All the virtues, Aristotle says, are undertaken for the sake of the noble ("to kalon"). Curiously, however, he offers no direct account of this concept, despite its role as the end ("telos") of virtue. Fortunately, two patterns of usage in Aristotle's ethical discourse offer a means to clarification. Aristotle is found to link nobility jointly with his conceptions of appropriateness and praiseworthiness. An examination of these usage- patterns is found not only to elucidate Aristotle's view of nobility, moreover, but to (...) offer a means of addressing the question whether his ethics is altruistic, as some have recently contended. (shrink)

Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that Aristotle (...) was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy. (shrink)

Les Grecs, toujours si jaloux de leur independance, ont toujours ete fiers de proclamer leur obeissance aux lois. De fait, ils ne cherchaient pas a definir leurs droits et leurs libertes par rapport a la cite dont ils faisaient partie et a laquelle ils s'identifiaient: ils demandaient seulement que cette cite elle-meme fut regie par une regle a elle et non point par un homme. La loi etait ainsi le support et le garant de toute leur vie politique. (...)Mais cette (...) loi, dont ils etaient si fiers, n'assumait ce role a leurs yeux que parce qu'elle etait leur oeuvre et tirait son pouvoir d'un consentement initial. Autrement dit, elle n'avait point de garant dont elle put se reclamer: la loi grecque n'etait pas, comme la loi juive par exemple, une loi revelee. Elle etait nee des conventions humaines et des coutumes. (...) Cette double circonstance devait susciter autour de la loi des reflexions des debats, des attaques et des justifications: ainsi s'explique pour une bonne part, le nombre et l'importance des textes grecs relatifs a la loi. En outre, la reflexion fut stimulee par le fait qu'a Athenes, au Y" siecle, avec l'epanouissement de la pensee critique et l'influence des sophistes, toutes les valeurs et toutes les notions furent analysees, definies, contestees, dans un elan intellectuel sans pareil. (...) L'idee de loi ne fait pas exception et la crise qu'elle connut aida tres largement a en preciser les contours.Cette crise, qui est capitale pour l'histoire de la cite grecque comme pour celle des doctrines politiques en general, constitue le sujet du present ouvrage. ].d.R. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic overview of Aristotle's conception of well-being, virtue and justice in the Nicomachean Ethics, and then explores the major themes of Politics: civic-mindedness, slavery, family, property, the common good, class conflict, the limited wisdom of the multitude, and the radically egalitarian institutions of the ideal society.