In this course we will read and discuss what is perhaps the classic work of moral philosophy in the West: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle’s central question in this work is the nature of human happiness and how this is connected to human virtue. From the beginning of the work, however, Aristotle’s presentation raises a number of questions: Is our highest end the happiness of the individual or the flourishing of a political community? Are these ends ultimately compatible or in tension with each other? Finally, friendship is central to human happiness, in Aristotle’s estimation, but is true friendship only possible for the virtuous?
Read: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Bartlett and Collins (Chicago: 2012). (Our discussions will focus on a close reading of key passages in the Ethics, so it is important that we use the same translation so as to avoid confusion.)