For Aristotle, the goals of politics and the goals of human action are one and the same: happiness. And, while living well and doing good are widely understood to contribute to happiness, there is, Aristotle observes, much “dispute concerning what happiness is.” Settling this dispute is the project he sets for his Nicomachean Ethics, a work that, despite its antiquity, continues to attract the critical attention of ethicists, psychologists, and political theorists today. The account of happiness Aristotle offers is predicated on a comprehensive theory of human nature and action that addresses such perennial questions as: Is there a good for human beings as such? What, if anything, is distinctive of human action, and what makes an action good? What is the role of pleasure in our motivational psychology, and how does it influence our moral education? Can we be happy without friends, and what impact, if any, does the well-being of those around us have on our own well-being? Is there room in the human good for competing conceptions of the good life?
In this course, we will undertake a critical reading of the Nicomachean Ethics, emphasizing its enduring relevance as well as its current controversies. Special attention will be paid to the social and communal dimensions of Aristotle’s ethics—that is, the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of personal happiness and virtuous action take into account the effects of our actions on those around us. Our reading of the Ethics will also benefit from comparison with recent Neo-Aristotelian and virtue-theoretic ethical theories, drawing from the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, Phillipa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, Sukaina Hirji, Michael Thompson, and others.
