cobydillon14's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
tienno22's review against another edition
reflective
4.75
A relatable and practical read. Particularly the section on friendship. This book evoked a lot of good discussions and input from my Great Books class. It got people to tell their personal stories and relate the text to their own lives. Introspective and insightful book that is great to use as a basis for reflections. It turned class discussion into “therapy time” hahaha.
I particular found the most applicable the section regarding friendships. Not only does it explore different types of friendships, but it also explores what exactly makes friendships so strong and good. It allowed me to reflect back on my relations — both current and past — and to be able to see them with a new perspective. Aristotle’s writing and points allowed me to value some good friendships more. I am able to more clearly see the value and goodness of them. Simultaneously, it also helped me reflect and realize what friendship chapters should be closed. I
This particular work is definitely more for reflection and discussion. It is best to read this with someone that you can bounce your ideas, stories, and reflections off of. I suggest getting someone that you can be open and vulnerable with. Definitely a good therapy read if you need it.
I don’t know if this is a 5 star read because the book is only good due to its applicable aspects. I definitely do think that it is a solid 4.5 stars.
I particular found the most applicable the section regarding friendships. Not only does it explore different types of friendships, but it also explores what exactly makes friendships so strong and good. It allowed me to reflect back on my relations — both current and past — and to be able to see them with a new perspective. Aristotle’s writing and points allowed me to value some good friendships more. I am able to more clearly see the value and goodness of them. Simultaneously, it also helped me reflect and realize what friendship chapters should be closed. I
This particular work is definitely more for reflection and discussion. It is best to read this with someone that you can bounce your ideas, stories, and reflections off of. I suggest getting someone that you can be open and vulnerable with. Definitely a good therapy read if you need it.
I don’t know if this is a 5 star read because the book is only good due to its applicable aspects. I definitely do think that it is a solid 4.5 stars.
johnclough's review against another edition
3.0
What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be good? How do we find happiness? These are the sort of grand questions you would expect to find in one of the foundational works of western ethics. Perhaps it also shouldn’t be surprising that, in spite of the Nicomachean Ethics being most of two and a half thousand years old, the answers Aristotle gives remain remarkably cogent and resonant.
Aristotle maintains that the highest end of life is to aim towards goodness. The Good Man [women aren’t to be considered worthy of this stuff in the west for a good couple of thousand years yet] is he that is able to find a perfect equilibrium between the extremes in a number of crucial areas. For example, the good man will be passionate, rather than emotionally devoid, but equally never the slave of emotion. He will be courageous but not reckless. He will be liberal but not profligate. In addition, he will have an exceptional grasp of justice, and will do right by others accordingly.
I found this promotion of a middle path, this depiction of the perfectly balanced, perfectly in control man, to be strangely endearing. There’s something very intuitive about the principle of balance that appeals to humans; here is too much, here is too little, the right is obviously somewhere in the middle. It’s easy to imagine how someone able to navigate a path between these extremes would truly be a bastion of goodness. It also doesn’t carry the same level of dogmatic burden that absolutist ethics has. Rather than stating what is right and wrong ten commandments style, Aristotle tries to lay a blueprint for the man most able to judge for himself, in recognition of the complexity of life and it’s multitudinous situations. In spite of Aristotle’s belief in absolute truths, this approach leaves the Ethics with just enough openness to give it enduring relevance.
I also found it admirable that Aristotle linked pleasure and the good together – something that ascetic ethics including Christian theology has been trying to undo ever since. Aristotle simply can’t see how existence can be meaningful without enjoyment. He’s not a hedonist or a sensualist by a stretch; his argument isn’t that all pleasure is good, but that to be good is pleasurable, and that’s part of its value.
While the internal logic of the Ethics is wonderfully methodical and precise, I found the foundations faulty. Naturally, Aristotle relies heavily on a syllogistic logic that draws its validity from presumed facts. This works really well and intuitively where the facts are genuinely self-evident: all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. It doesn’t work so well for ethical truths, which are seldom as self-evident as Aristotle claims: philosophy is good, Aristotle is a philosopher, therefore Aristotle is good. Immediately you ask – philosophy is good according to who? Aristotle’s answer to this particular one is that the intellectual pursuits are the closest we can get to the Gods… another presumption to justify the conceit of a philosopher!
