Table Of Content
ARISTOTLE'S
Nicomachean Ethics
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TRANSLATED, WITH AN
INTERPRETIVE ESSAY,
NOTES, AND GLOSSARY BY
ROBERT C. BARTLETT AND
SUSAN D. COLLINS
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The University ofC hicago Press
CHICAGO AND LONDON
ROBERT C. BARTLETT is the Behrakis Professor
in Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. In
addition to writing The Idea ofE nlightenment: A
Post-Mortem Study, he has translated and edited
Plato's Protagoras and Meno, and Xenophon's Shorter
Socratic Writings. He is the coeditor, with Susan D.
Collins, of Action and Contemplation: Studies in the
Moral and Political Thought ofA ristotle.
SUSAN D. coLLINS is associate professor of
political science, with a joint appointment in The
Honors College, at the University of Houston.
She is the author of Aristotle and the Rediscovery of
Citizenship and the cotranslator and coeditor, with
Devin Stauffer, of Empire and the Ends ofP olitics:
Plato's "Menexenus" and Pericles' Funeral Oration.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2011 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2011.
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 II 4 s
ISBN-13: 978-o-226-02674-9 (cloth)
ISBN-IO: 0-226-02674-4 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aristotle.
[Nicomachean ethics. English. 2011]
Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics I translated,
with an interpretive essay, notes, and glossary by
Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-o-226-02674-9 (hardcover: alk.
paper)
ISBN-IO: o-226-02674-4 (hardcover: alk.
paper) 1. Ethics-Early works to 18oo.
I. Bartlett, Robert C., 1964- II. Collins,
Susan D., 1960- III. Title.
B430.A5B37 2011
171'.3-dc22
@This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO
Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
A Note on the Translation xv
Bibliography xix
Outline of the Nicomachean Ethics xxiii
Nicomachean Ethics
BOOK I
BOOK 2. 26
BOOK 3 42
BOOK 4 67
BOOK 5 90
BOOK 6 115
BOOK 7 135
BOOK 8 163
BOOK 9 188
BOOKIO 210
Interpretive Essay 237
Overview of the Moral Virtues and Vices 303
Glossary: English-Greek 305
Key Greek Terms 317
Index of Proper Names 321
General Index 323
INTRODUCTION
"Aristotle was born, spent his life in philosophizing, and died."1 So begins
a justly famous lecture on the philosophy of Aristotle. The point of the
remark is dear: that Aristotle was a philosopher is the single most impor
tant fact about him; all other biographical details, to say nothing of mat
ters of mere happenstance, vanish in comparison. Yet students turning
to Aristotle for the first time cannot know what it means to be a philos
opher, and so it is probably worthwhile to learn something more about
the man-if only as a first step on the long road to discovering for oneself
what sort of a human being this "lover ofw isdom" is, the "philosopher."
Such knowledge ofA ristotle's life as we have stems from sources both
numerous and inconsistent, even contradictory. The rough consensus is
about as follows. Aristotle was of course a Greek, born in 384 BCE in the
northern city of Stagira to Nicomachus and Phaestis, Nicomachus then
being court physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon.2 At the age of
seventeen or so, Aristotle traveled to Athens, the center of learning in
the Greek world-the "school of Greece;' as Pericles put ie-and there
he became a pupil of the philosopher Plato. Indeed, Aristotle was to re-
1 · "Many, many years ago, I attended a series oflectures on Aristotle's philosophy. The
lecturer began his exposition as follows: 'As regards Aristotle himself, as regards the cir
cumstances and the course of his life, suffice it to say: Aristotle was born, spent his life
in philosophizing, and died:" Jacob Klein, ''Aristotle: An Introduction," in Lectures and
Essays, ed. Robert B. Williamson and Elliott Zuckerman (Annapolis, MD: St. John's
College Press, r985), p. nr.
2 · See, e.g., Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers p. The extant bio
graphical sources are collected in Ingemar During, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical
Tradition ( Gi:iteborg: Universitets Arsskrift, 19 s7 ).
3 · Thucydides, The War oft he Peloponnesians and Athenians 2.41.1.
viii] INTRODUCTION
main at Plato's side at the Academy for some twenty years, until34 7, when
he was prompted to leave either by rising anti-Macedonian sentiment in
Athens that made it impossible for the Stagirite to remain or, perhaps, by
Plato's death.4 At all events, it is certain that Aristotle thus forms a link in
what must be the most impressive chain of great thinkers the world has
ever seen: Aristotle was the student of Plato, who was in turn the student
of Socrates. That the constellations were once so aligned as to produce
three great philosophers in close succession and in the same locale is as
tonishing; that written accounts survive of their thoughts and deeds is
one of fate's most generous blessings.
