Excertos de HUGHES, Gerard. The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. London: Routledge, 2013, p. 8-10
The Nicomachean Ethics is so called either because Aristotle dedicated the work to his young son, or, more probably, because it was Nicomachus himself who edited the work and gave it its final form some years after his father’s death. Aristotle also wrote another book on moral philosophy, the Eudemian Ethics, which for the purposes of our present study we may leave to one side. I shall here be dealing just with the Nicomachean Ethics, and for convenience I shall refer to it simply as the Ethics when there is no danger of confusion.
We know that Aristotle wrote stylish dialogues and other works on philosophy intended for the general public. Unfortunately, only some fragments of these have survived, and in any case most of these probably date from Aristotle’s first stay in Athens when he was working in Plato’s Academy. The surviving works, in contrast, were not intended for the wider public, and most of them could not be described as polished literary creations. More probably, they contain Aristotle’s own notes for lectures he was giving, or topics he was working on. The Ethics most likely dates from the period after Aristotle had returned to Athens and founded the Lyceum. Like everything else we have from this period, in some places the writing is extremely condensed, and would, presumably, have been explained more at length in the course of the lectures; but in other places, the style is more elaborate and the text could have been delivered more or less as it stands. There are also some inconsistencies. Did he perhaps revise what he wanted to say in some places, but did not get round to making the corresponding corrections elsewhere? Alternatively, it might well be that Nicomachus or some later editor was responsible for arranging whatever materials had come down to him from Aristotle, and fitted some bits in as best he could. What has come down to us is at least to some extent a record of work in progress, and we should read it in that spirit. It should encourage us to think about the problems as Aristotle himself was thinking about them. Rather than being daunted by a great man’s finished definitive work, we might perhaps think of the questions we might put to a lecturer, or the contributions we might try to make to a seminar.
So the Ethics will strike the modern reader as, if not exactly chaotic, at least rather loosely written. For a start, the traditional division into ‘Books’ and ‘chapters’ is almost certainly not Aristotle’s, and we should not allow it to distract us. Some topics run over from one Book to another (as, for example, friendship straddles the division between Books VIII and IX, and the moral virtues are treated in Books II and IV and V). Within a single Book, too, successive chapters often seem to hop from one topic to another almost without warning. To some extent this is the result of the editing, but it also reflects the nature of ethics as a subject, comprising as it does several issues which are loosely related to one another rather than tightly interlocking. Still, we should not exaggerate. Whether it is Aristotle’s or that of a later editor, there is at least some structure, and an intelligible sequence of topics, along the following lines:
I What do we aim at in life? What is it that would make living worthwhile? A worthwhile life must surely involve developing our specifically human characteristics to the full. How could we find out what those are? Upon reflection, we can see that what is most characteristically human about ourselves is the way in which thought colours all our lives — not just our intellectual pursuits, but also our feelings and emotions, our choices and relationships.
II So we start by considering the ways in which thought influences those traits of character which contribute to living a worthwhile, fulfilled life. What are these traits? How do we come to possess them? And how do our characters in turn influence the choices which we make in life, and for which we are held responsible?
III We need to think about choice and responsibility in more detail. Are we responsible for all our behaviour, and also for the character we have developed? We can use the examples of individual virtues to illustrate these points …
IV Discussion of several more examples of virtue.
V The virtue of justice (which is not quite like the others).
VI Living a worthwhile life requires not only that we have a well-rounded and balanced character, but also that we have developed the intellectual skills needed to grasp which choices we need to make as we go along. What is it to have a good moral judgement?
VII How can people responsibly make wrong choices? The connection between good and bad choices and virtues and vices. Pleasure as a possible source of temptation.
VIII The preceding topics might give the impression that a worthwhile human life might be lived entirely on one’s own. On the contrary, humans are naturally inclined towards various kinds of friendship.
IX More on friendship: its justification and its importance.
X Pleasure again; for surely a worthwhile life must somehow be fulfilling and enjoyable? This leads on to a final discussion of the ingredients of a fulfilled life, both for the individual, and for the individual as a member of a community.