Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics

146 Pages·2017·0.5 MB·English

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LSU Master's Theses Graduate School
2002
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Jeremy John Mhire
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
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Mhire, Jeremy John, "Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics" (2002). LSU Master's Theses. 709.
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ARISTOTLE’S EUDEMIAN ETHICS
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
in
The Department of Political Science
by
Jeremy John Mhire
B.A., University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2000
August 2002
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To properly acknowledge all of the kind and generous people who helped this project at
various point in its development would require another project of almost equal length. This
thesis exists in its final form only because of the time, assistance, and compassion devoted by
many selfless people who thought it appropriate, for whatever reason, to support an often
undeserving young man with an obscure passion for ancient political philosophy. In particular, I
must acknowledge Dr. James Stoner’s guidance and encouragement, without which I would
never have started, to say nothing of finishing, this ambitious project. I can only say that I
consider myself lucky to be one of his students. My deepest thanks also goes out to my thesis
committee, which included Dr. Ellis Sandoz, Dr. Cecil Eubanks, and Dr. Bill Clark. Their
patience and insights were exceedingly thoughtful, and their assistance on matters ranging from
the highest to the most mundane was invaluable. The faculty, staff, and graduate students of the
Department of Political Science at Louisiana State University were often my lifeline to sanity
during those stressful periods when my resolve to complete this project was most seriously tried.
This includes, but is not limited to, Alan Bailey, Dr. Wayne Parent, Dr. Moises Arce, Tara
Montelaro, Sal Pace, Michael Henderson, Scott Segrest, David Gauthier, Chad Vanderford, and
Wanda Ashley. Last, but certainly not least, I must acknowledge my wonderful family and
friends, particularly my fiancee Simone LaVergne and Mr. and Mrs. John R. Mhire, without
whom none of this would have been possible.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ................................................................. iv
TRANSLATIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS ........................................v
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION ....................................................1
II HAPPINESS AND THE GOOD LIFE ....................................7
Anaxagoras ........................................................15
Socrates ...........................................................23
III VIRTUE AND JUSTICE ..............................................36
Ethical Virtue .......................................................41
Justice . ............................................................55
IV INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE ...........................................68
The Mind ..........................................................70
Wisdom ...........................................................86
V FRIENDSHIP AND PHILOSOPHY .....................................94
Friendship and the City ...............................................95
Philosophy ........................................................123
VI CONCLUSION ................ ....................................133
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................136
APPENDIX ...... ..........................................................138
VITA .....................................................................139
iii
ABSTRACT
This thesis is an examination of the argument and character of Aristotle’s Eudemian
Ethics. Its goal is to provide a critical analysis that will elucidate the treatise’s themes in general
and its arguments in particular. The first section is devoted to examining the relationship
between happiness and the good life. The second section seeks to make clear the relationship
between virtue and justice. The third section attempts to illustrate the nature of intellectual
virtue. The fourth and final section analyzes the notions of friendship and philosophy.
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TRANSLATIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS
The standard translation that this thesis will use is that of H. Rackman, Aristotle XX: The
Athenian Constitution, The Eudemian Ethics, On Virtues and Vices, (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1996). When necessary, it has been supplemented with H. Rackman, Aristotle
XIX: Nicomachean Ethics, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), or with Martin
Ostwald, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, (New York: Library of the Liberal Arts, 1962). The
author of this thesis has also reserved the right to alter or adapt quoted translations for reasons of
clarity and exactness. All changes to in-text citations are noted with italics.
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CHAPTER I: Introduction
In the beginning of his book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre uses a thought experiment
to describe what he sees as the current state of moral language and inquiry.1 MacIntyre asks his
audience to imagine a scenario where a series of natural disasters has occurred, all of which were
blamed on the community of natural scientists by a fringe political movement. The result of this
movement is a widespread indictment of science, accompanied by the removal of scientists and
scientific teaching from the universities, and a ridiculing of the type of knowledge with which
they were identified. MacIntyre then pushes the scenario one step farther, asking the audience to
imagine that, over time, the fringe political movement itself falls from grace, and there is a push
to reinstate the scientists and scientific learning into the universities. To the dismay of those
who wish for this revival, however, little survives of the once storied scientific history, leaving
the project of scientific revitalization with no context from which it can take its bearings. The
result is linguistic and conceptual chaos, where those interested in the project can agree on
nothing for lack of any contextual foundation.
For MacIntyre, this thought experiment serves to illustrate the predicament in which
contemporary moral inquiry finds itself. And the predicament is all too peculiar, for our need to
answer these questions is not diminished by our inability to do so: “Our capacity to use moral
language, to be guided by moral reasoning, to define our transactions with others in moral terms
is so central to our view of ourselves that even to envisage the possibility of our radical
incapacity in these respects is to ask for a shift in our view of what we are and do which is going
1Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984),
1.
