the cambridge companion to ARISTOTLE S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics is the first and arguably most important treatise on ethics in Western philosophy. It remains to this day a compelling reflection on the best sort of human life and continues to inspire contemporary thought and debate. This Cambridge Companion includes twenty essays by leading scholars of Aristotle and ancient philosophy that cover the major issues of this foundational text. The essays in this volume shed light on Aristotle s rigorous and challenging thinking on questions such as: Can there be a practical science of ethics? What is happiness? Can we arrive at convincing accounts of virtues? Are we responsible for our character? How does moral virtue relate to good thinking? Can we act against our reasoned choice? What is friendship? Is the contemplative life the highest kind of life? Ronald Polansky is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Duquesne University. He has been editor of the journal Ancient Philosophy since its beginning in 1980. Polansky is the author of Aristotle s De anima: A Critical Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Philosophy and Knowledge: A Commentary on Plato s Theaetetus (1992), and co-editor of Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues (2002).
cambridge companions to philosophy other recent volumes in this series of cambridge companions ANCIENT SCEPTICISM Edited by richard bett BOETHIUS Edited by john marenbon CARNAP Edited by michael friedman and richard creath CONSTANT Edited by helena rosenblatt DARWIN, 2nd EDITION Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick EPICUREANISM Edited by james warren EXISTENTIALISM Edited by steven crowell FREGE Edited by tom ricketts and michael potter GALEN Edited by r. j. hankinson HEGEL AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY Edited by frederick c. beiser HUME, 2nd EDITION Edited by david fate norton and jacqueline taylor KANT S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON Edited by paul guyer NOZICK S ANARCHY, STATE, AND UTOPIA Edited by ralf m. bader and john meadowcroft THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES Edited by michael ruse and robert j. richards PHILO Edited by adam kamesar PIAGET Edited by ulrich müller,jeremy i. m. carpendale, and leslie smith SOCRATES Edited by donald r. morrison SPINOZA S ETHICS Edited by olli koistinen LEO STRAUSS Edited by steven b. smith
The Cambridge Companion to ARISTOTLE S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013 2473, usa Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: /9780521122733 Ronald Polansky 2014 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2014 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The Cambridge companion to Aristotle s Nicomachean ethics / edited by Ronald Polansky, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh. pages cm. (Cambridge companions to philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-521-19276-7 (hardback : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-521-12273-3 (pbk.) 1. Aristotle Nicomachean ethics. 2. Ethics. I. Polansky, Ronald M., 1948 editor of compilation. b430.c36 2014 171 0.3 dc23 2014009858 isbn 978-0-521-19276-7 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-12273-3 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents List of Contributors page ix 1 Introduction: Ethics as Practical Science 1 ronald polansky 2 Beginning and Ending with Eudaimonia 14 c. d. c. reeve 3 Happiness and the External Goods 34 t. d. roche 4 Why Is Aristotle s Virtue of Character a Mean? Taking Aristotle at His Word (NE ii 6) 64 lesley brown 5 Choice and Moral Responsibility (NE iii 1 5) 81 susanne bobzien 6 Courage and Temperance 110 giles pearson 7 The Social Virtues (NE iv) 135 helen cullyer 8 Giving Justice Its Due 151 ronald polansky 9 The Book on Wisdom 180 carlo natali 10 Phronesis and the Virtues (NE vi 12 13) 203 daniel c. russell 11 Was Aristotle a Humean? A Partisan Guide to the Debate 221 jessica moss 12 Aristotle s Analysis of Akratic Action 242 hendrik lorenz vii
viii Contents 13 Philosophical Virtue: In Defense of the Grand End 263 kristen inglis 14 The Nicomachean Ethics on Pleasure 288 verity harte 15 Finding Oneself with Friends 319 patrick lee miller 16 Competing Ways of Life and Ring Composition (NE x 6 8) 350 thornton lockwood 17 The Relationship between Aristotle s Ethical and Political Discourses (NE x 9) 370 rachana kamtekar 18 Protreptic Aspects of Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics 383 d. s. hutchinson and monte ransome johnson 19 The Eudemian Ethics and Its Controversial Relationship to the Nicomachean Ethics 410 lawrence jost 20 Topical Bibliography to Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics 428 compiled by thornton lockwood Index 465
Contributors susanne bobzien is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Previously, she was Professor of Philosophy at Yale. She is the author of several books, including Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, and of numerous articles on ancient as well as contemporary philosophy. Her work focuses on determinism, freedom, and moral responsibility (Aristotle, Epicurus, Stoics, Kant); contemporary philosophy of logic and language; and the history of logic (from Aristotle to Boethius). lesley brown is Fellow Emeritus in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, and member of the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Oxford. She is responsible for the Introduction and Notes to the Oxford World s Classics translation of Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics (2009) and has published extensively on Plato s Sophist. helen cullyer is currently Associate Program Officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York and was formerly Assistant Professor of Classics and director of the Classics, Philosophy, and Ancient Science graduate program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her primary research interests are in the ethical philosophies of Aristotle and the Stoics, and she has published articles and essays on Socratic and Stoic conceptions of courage, the virtues and vices associated with humor in Aristotle, and Stoic interpretations of Homer. She has also published critical assessments of Ayn Rand s interpretation of Aristotle s ethics. verity harte is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Yale University. She is the author of Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure (2002) and of various articles on ancient philosophy. She is co-editor (with M. M. McCabe, R. W. Sharples, and Anne Sheppard) of Aristotle and the Stoics Reading Plato (2010) and (with Melissa Lane) of Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy (2013). ix
