Review, C.C. W. Taylor, Nicomachean Ethics II-IV

Arete in Plato and Aristotle

Classical Quarterly, 63, 2013 , pp. 651-659 ARISTOTLE'S ETHICA EUDEMIA 1220b10–11 ἐν τοῖς ἀπηλλαγμένοις AND DE VIRTUTIBUS ET VITIIS. A defense of the genuineness of this minor work in the Aristotelian corpus. Aristotle’s Ethica Eudemia Book 2 Chapter 2 contains, at lines 1220b10-11, a well-known crux in the phrase ἐν τοῖς ἀπηλλαγμένοις. The context makes clear that Aristotle is using this phrase to refer to some writing or other, but scholars have been puzzled both about what the phrase means and what writing it refers to. The suggestion argued for is that the phrase means something like 'abstracts' and that it refers to De Virtutibus et Vitiis, a short work in the Aristotelian corpus that most scholars in the modern period have dismissed as spurious but whose genuineness is here defended.

Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

Apeiron, 1979

Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 2009

This paper discusses some issues concerning the definition of character virtue in Nicomachean Ethics 1106b36-1107a2. It is reasonable to say that a definition must give a complete enumeration of the relevant features of its definiendum, and the definition of character virtue seems to fail at fulfilling this task. One might be tempted to infer that this definition is intended by Aristotle as a mere preliminary account that should be replaced by a more precise one. However, I argue that the definition of character virtue, once considered in the light of its context, is far from being an incomplete and provisional account: it rather introduces coherently the same notion of character virtue that Aristotle assumes in other texts (as in Nicomachean Ethics VI 13).

2012

S. Tenenbaum (ed.), Moral Psychology: Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and Humanities, 2007

Phronesis, 2002

This paper considers the distinctions Aristotle draws (1) between the intellectual virtue of phronêsis and the moral virtues and (2) among the moral virtues, in light of his commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues. I argue that Aristotle takes the intellectual virtues to be numerically distinct hexeis from the moral virtues. By contrast, I argue, he treats the moral virtues as numerically one hexis, although he allows that they are many hexeis 'in being'. The paper has three parts. In the first, I set out Aristotle's account of the structure of the faculties of the soul, and determine that desire is a distinct faculty. The rationality of a desire is not then a question of whether or not the faculty that produces that desire is rational, but rather a question of whether or not the object of the desire is good. In the second section I show that the reciprocity of phronêsis and the moral virtues requires this structure of the faculties. In the third section I show that...