Upon leaving Athens, Aristotle eventually made his way to the court of
Philip II of Macedon, where, according to a widespread but by no means
certain tradition, he became the principal tutor ofy oung Alexander, who
had not yet become Great but soon would.5 Shortly after the death of
Philip and the accession of Alexander, Aristotle returned to Athens, in
335-34, enabled to do so (as some accounts have it) because he had per
suaded Alexander to treat Athens mildly in the aftermath of the Macedo
nian conquest ofG reece. Once there, Aristotle founded his own school at
the Lyceum, a meeting place and gymnasium named in honor of the god
Apollo Lyceus. His students came to be known as "Peripatetics;' though
there is some uncertainty as to the meaning of the name. It is clearly re
lated to the Greek verb peripatein, to walk or stroll about, and may there
fore allude to Aristotle's reported habit of offering instruction while
walking with his students. 6 Or the term may simply refer to the covered
courtyard or colonnade (peripatos) found among the buildings making
up the school. In any case, Aristotle taught and wrote in Athens for about
a dozen years, until 323, when he was brought up on charges of impiety/
just as his intellectual grandfather Socrates had been some seventy-five
years before. Unlike Socrates, however, Aristotle chose to flee Athens and
4 · Anton-Hermann Chroust argues that political tensions alone were responsible for
Aristotle's departure: see "Aristotle Leaves the Academy;' in Aristotle: New Light on His
Life and on Some ofH is Lost Works (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1973), I:II7-24.
5 • For arguments debunking the claim that Aristotle was Alexander's teacher, a claim
that can be traced to no close contemporary of Aristotle's but only to relatively late
sources, see Anton-Hermann Chroust, "Was Aristotle Actually the Chief Preceptor of
Alexander the Great?" in Aristotle, 1:125-32.
6 · Diogenes Laertius, Lives 5.2.
7 • See, e.g., ibid., s-s-6 and Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists 696a-b.
INTRODUCTION [ix
so to prevent it from "erring against philosophy a second time;' as he is
said to have said.8 He died in Chalcis, on the island ofEuboea, in 322.
Not all ofA ristotle's works survive, but those that do run to more than
twenty volumes in a standard Greek-English edition. The range of sub
jects covered by those works is astounding-from logic and rhetoric, to
morals and politics, to biology and physics, to "metaphysics;' what Aris
totle himself referred to as "first philosophy." In brie£ Aristotle took as
his proper study the whole world, or the world as a whole, from the sub
human (plants and animals), to the human (moral and political life), to
the suprahuman (the cosmos), including the nature of being itself.
There are four extant writings attached to Aristotle's name that deal
with right action and matters of character, that is, with "ethics": the Eu
demian Ethics, Nicomachean Ethics, Magna Moralia, and Virtues and
Vices. It is relatively easy to see that the Nicomachean Ethics deserves
its privileged place among them. For almost all scholars regard the Vir
tues and Vices as spurious, and a good many doubt the authenticity of
the Magna Moralia.9 While this certainly does not mean that one can
not learn from these works, only a long and tendentious argument could
hope to establish that they properly form a part of the study of Aristotle.
As for the Eudemian Ethics, it is widely agreed to be from the hand of
Aristotle but seems to be a less polished, perhaps earlier, version of the
Nicomachean Ethics.10 The text of the latter as it has come down to us
8 · See, e.g., Aelian, Varia Historia 3.36 as well as Diiring, Aristotle in the Ancient Bio
graphical Tradition, 341-42.
9 · For a helpful overview of the scholarly controversies concerning the authenticity
and rank of the "four extant Peripatetic ethical treatises," see C.]. Rowe, The Eudemian
and Nicomachean Ethics: A Study in the Development ofA ristotle's Thought (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1971), 9-14. More or less recent attempts to place the
Magna Moralia in the Aristotelian corpus-as a work of Aristotle's youth or perhaps
of his late maturity, or as a posthumously edited treatise-include John Cooper, "The
Magna Moralia and Aristotle's Moral Philosophy," in Schriften zur aristotelischen Ethik,
ed. C. Milller-Goldingen (Hidelsheim: G. Olms, 1988), 311-33; and Pierre Pellegrin,
"Preliminaires;' in Les Grand Livres d'Ethique, trans. Catherine Dalimier (Paris: Ar
lea, 1992), 9-26.
