Aristotle: Ethics and Other Aspects

Ethics and Other Aspects

Aristotle's ethical theory reflects his metaphysics. Following Plato, he argued that the goodness or virtue of a thing lay in the realization of its specific nature. The highest good for humans is the complete and habitual exercise of the specifically human function—rationality. Rationality is exercised through the practice of two kinds of virtue, moral and intellectual. Aristotle emphasized the traditional Greek notion of moral virtue as the mean between extremes. Well-being (eudaemonia) is the pursuit not of pleasure (hedonism) but rather of the Good, a composite ideal, consisting of contemplation (the intellectual life) and, subordinate to that, engagement in politics (the moral life). In the Politics, Aristotle holds that, by nature, humans form political associations, and he explores the best forms these may take. For Aristotle's aesthetic views, which are set forth in the Poetics, see tragedy.

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