In anticipation of updating annotated bibliographies on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics for Oxford Bibliography Online, I have sought to keep a running tabulation of all books, edited collections, translations, and journal articles which are primarily devoted to Aristotle’s ethical and political writings (including their historical reception but excluding neo–Aristotelian virtue ethics). In general, criteria for inclusion in this bibliography are that the work be: (1) publication in a peer–reviewed or academic/university press between 2011–2020; (2) “substantially” devoted to one of Aristotle’s (...) ethical or political works (e.g., Pol, EN, EE, MM, Athenian Constitution, Protrepticus); and/or (3) devoted to ethical or political concepts examined elsewhere in Aristotle’s corpus (e.g., Rhetoric, Poetics, zoological treatises, etc.). I encourage scholars to alert me about published works that I have omitted or listed incorrectly. (shrink)

Scholarship on Aristotle’s theory of action has recently veered toward an intellectualist position, according to which reason is in charge of setting the goals of action. This position has recently been criticized by an anti-intellectualism revival, according to which character, and not reason, sets the goals of action. I argue that neither view can sufficiently account for the complexities of Aristotle’s theory, and suggest a middle way that combines the strengths of both while avoiding their pitfalls. The key problem for (...) intellectualism is that Aristotle explicitly states reason cannot set the goals of action. The key problem for anti-intellectualism is that he also holds that the soul’s rational part must guide and prescribe over the non-rational part. I propose indirect intellectualism, a promising middle path. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian (...) decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotle thinks desire is what motivates all animal movement and human action. Reason never motivates us directly, but it can exert an influence on what we desire. I argue that whether reason successfully does so depends on our character states, and that this is one reason why Aristotle is correct to say that virtue makes the end (i.e., the object of desire) right. The object of rational desire is the good, and it is because we have character (...) states of a certain kind that we find the ends that reason proposes to be good. So it is because we are virtuous or vicious that we desire what reason proposes. Since reason cannot motivate us directly, reason can only be practical by affecting our desires. Since reason only affects our desires insofar as we are virtuous or vicious, it is virtue and vice that make practical reason possible. (shrink)

Prohairesis plays a central role in Aristotle's moral psychology. It is prohairesis that determines an action to be rational, that provides the proximate efficient or moving cause of rational action, and that better reveals one's character than the action itself. This paper will discuss Aristotle's shifted emphases when speaking of prohairesis in different ethical treatises; Aristotle's pursuit of the nature of prohairesis and his special argumentative strategy in dealing with prohairesis; the structure, i.e., the desiderative and deliberative components of prohairesis; (...) and will conclude with some remarks about the significance of prohairesis. (shrink)

The question raised in this chapter is why Aristotle portrays the bad person as being in a miserable state. It is argued that the bad person suffers from a mental conflict, which consists of a clash between two different kinds of desire, and that fulfilling one of the desires violates values that she also desires. But in contrast to the akratic person, the bad person has no proper conception of the good. Nevertheless, although the bad person may succeed in achieving (...) what she thinks is good, she feels miserable not only on account of failing to fulfil her desire for the truly good life, but also on account of doing things that she finds degrading for her. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics (= Eth. Nic.) 10.2, Aristotle addresses Eudoxus’ argument that pleasure is the chief good in his characteristically dialectical manner. The argument is that pleasure is the chief good, since all creatures, rational (ἔλλογα) and non-rational (ἄλογα) alike, are perceived to aim at pleasure (1172b9–11).1 At 1172b35–1173a5, Aristotle turns to an objection against Eudoxus’ argument. For some object (οἱ δ᾽ἐνιστάμενοι) to the argument by questioning one of its premisses, namely that what all creatures aim at is the good (...) (1172b12–15). Instead, they claim that what all creatures aim at is not good (ὡς οὐκ γαθὸν οὗ πάντ᾽ ἐφίεται, 1172b36). This claim is reasonably taken to mean that not everything that all creatures aim at is good. But, as we shall shortly see, Aristotle dismisses it in a way suggesting a less charitable interpretation. At any rate, the significance of this objection is that it challenges the strong claim that what all creatures aim at is the good with an argument against the weaker claim that what all creatures aim at is good (or a good). For if the weaker claim is refuted, then the strong claim is refuted as well. Aristotle takes issue with the argument against the weaker claim, but without committing himself to the strong claim. (shrink)

There is a current debate about the interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of action concerning the role of reason in the establishment of practical ends, given that in some passages Aristotle assigns to character the role of establishing ends, and in others he gives reason the role of government in the soul. How can these two groups of textual evidence be reconciled? In this article I will argue that these two types of evidence explain two different psychological phenomena. For this (...) purpose, I will discuss the main and most recent interpretations in this debate, showing how, although character establishes our habitual representations, desires and actions, reason can question and oppose them, as we can see in the processes of character change. (shrink)