The Nicomachean Ethics

In the Nicomachean Ethics (so called after their first editor, Aristotle's son Nicomachus) Aristotle sets out to discover the good life for man: the life of happiness or eudaimonia. Happiness for Aristotle is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue is shown in the deliberate choice of actions as part of a worked-out plan of life, a plan which takes a middle course between excess and deficiency. This is the famous doctrine of the golden mean -- courage, for example, is a mean between cowardice and rashness, and justice between a man's getting more or less than his due. The supreme happiness, according to Aristotle, is to be found in a life of philosophical contemplation; but this is only possible for a few, and a secondary kind of happiness is available in a virtuous life of political activity and public magnificence. Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, scientist and physician, was born at Stagira, ruled by the kings of Macedonia. At the age of 18 he left for Athens, and three years later became a student under Plato at the Academy. During his twenty years there he established a school of rhetoric and prepared the work with that title. On Plato's death in 347 Aristotle left Athens for Asia Minor, where he married his niece. In 342 he was invited by Philip of Macedon to tutor the young Alexander the Great. Upon Alexander's succession to the throne of Macedonia in 336, Aristotle returned to Athens to establish his own school and research institute, the Lyceum. His vast erudition attracted a large number of scholars; but upon Alexander's death anti-Macedonian feelings drove Aristotle out of Athens. He fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died. Aristotle's writings, of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy and remain central to philosophy curricula today.