Abstract

Despite the vast literature on the Ethics, there has been little attempt to articulate what Aristotle understood his own project to be, and then to consider the major themes of the work in this context. This study argues that Aristotle speaks from different perspectives, or with different voices, in different contexts; that he offers both a gentlemanly, practical political science and a radical questioning of his own project--the latter best referred to as political philosophy; and that to see this development in the text helps us to see new depths in Aristotle's teaching on happiness and politics. Aristotle is more of a Socratic political philosopher, and his own works are more like dialogues, than is often thought. ;The first chapter makes a case for a return to Aristotle in response to today's challenges to Western reason, and then outlines the argument to follow. The second and third chapters discuss the scholarly literature on the Ethics, and show that the Ethics can be seen in three ways: as an important part of Aristotle's practical political science; as a clarification and re-interpretation of the gentleman's life to make it less tied to politics, and more open to philosophy; and, above all, as a work of political philosophy, examining the claims that political and moral life, at their best, supply happiness. ;Chapter 4 through 6 concentrate on the treatment of pleasure in various parts of the Ethics: an early discussion, tied to a moral and practical perspective, and two technical "treatises" on pleasure, in Books VII and X. The two treatises are compared to Plato's Philebus, and the conclusion is drawn that for the Socratics the greatest pleasure is in the activity of thinking, not in gentlemanly life, on the one hand, or peace or inactivity on the other. The philosopher agrees with the gentleman that the great pleasure which is worth seeking is not of a kind we share with beasts; on the other hand, a gentleman's life is not as pleasant as he might like to think, and philosophers do not seek their characteristic pleasure with gentlemanly moderation. ;The concluding chapter suggests that the ancients' insistence on the great pleasure of philosophic life becomes more plausible precisely if we see this life as detached from moral and political concerns; to be justified, philosophy does not necessarily require evidence that it helps many people, including those who do not practice it