Abstract

All the virtues, Aristotle says, are undertaken for the sake of the noble ("to kalon"). Curiously, however, he offers no direct account of this concept, despite its role as the end ("telos") of virtue. Fortunately, two patterns of usage in Aristotle's ethical discourse offer a means to clarification. Aristotle is found to link nobility jointly with his conceptions of appropriateness and praiseworthiness. An examination of these usage- patterns is found not only to elucidate Aristotle's view of nobility, moreover, but to offer a means of addressing the question whether his ethics is altruistic, as some have recently contended