10 · C.]. Rowe, Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics, contends that the "philosophi
cal inferiority" of the Eudemian to the Nicomachean Ethics is "almost universally ac
cepted" (10m). Anthony Kenny has argued that the Nicomachean is the earlier of the
two texts: see The Aristotelian Ethics: A Study oft he Relationship between the Eudemian
and Nicomachean Ethics ofA ristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). For simi
larities and differences between the two works, consult the invaluable commentary of
x] I NTRO D U CTI 0 N
comprises ten "books;' each divided into a number of chapters, though
these divisions are presumably the work of later editors. Its tide (which
Aristotle himself never uses) is derived from the name that both Aris
totle's son and father bore, Nicomachus; the tide may either refer to the
former, perhaps as editor of the text, or pay homage to the latter: no one
is certain. But it is certain that the Nicomachean Ethics is a carefully or
ganized and cohesive work that Aristotle presents as the first of his two
part "philosophy of human affairs:' an inquiry he completes in the Poli
tics: each book refers to the other, and so together they form an extended
whole, intended to be such by their author. 11
What part, then, does the Ethics play in this "philosophy of human af
fairs"? As Aristotle himself notes, the question at the heart of his book is
of"great weight" for human beings: what is the human good, or-it turns
out to be the same question-what is happiness? This concern for the
human good that we hope constitutes our happiness will at some point
grip every human heart and is always at work in our doings and strivings.
For happiness ( eudaimonia: literally "having a good daimon") signifies
more than mere sentiment or feeling, more than the pleasure of the mo
ment or even of a series of satisfied desires. Eudaimonia, we can say for
now, encompasses the excellence specific to human beings as human be
ings-what Aristotle famously calls "virtue" (arete). Such virtue, more
over, can be identified only in relation to the activity and hence the way
ofl ife that are best for human beings as such, as the kind of beings we are.
For Aristotle, then, the question of how to be happy is the question of
how to live well as a human being, and living well is inseparable from at
taining the virtue or virtues that make possible the best activity. In addi
tion, because human beings are always found in some sort of community
with one another, Aristotle's inquiry into the best life requires his dual
investigations into human affairs: the Nicomachean Ethics, which exam
ines the human good while acknowledging at the outset the claim of the
political community, and the Politics, which examines the political com
munity while acknowledging in the end the priority of the (suprapoliti
cal) human good.
Michael Woods in his "Eudemian Ethics" Books I, IL and VIII, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clar
endon Press, 1992).
11 • See Nicomachean Ethics 10.9, especially n8rbr2-23; Politics r26ra30-3I, I28oar6-
2o, 1295a36-37, 1332a7-10.
INTRODUCTION [xi
In our time, a chorus ofv oices may here protest, if not in unison then
in perfect harmony: there is no single greatest human good or best way
of life! Everybody now knows that nobody knows what the good life is!
To undergraduate freshman and sophisticated scholar alike, this view of
things is mother's milk, which means that the average freshman is supe
rior, in the most important respect and without lifting a finger, to Aris
totle himself. According to the prevailing view, the individual's good is
necessarily "subjective"; it is "relative;' relative to the tastes and inclina
tions of this or that individual. And because we can know not the good
but only the fact of its "subjectivity" and "relativity;' each of us really has
no alternative but to pursue happiness according to whichever opinions
ofit propel us onward, while tolerating or celebrating as much as possible
the differing opinions of others. Some such claim of the relative or un
knowable character of the good or good life constitutes the orthodoxy of
our time; it is for us the chiefp roduct oft he modern political-philosophic
revolt from ancient thought in general and from Aristotle in particular.
So it is that a good many readers who approach the Ethics for the first
time today understandably bring with them the conviction, or the hunch,
that Aristotle's project is impossible. "Interesting;' maybe, but impos
sible. Yet such readers must admit, at least to themselves, that they have
not conducted a full inquiry into the question. They must admit that
they are guided less by knowledge than by sanctioned opinion, or by in
herited prejudice, in a matter whose importance goes well beyond the
proper approach to an old book.
To such readers we offer a couple of observations that may encourage
in them a new sort of open-mindedness to the inquiry into human hap
piness that is central to this work. First, the implication that we moderns,
or postmoderns, are the first to have glimpsed the truth about "the good;'
and hence that Aristotle lived in naive obliviousness to "value relativism;'
is simply untrue. For Aristotle proceeds in full awareness of a version of
relativism more radical and perhaps more impressive than our own. The
relativism known to Aristotle can be traced at least as far back as the pre
Socratic thinker Heraclitus and is crystallized in a pithy saying of the
great Sophist Protagoras: "human being is the measure" -the "measure;'
that is, "oft he things that are, that they are; of the things that are not, that
they are not:'12 As this saying can be and indeed was interpreted, our very
12 · Plato, Theaetetus rs2a2-4.
