Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics, assembled in the fourth century BCE from Aristotle's teaching, is a treatise on the good life for a human being. It argues that eudaimonia, often rendered as flourishing, consists in activity of the soul in accordance with virtue over a complete life. Aristotle analyses moral virtues as means between extremes, discusses voluntariness, choice, and responsibility, and gives extended treatments of justice, intellectual virtue, and friendship. Pleasure, weakness of will, and the place of contemplation occupy later books. The work is philosophical argument, not biography: a systematic inquiry into character, reason, and the political setting of a good life.

Quarter bound in black leather with paper covers printed with an engraving. Dark brown endleaves and slipcase. Page tops stained dark brown. Single volume issue from 2003 Great Philosophers of the Ancient World set.