Abstract

In this paper Aristotle’s views concerning the place of reason and emotions in ethics are investigated. Aristotle ranks first among the philosophers who examined the problem of “the place of reason and emotions in ethics”in detail, which is basically the problem of the origin of ethical relationships or of ethical acts, and his solution was that reason is the origin or the fundament; because for him ethical relationships and ethical acts are appropriate to virtue. In his view, since virtue is the habit which has a place in the mean , without reason it is impossible for the ethical relationship or act to come into being. Contrary to this, emotions, being affections, do not have the function of being motives; they can only be, like every affection, appropriate or inappropriate to virtue