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to be difficult to achieve.”2 The contemporary dilemma in which those interested in questions of
morality find themselves is one that begs for a new starting point, one that can serve as a basis
from which moral inquiry can proceed.
One such starting place for contemporary moral inquiry is in the very origins of the
subject matter. Philosophical inquiry concerning basic questions of right and wrong, good and
bad, find their genesis in ancient Greece, and as such, a proper starting place for moral inquiry
must take into account, if not proceed from, these senescent investigations. In particular, the
writings of Aristotle on the subject of ethics provide an excellent point of departure for any
moral inquiry, both in terms of history and substance. It seems altogether plausible, if not
necessary, that contemporary moral inquiry proceed by first attempting to understand what
Aristotle himself thought about moral matters, and what those thoughts can mean to a
contemporary mind.
How, then, does one go about accounting for Aristotle’s thought? Traditionally, those
interested in Aristotle’s treatment of ethics concerned themselves primarily and almost
exclusively with the Nicomachean Ethics. Although the Aristotelian corpus lists three works
devoted to the subject of ethics, including the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics, and the
Magna Moralia, it is widely held that the first of these is the quintessential statement of
Aristotle’s thoughts on matters of an ethical nature. As the notable Aristotelian translator H
Rackman attests, “In any case, no one questions that the Nicomachean Ethics is the authoritative
statement of Aristotle’s system.”3 This view is also held by Martin Ostwald, who, when
2Ibid., p. 2
3H. Rackman, Nicomachean Ethics, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), xvii.
2
speaking of the relationship between the Nichomachean and Eudemian Ethics in the
introduction to his translation of the former, asserts, “Yet it is also true that wherever there are
differences in the treatment of a given problem between the two works, the Nicomachean Ethics
represents a more mature view than the Eudemian.”4
The translators of Aristotle’s ethical works are not alone in their preference for the
Nicomachean Ethics. In his chapter on Aristotle in the History of Political Philosophy, Harry
Jaffa describes the Eudemian Ethics as “An evidently earlier and less definitive work. . . .”5
Jaffa is echoed in his opinion by Carnes Lord, who, when writing the same chapter for the third
edition of the History of Political Philosophy, suggests that “Two other treatises, the Eudemian
Ethics and the Magna Moralia, cover much of the same ground as the Nicomachean Ethics, but
are of lesser interest. . . .”6 The Nicomachean Ethics, then, is generally held to be the key to
unlocking Aristotle’s thoughts on ethical matters, as it represents his fullest, most mature
arguments and discussions.
This view, while being almost universally held, has recently received a good deal of
scrutiny. In his book The Aristotelian Ethics, Anthony Kenny states that “Scholars have
disagreed whether the Eudemian Ethics was the work of the immature Aristotle or of a
posthumous admirer; but they have agreed that it was in various ways unworthy of the master in
4Martin Ostwald, Nicomachean Ethics, (New York: Library of Liberal Arts, 1962), xviii-
xix.
5Harry Jaffa, “Aristotle,” History of Political Philosophy, 2nd edition, (Chicago: Rand
McNally & Company, 1969), 64.
6Carnes Lord, “Aristotle,” History of Political Philosophy, 3rd edition, (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 118.
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his years of greatness: it was too unworldly, too pious, too formalistic, too incoherent, too
chaotic, too systematic.”7 Kenny then proceeds to use a battery of historical, statistical, and
linguistic comparisons to render the underlying presuppositions about the Nicomachean’s
superiority over the other ethical treatises, especially the Eudemian, essentially unsubstantiated.8
The result of Kenny’s research is to call into question all of the assumptions that have
traditionally been made about the ethical corpus, and to require a reexamination of Aristotle’s
works on a largely substantive basis.
The contemporary reader, then, is faced with the challenge of having to account for all of
Aristotle’s ethical works if he wishes to properly begin his moral inquiry from the ancient Greek
perspective. And this is a daunting task, as it requires studying each text on its own terms, and
then assessing the teachings of that text against both traditional scholarship and contemporary
dilemmas. A single study of an Aristotelian ethical treatise would do well to begin with certain
aspects of the texts, ones that will hopefully bring insight into Aristotle’s thought as a whole. It
is the aim of this project, then, in light of this daunting challenge, to engage in a close and
critical reading of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics while asking and attempting to answer three
rather basic, yet fundamentally important, questions. First, does the Eudemian Ethics present a
concise and coherent argument from which an understanding of Aristotle’s thoughts on ethics
can be discerned? If the traditional scholarship on the Eudemian Ethics is correct, the text
should not be able to hold up against the scrutiny of critical analysis and probing. As such, its
7Anthony Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 2.
8For a detailed critique of Kenny’s procedure and generalizations, cf. T. H. Irwin, “The
Aristotelian Ethics; Aristotle’s Theory of Will,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 77, June, 1980.
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