Abstract

Kenny’s main subject is the interrelationship of what we know as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and his Eudemian Ethics. His first and crucial aim is to show that the "common books," EN 5-7 = EE 4-6, belong with the EE rather than with the EN, where they are placed by all editions and translations. On the basis of this conclusion, he goes on to argue that there is no reason to accept the now-current view that the EN was written after the EE rather than before it, and that once we accustom ourselves to thinking of the common books as part of the EE, we may well slough off the habit of centuries, and come to regard the EE as the authoritative and best Aristotelian treatise on ethics.