x List of Contributors d. s. hutchinson is Professor of Philosophy and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Virtues of Aristotle (1986) and the chapter on Ethics in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (edited by J. Barnes, 1995). He is the co-editor (with John Cooper) of Plato: Complete Works (1997). His current research is reconstructing Aristotle s lost dialogue Protrepticus, with Monte Ransome Johnson, on the basis of the results of their 2005 Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy article, Authenticating Aristotle s Protrepticus. kristen inglis is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on Aristotle s ethics and moral psychology. monte ransome johnson is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, where he teaches courses on Greek and Roman philosophy and researches the influence of ancient thought on modern philosophy and science. He is the author of Aristotle on Teleology (2005) and essays on Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Lucretius. He is currently working with D. S. Hutchinson on a reconstruction of Aristotle s lost dialogue Protrepticus. lawrence jost is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. His publications have centered on Aristotle s ethical writings. He co-edited Eudaimonia and Well-Being (2003) and Perfecting Virtue: New Essays on Kantian Ethics and Virtue Ethics (2011). He is especially concerned with the intersection between ancient ethical theory and contemporary theories of well-being and virtue. He is working on a monograph dealing with the central argument of the Eudemian Ethics, which, when treated as a coherent whole containing the common books, may place more emphasis on individually tailored, yet objective, conceptions of eudaimonia than the Nicomachean Ethics. rachana kamtekar is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, where she mainly teaches ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. She writes on ancient political philosophy, ethics, and moral psychology and is currently working on a book on Plato s moral psychology. thornton lockwood is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Quinnipiac University. He has published articles on Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics in Phronesis, Journal of the History of Philosophy, History of Political Thought, Ancient Philosophy, andoxford
List of Contributors xi Bibliographies On-line. He is the associate editor (book reviews) at POLIS: The Journal of Ancient Greek Political Thought. hendrik lorenz is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He is author of The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle (2006) and articles about Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism. patrick lee miller is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, where he specializes in ancient philosophy, existentialism, and psychoanalysis. His first book (Becoming God, 2011) traced the connections between reason, selfhood, and divinity in early Greek philosophy (Heraclitus through Plato). He is now working on a sequel that extends his argument into a later period (Aristotle through Plotinus). He has published articles on Sophocles, Augustine, Nietzsche, Freud, and the films of David Lynch. jessica moss is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. She is the author of Aristotle on the Apparent Good (2012), as well as of articles on Aristotle s and Plato s psychology and ethics that have appeared in publications such as Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Phronesis, and The Cambridge Companion to Plato s Republic. carlo natali is Professor of History of Ancient Philosophy at Università Ca Foscari Venezia. In English he has published The Wisdom of Aristotle (2001) and the chapter Schools and Sites of Learning in The Greek Pursuit of Knowledge (2003); his volume Aristotle: His Life and School was originally published in Italian in 1991 and updated in an English version edited by D. S. Hutchinson (2013). In French he has published L action efficace. Etudes sur la philosophie de l action d Aristote (2004). In Italian he has translated and annotated Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics, Xenophon s Oeconomicus, and Alexander of Aphrodisias s On Destiny. giles pearson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bristol. He is author of Aristotle on Desire (2012) and a number of articles on Aristotle s ethics and philosophical psychology, and he is co-editor (with Michael Pakaluk) of Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle (2011). ronald polansky is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Duquesne University. He has been fortunate to learn from good teachers, including Joseph P. Maguire, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Gregory Vlastos. He edits the journal Ancient Philosophy and has published Philosophy and
xii List of Contributors Knowledge: A Commentary on Plato s Theaetetus (1992) and Aristotle s De anima: A Critical Commentary (2007). c. d. c. reeve is Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works primarily on Plato and Aristotle, but is interested in philosophy generally and has published on film and on the philosophy of sex and love. His books include Philosopher-Kings (1988, reissued 2006); Socrates in the Apology (1989); Practices of Reason (1995); Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle s Metaphysics (2003); Love s Confusions (2005); Action, Contemplation, and Happiness: An Essay on Aristotle (2012); Blindness and Reorientation: Problems in Plato s Republic (2012); and Aristotle on Practical Wisdom (2013). He has translated Plato s Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Cratylus, and Republic (2005), as well as Aristotle s Politics (1998) and Nicomachean Ethics (2014). t. d. roche is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis. He is the author of articles on moral theory and Greek philosophy. His essays have appeared in such journals as Phronesis, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Philosophical Review, Mind, and Ancient Philosophy. He is currently working on a book on Aristotle s conception of happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics. daniel c. russell is Professor of Philosophy in the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona and the Seymour Reader in Ancient History and Philosophy at Ormond College, University of Melbourne. He is the author of Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life (2005), Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (2009), and Happiness for Humans (2012) andtheeditorofthe Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics (2013).