Ethics

Aristotle (384-322 BC) came to Athens to study under Plato (427-347 BC). He remained at Plato's Academy for twenty years. After Plato and Xenophon (434-355 BC), he is regarded as the third leading writer in the Socratic school. This paper is part of a long-term research programme on the ancient Greeks. It is a companion to other work, which deals with the ancient Greek context, and the thought/work of Socrates (469-399 BC), Plato, and Xenophon. It is the first of three papers concerning Aristotle. After introducing his ethics in this paper, the following two projected papers will deal with Aristotle's politics and economics respectively. The Capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen provides the core of the framework for the investigations. The paper is structured as follows. After a brief introduction, the second section discusses three preliminary topics: the ancient Greek household, Aristotle's divisions of knowledge and his view of human nature. The third section introduces some of Aristotle's thoughts on ethics and focuses on his species conception of humanity and eudaimonia. The next section spells out his view on virtue in general and the various constituent moral virtues. The fifth section discusses Aristotle's view of action, motivation, and character. The next section considers the various resource (equipment) and institutional needs of eudaimonia. The seventh section discusses ethics in a range of contexts. The final section provides some summary comments. ethics and economics ; Aristotle ; Amartya Sen ; ethical motivation ; human wellbeing ; social achievement ; ethical methodology