17 Facts About Nicomachean Ethics

1.

Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, the science of the good for human life, which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim.

FactSnippet No. 559,507
2.

Nicomachean Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.

FactSnippet No. 559,508
3.

Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most historically important philosophical works and had an important influence on the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy.

FactSnippet No. 559,509
4.

Many parts of the Nicomachean Ethics are well known in their own right, within different fields.

FactSnippet No. 559,510
5.

Until well into the seventeenth century, the Nicomachean Ethics was still widely regarded as the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published on the Nicomachean Ethics before 1682.

FactSnippet No. 559,511
6.

Books V, VI, and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics are identical to Books IV, V, and VI of the Eudemian Ethics.

FactSnippet No. 559,512
7.

Nicomachean Ethics asserts as part of this starting point that virtue for a human must involve reason in thought and speech, as this is an aspect (an, literally meaning a task or work) of human living.

FactSnippet No. 559,513
8.

Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics is about what makes a virtuous character possible, which is in turn necessary if happiness is to be possible.

FactSnippet No. 559,514
9.

Nicomachean Ethics describes a sequence of necessary steps to achieve this: First, righteous actions, often done under the influence of teachers, allow the development of the right habits.

FactSnippet No. 559,515
10.

Nicomachean Ethics concludes what is known as Chapter 2 of Book 1 by stating that ethics is "in a certain way political".

FactSnippet No. 559,516
11.

Nicomachean Ethics adds that it is only concerned with pains in a lesser and different way.

FactSnippet No. 559,517
12.

Nicomachean Ethics says that "not everybody who claims more than he deserves is vain" and indeed "most small-souled of all would seem to be the man who claims less than he deserves when his deserts are great".

FactSnippet No. 559,518
13.

Nicomachean Ethics argues that this makes it clear that pleasure is good.

FactSnippet No. 559,519
14.

Nicomachean Ethics rejects the argument of Speusippus that pleasure and pain are only different in degree because this would still not make pleasure, bad, nor stop it, or at least some pleasure, even from being the best thing.

FactSnippet No. 559,520
15.

Treatment of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics is longer than that of any other topic, and comes just before the conclusion of the whole inquiry.

FactSnippet No. 559,521
16.

Nicomachean Ethics argues that people's actions show that this is not really what they believe.

FactSnippet No. 559,522
17.

Finally, Aristotle repeats that the discussion of the Nicomachean Ethics has not reached its aim if it has no effect in practice.

FactSnippet No. 559,523