A Comparative Study of Aristotle’s Viewpoint on the Status of ‘Moral Virtue’ in Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics

Abstract

Aristotle defines happiness as virtuous activity in both
Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. By considering the virtues
of the parts of the soul, he attempts to attain the final definition of
‘happiness’ and ‘the virtuous activity’. His argument in Nicomachean
Ethics leads to the conclusion that ultimate happiness is
contemplation. But in Eudemian Ethics happiness is defined as ‘the
activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue’. In other
words, in Eudemian Ethics happiness contains all the virtues,
including contemplation and the moral virtues. These two apparently
different definitions of the ‘happiness’ show that moral virtue does not
have the same status in the two ethical treatises. In this paper, we first
explain Aristotle’s ethical thought in both treatises, and then show
that Aristotle considers moral virtue, at the end of the Nicomachian
Ethics, as a necessary condition for happiness and contemplation; but
in the Eudemian Ethics, he considers the moral virtue together with
contemplation as the constituents of happiness. This difference on the
status of moral virtue in the happiness issues from Aristotle’s different
viewpoints on the life of happy man in the Nicomachean Ethics and
the Eudemian Ethics. In the first treatise, Aristotle is concerned with
human beings in ‘the domain of God-like activity’, but in the second
treatise, he is concerned with human being in ‘the domain of human
activity’.