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This book provides a balanced and accessible introduction to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. It carefully and comprehensively follows the thread of Aristotle's argument and sheds light on topics that all too often receive little attention or are entirely ignored in the existing textbooks (such as self-control, legislative science and the legislator, the life of the money-maker, craft-knowledge, comprehension, and beastliness).
Its objective is not only to offer an academically reliable presentation of Aristotle's Ethics but to also defend Aristotle's main tenets-or, at least, to present them in their most defensible form.
It places the Nicomachean Ethics within the study of ethics generally; students are invited to understand Aristotle's claims in the light of, or in contrast to, other ethical theories or their own intuitions about ethical matters.
It follows the reader of the Nicomachean Ethicsin action, registering questions, expectations and progress within an insightful exegesis of Aristotle's philosophical argument.
It is replete with pedagogical tools including examples from our concrete everyday experience, paintings, films, and literature, end of chapter summaries, internet resources, suggestions for further reading, study questions, and essay questions.
List of contents
1. Happiness Is What All Seek.- 2. Virtues of Character: They Make "all the difference".- 3. Justice and the Just: Back and Forth.- 4. The Three Usurpers to the Position of Practical Wisdom: Science, Theoretical Wisdom, Craft.- 5. Practical Wisdom: At the Heart of Practical Truth.- 6. Those Who Are Not Practically Wise: Baseness, Self-control, Lack of Self-control, and Beastliness.- 7. Absolving Pleasure.- 8. Friendship: A Privileged Space of Mutual Visibility.- 9. First- and Second-Class Happiness.
