Fall 2008

GOV 382M • Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Course Description

This course will proceed through a close reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the foundational work for his political philosophy and in many ways for and for all subsequent political thought. Themes will include human nature; the relation of virtue to happiness; the character of moral education; courage and the other moral virtues; reciprocal, distributive, and corrective justice; natural right; moral and criminal responsibility; practical wisdom or prudence; friendship; and the relative merits of the political and philosophic lives.

Texts

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Joe Sachs (Focus). Recommended for literalness. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Ostwald (Macmillan). Recommended for clarity. All students who know any Greek at all are strongly urged to buy a Greek text and consult it continually as you read. Best is: Aristotelis, Ethica Nicomachea, ed. I. Bywater (Oxford). Three useful collections of articles are: Bartlett, Robert and Susan Collins, eds., Action and Contemplation: Studies in the Moral and Political Thought of Aristotle (SUNY). Lord, Carnes and David O'Connor, eds., Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Rorty, Amelie, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (California).

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