PHIL 3000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Nicomachean Ethics, Eudaimonia, Exact Sciences
3 May 2018
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Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Part I
The Good of Politics
• “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at
some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all
things aim” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
• Good: that after which a thing aims; that which is desired
• Chief good: that which is desired for its own sake (i.e., for the sake of no other good)
• Politics: the science that aims at humanity’s chief good
o Politics aims at the good of the state (polis), i.e., the good of rulers and citizen
o The good of politics is the chief good
o The chief good of humanity is eudaimonia, which consists in part in virtue
o Doing politics well involves cultivating virtue in rulers & citizens
• Politics isn’t an exact science
o “…it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just
so far as the nature of the subject admits” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
The Chief Good of Humanity
• What the chief good isn’t
o Mere pleasure
▪ To aim at mere pleasure is to reduce oneself to a slave, to “[prefer] a life
suitable to beasts” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
o Honor
▪ Honor-seeking person depends on others for affirmation
▪ Chief good must be “something of one’s own and not easily taken from one”
(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
o Money-making
▪ Money-making is a means to further goods, so it can’t be chief good
• Qualities of the chief good
o A final end
▪ Chief good isn’t a means to a further end
o Self-sufficient
▪ Fully self-sufficient good is “that which when isolated makes life desirable
and lacking in nothing” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
• Chief good of humanity is eudaimonia/happiness
o Eudaimonia is human flousihing
o Eudaimonia isn’t a matter of base pleasure of ‘good feelings,’ but rather a matter of
“living and fairing well” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
Eudaimonia and Function
• “The function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle”
(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
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