Fundamentally I felt the logic Aristotle used fell short in the face of two questions. Firstly, why is x a good? Aristotle states as above that such characteristics as liberality and courage are the goods we should strive for. I couldn’t find any deep justification for why these were actually goods. It seemed heavily normative, rather than anything justified. The closest I could get were that these were the characteristics that would make a good citizen and therefore would best serve the good of the state. Perhaps this is the case, but I felt it was very shaky ground to be constructing an entire theory of the good upon. Aristotle unfortunately seems to fall into the fallacy that the values of the time are eternal and true, rather than in a constant state of flux (Aristotle, for example, was happy to justify slavery).
Secondly, how is the middle path between the extremes defined? Aristotle’s vagueness in this area is both the genius that gives the Ethics its endurance and the flaw that reveals a lack of substance. The best answer I could find in the text was that the middle path is that which the good man judges to be the right position given the situation. So, to be a good man, you have to… be a good man. Thanks for the pointer, Aristotle. Essentially it boils down to normative judgments again, and when you extrapolate this out over thousands of years over different cultures, it’s shown to be not only inherently conservative but also largely meaningless.
Taking temperance as an example, Aristotle says we should enjoy ourselves and partake in leisure activities, but not be hedonistic in our pursuits. This seems reasonable, but the goalposts that define the extremes are never clearly defined. Through time, popular perceptions about acceptable levels of leisure, drink and drug taking have not been constant. If you brought a Victorian to the modern age, they would call us all hedonists, while we would call them all borderline ascetics. Thus to say ‘it is virtuous to show temperance’ has no permanent meaning. And if we have to follow cultural norms for our definition of virtue, the virtuous man is always the follower of the social norm, rather than the definer. To move the goalposts is necessarily to fall one side of the extreme. A bastion of Aristotelian virtue would always oppose both a more permissive and a more ascetic society. The porridge is always just right as it is, thanks.
For all that, Aristotle does make you want to be good. Even if his definition of the good is faulty, his portrait of the good man provides an attractive guide on how to live your life. You just have to look elsewhere for good reference points for defining the borders of good behaviour. Perhaps we should define it ourselves; so long as we are driven by reason towards something approaching good. I don’t think this was Aristotle’s intention, though.
https://jdcloughblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/aristotle-nicomachean-ethics/
Aristotle maintains that the highest end of life is to aim towards goodness. The Good Man [women aren’t to be considered worthy of this stuff in the west for a good couple of thousand years yet] is he that is able to find a perfect equilibrium between the extremes in a number of crucial areas. For example, the good man will be passionate, rather than emotionally devoid, but equally never the slave of emotion. He will be courageous but not reckless. He will be liberal but not profligate. In addition, he will have an exceptional grasp of justice, and will do right by others accordingly.
I found this promotion of a middle path, this depiction of the perfectly balanced, perfectly in control man, to be strangely endearing. There’s something very intuitive about the principle of balance that appeals to humans; here is too much, here is too little, the right is obviously somewhere in the middle. It’s easy to imagine how someone able to navigate a path between these extremes would truly be a bastion of goodness. It also doesn’t carry the same level of dogmatic burden that absolutist ethics has. Rather than stating what is right and wrong ten commandments style, Aristotle tries to lay a blueprint for the man most able to judge for himself, in recognition of the complexity of life and it’s multitudinous situations. In spite of Aristotle’s belief in absolute truths, this approach leaves the Ethics with just enough openness to give it enduring relevance.
I also found it admirable that Aristotle linked pleasure and the good together – something that ascetic ethics including Christian theology has been trying to undo ever since. Aristotle simply can’t see how existence can be meaningful without enjoyment. He’s not a hedonist or a sensualist by a stretch; his argument isn’t that all pleasure is good, but that to be good is pleasurable, and that’s part of its value.
