion) and a mean state (a gentleness but firmness with regard to emotions).

Aristotle states that one of the difficulties with leading a virtuous life is that it takes a person of science to find the mean between the extremes (or, in some cases, Aristotle uses the image of a circle, the scientist finding the centre). Many of us, being imperfect humans, err on one side or the other, choosing in Aristotle's words, the lesser of two evils. Aristotle's wording here, that a scientist is the only one fully capable of virtue, has a different meaning for scientist - this is a pre-modern, pre-Enlightenment view; for Aristotle, the person of science is one who is capable of observation and calculation, and this can take many different forms.

Aristotle uses different kinds of argumentation in the Nicomachean Ethics. He uses a dialectical method, as well as a functional method. In the dialectical method, there are opposing ideas held in tension, whose interactions against each other yield a result - this is often how the mean between extremes is derived. However, there are other times that Aristotle seems to prefer a more direct, functional approach. Both of these methods lead to the same understanding for Aristotle's sense of the rational - that humanity's highest or final good is happiness.

There is a discussion of the human soul (for this is where virtue and happiness reside). Aristotle argues that virtue is not a natural state; we are not born with nor do we acquire through any natural processes virtue, but rather through 'habitation', an embedding process or enculturation that makes these a part of our soul. However, it is not sufficient for Aristotle's virtue that one merely function as a virtuous person or that virtuous things be done. This is not a skill, but rather an art, and to be virtuous, one must live virtuously and act virtuously with intention as well as form.

Of course, one of the implications here is that virtue is a quantifiable thing, that periodically resurfaces in later philosophies. How do we calculate virtue?

This is a difficult question, and not one that Aristotle answers in any definitive way. However, more important than this is the key difference that Aristotle displayed setting himself apart from his tutor Plato; rather than seeing the possession of 'the good' or 'virtue' as the highest ideal, Aristotle is concerned with the practical aspects, the ethics of this. Based on Aristotle's lectures in Athens in the fourth century BCE, this remains one of the most important works on ethical and moral philosophy in history.

What to do in year 2000? Advice the greatest philosopher. - Rated
A book that many students must read and many business executives should read. For the non-specialist, reading is rather hard work. It is worth the effort if you are seriously interested in business ethics. Not much progress has been made since the book was published around 300 BC. The central meassge is that happiness is the result of acting virtuously. How to act virtuously is the main subject of the book. Acting virtuously is a question of character. A character can only be developed by practising virtues. Trial and error is an important part of this learning process.