Aristotle’s Uses of ἕνεκα

I argue that Aristotle’s arguments in passages regarding chance in the Physics and in passages about ignorance in action in the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics presuppose two different uses of ‘for the sake (ἕνεκα) of something’, which are able to explain respectively the wish or thought of agents and the type or nature of what they actually do. In my view, however, this does not commit Aristotle, in the ‘ignorance’ passages from the two Ethics, to holding that the type or nature of what the agents actually do is for the sake of killing or wounding.

Virtue, Knowledge, and Political Instability in Aristotle’s Politics: Lessons from the Eudemian Ethics

I argue that we cannot fully understand Aristotle’s position on political stability and state preservation in the Politics with paying close attention to his Eudemian Ethics. We learn from considering the Politics and the Eudemian Ethics in concert that even ‘correct’ regimes are unstable when citizens do not possess full virtue. Aristotle introduces his formal account of the knowledge requirements for virtue in Eudemian Ethics 8.3, and he applies these knowledge requirements as an explanation for state decline in Politics 2.9 when discussing the Spartans. If we primarily focus on the Nicomachean Ethics as Aristotle’s single essential ethical work, we will not learn the lesson he intends his readers to take away from the Spartan discussion in the Politics: that virtue requires correct understanding of the hierarchy and structure of the good life. This knowledge prevents the erosion of the virtues of character and the decline of political regimes.

A Monistic Conclusion to Aristotle’sErgon Argument: the Human Good as the Best Achievement of a Human

Scholars have often thought that a monistic reading of Aristotle’s definition of the human good – in particular, one on which “best and most teleios virtue” (Nicomachean Ethics I 7, 1098a17–18) refers to theoretical wisdom – cannot follow from the premises of the ergon argument. I explain how a monistic reading can follow from the premises, and I argue that this interpretation gives the correct rationale for Aristotle’s definition. I then explain that even though the best and most teleios virtue must be a single virtue, that virtue could in principle be a whole virtue that arises from the combination of all the others (and this is what kalokagathia seems to be in the Eudemian Ethics). I also clarify that the definition of the human good aims at capturing the nature of human eudaimonia only in its primary case.

From Tyrannicide to Revolution: Aristotle on the Politics of Comradeship

Treatments of collective action in political science, classical Greek history, and democratic theory often focus on the episodic and public-facing dimensions of dissent. This article turns to Aristotle for an account of solidaristic political action whose scale and tempo is sometimes obscured by such engagements. Revisiting The Athenian Constitution’s account of the tyrannicides of 514 BCE and the democratic revolution of 508/7 BCE, I argue for the centrality of comradeship to Aristotle’s discussions of these episodes. I demonstrate that Aristotle’s attention to the politics of comradeship is also legible in Politics 5—which notes the dangers political clubs (hetaireiai) pose to tyranny—as well as Aristotle’s references to comrades (hetairoi) in the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. This article contributes to our understanding of the birth of Athenian democracy and how comradeship—a vice, to Aristotle, under ordinary political circumstances—becomes a virtue.

Friendship and Other Selves in Aristotle’s Ethics

This chapter is a detailed exposition of the role of the concept of shared life in Aristotle’s thinking about the nature of friendship in both his Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. At its most vivid, the concept of shared life illuminates the nature of the highest forms of human friendship by designating the intimacy that arises from the sharing of one’s most cherished actions. Moreover, in his handling of two interlinked questions—whether the virtuous person needs friends and whether it is possible to be a friend to oneself—the concept of shared life emerges as essential to Aristotle’s investigation of the political conditions necessary for the performance of noble deeds, deeds which provide the polis with its final cause.

Kalokagathia and the Unity of the Virtues in the Eudemian Ethics

In this paper, I argue that in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle proposes a strong version of the unity of the virtues. Evidence in favor of this strong version of the unity of the virtues results from reading the common books within the EE rather than as part of the Nicomachean Ethics. The unity of the virtues as defended in the EE includes not only practical wisdom and the character virtues, but also all the virtues of practical and theoretical thinking. Closely related, in the EE, Aristotle proposes a different best agent from the one of the NE. The best agent of the EE is the kalos kagathos. The person who is kalos kagathos has “all” the virtues. Kalokagathia is a whole and the virtues are its parts. I investigate how we should understand this whole and the relation between the individual virtues within this whole.