While the internal logic of the Ethics is wonderfully methodical and precise, I found the foundations faulty. Naturally, Aristotle relies heavily on a syllogistic logic that draws its validity from presumed facts. This works really well and intuitively where the facts are genuinely self-evident: all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. It doesn’t work so well for ethical truths, which are seldom as self-evident as Aristotle claims: philosophy is good, Aristotle is a philosopher, therefore Aristotle is good. Immediately you ask – philosophy is good according to who? Aristotle’s answer to this particular one is that the intellectual pursuits are the closest we can get to the Gods… another presumption to justify the conceit of a philosopher!
Fundamentally I felt the logic Aristotle used fell short in the face of two questions. Firstly, why is x a good? Aristotle states as above that such characteristics as liberality and courage are the goods we should strive for. I couldn’t find any deep justification for why these were actually goods. It seemed heavily normative, rather than anything justified. The closest I could get were that these were the characteristics that would make a good citizen and therefore would best serve the good of the state. Perhaps this is the case, but I felt it was very shaky ground to be constructing an entire theory of the good upon. Aristotle unfortunately seems to fall into the fallacy that the values of the time are eternal and true, rather than in a constant state of flux (Aristotle, for example, was happy to justify slavery).
Secondly, how is the middle path between the extremes defined? Aristotle’s vagueness in this area is both the genius that gives the Ethics its endurance and the flaw that reveals a lack of substance. The best answer I could find in the text was that the middle path is that which the good man judges to be the right position given the situation. So, to be a good man, you have to… be a good man. Thanks for the pointer, Aristotle. Essentially it boils down to normative judgments again, and when you extrapolate this out over thousands of years over different cultures, it’s shown to be not only inherently conservative but also largely meaningless.
Taking temperance as an example, Aristotle says we should enjoy ourselves and partake in leisure activities, but not be hedonistic in our pursuits. This seems reasonable, but the goalposts that define the extremes are never clearly defined. Through time, popular perceptions about acceptable levels of leisure, drink and drug taking have not been constant. If you brought a Victorian to the modern age, they would call us all hedonists, while we would call them all borderline ascetics. Thus to say ‘it is virtuous to show temperance’ has no permanent meaning. And if we have to follow cultural norms for our definition of virtue, the virtuous man is always the follower of the social norm, rather than the definer. To move the goalposts is necessarily to fall one side of the extreme. A bastion of Aristotelian virtue would always oppose both a more permissive and a more ascetic society. The porridge is always just right as it is, thanks.
For all that, Aristotle does make you want to be good. Even if his definition of the good is faulty, his portrait of the good man provides an attractive guide on how to live your life. You just have to look elsewhere for good reference points for defining the borders of good behaviour. Perhaps we should define it ourselves; so long as we are driven by reason towards something approaching good. I don’t think this was Aristotle’s intention, though.
https://jdcloughblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/aristotle-nicomachean-ethics/
chairmanbernanke's review against another edition
4.0
A thorough text on living a good life and acting appropriately in various situations.
tincan6's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Aristotle is simultaneously important and frustrating. While he puts forward interesting views very much worth reflecting on even in current times, he is also an asshole ready to put forward views like barbarians are naturally slavish, natural slavery exists, women are inferior, etc. The text is often repetitive and dry, with moments of brilliance.
This book is a work on virtue ethics where he views the basis of morality as being something habitually formed into individuals by one's society and its laws/customs. It partners with his Politics, as this work is meant to educate ancient greeks the importance of laws that induce virtue in its citizens so that when they become part of a government body they are good at their job in Aristotle's view. As such, the work is primarily practical, both to explain how moral character arises, and also how to improve it in oneself and others.
This book is a work on virtue ethics where he views the basis of morality as being something habitually formed into individuals by one's society and its laws/customs. It partners with his Politics, as this work is meant to educate ancient greeks the importance of laws that induce virtue in its citizens so that when they become part of a government body they are good at their job in Aristotle's view. As such, the work is primarily practical, both to explain how moral character arises, and also how to improve it in oneself and others.