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III. Ethics and Values
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
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In recent work on Greek ethics, several developments parallel, and are linked with, those discussed in Chapter II in connection with psychological models. In this area too, for a variety of reasons, some recent scholarship has laid less stress than before on the idea of development within Greek ethics and on the differences between Greek and modern approaches to ethics. It has emphasized, rather, recurrent patterns in Greek ethical thought of different periods, and also the idea that Greek thought constitutes an intelligible type of ethical thought for modern thinkers. As well as outlining these developments, I suggest ways in which they can be taken further in some ways and qualified in others.
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1. My main qualification is the suggestion that Greek ethical thinking does not give the same central value to altruism as modern ethical thinking, though it provides an alternative framework in which other-benefiting motivation can be accommodated. See below, text to nn. 37, 49-58, 65-6.
2. On the latter point, see Bremmer, J. N., Greek Religion (Oxford, 1994), p. 56 Google Scholar.
3. See further Lloyd, G. E. R., Demystifying Mentalities (Cambridge, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most famous exponents of the mentalité approach, which is associated with structural anthropology, are the members of the ‘Paris school’, e.g. J.-P. Vernant, P. Vidal-Naquet, M. Detienne.
4. The intellectual background of modern anthropological thinking about the mapping of concepts (including the influence of Kantian and post-Kantian thinking) is illuminated by S. Collins in an essay on the approach of the anthropologist, M. Mauss, to cross-cultural study of the concept of self: see Carrithers, M., Collins, S., Lukes, S., edd., The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 46–82 Google Scholar.
5. See The Discovery of the Mind, p. 159, taken in the context of pp. 154-61: Snell compares Odysseus’ response to that of an Officer’ who gauges ‘his action by the rigid conception of honour peculiar to his caste’.
6. Snell, The Discovery of the Mind, ch. 8, esp. pp. 154-60,163-4,165-7,167-70,182-3,186-8. For a succinct statement of Kant’s ideas about the good will and autonomy (i.e. self-legislation), see the translation of The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals in Paton, H. J., The Moral Law (London, 1986), pp. 59–70 Google Scholar.
7. See Merit and Responsibility, esp. pp. 1-9, including Adkins’s notorious claim, p. 2, that, in our moral thinking, ‘we are all Kantians now’. On ‘mistake and moral error’, see his ch. 3, including the distinction between competitive and cooperative values on pp. 34-8. A similar view is advanced in Adkins, , From the Many to the One (London, 1970)Google Scholar, which also discusses the (partial) reaction against shame ethics in Stoicism and Epicureanism, pp. 237-8, 259-60.
8. See The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951), esp. ch. 2, pp. 36-7,47-9. My account spells out rather more explicitly than Dodds what I take to be the Freudian basis of this approach (though Dodds does allude to Freud in this connection, e.g. p. 49).
9. See Ch. II, a 4.
10. See e.g. Long, A. A., ‘Morals and Values in Homer’, JHS 90 (1970), 121-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley, 1971), p. 15 Google Scholar; Rowe, C.J., ‘The Nature of Homeric Morality’, in Rubino, A. C. and Shelmerdine, C.W., edd., Approaches to Homer (Austin, 1983), pp. 248-75Google Scholar. To say this is not to deny that difficult ethical issues can arise in connection with the interplay between cooperation and the pursuit of honour, a point stressed, with reference to both Homer’s Achilles and Hector, by Redfield, J., Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Chicago, 1975, 2nd edn., Durham, N.C., 1994 Google Scholar.); see also Ch. IV, text to nn. 12-23.
11. See Merit and Responsibility, pp 30-46. E.g. Adkins takes the words spoken by Nestor to Agamemnon about the latter’s proposal to take away Achilles’ prize-bride in Il. 1.131-2, ‘Do not, good (or ‘noble’, agathos] though you are, take the girl from him’, as supporting his view that being noble (agathos) is independent of, or can legitimate, uncooperative behaviour (pp. 37-8).
12. Yamagata, N., Homeric Morality (Leiden, 1994), part 2, esp. chs. 9-11Google Scholar. Yamagata also highlights ways in which terms such as agathos, aristos (‘best’), and kakos (‘poor’, ‘bad’) do not only signify social standing in Homer, but also evaluate the range of qualities (both cooperative and competitive) associated with social standing: see e.g. pp. 191-2, 205-6, 211–12.
13. See Ch. II, text to nn. 18-25. On this point, see also Dover, K.J., Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Oxford, 1974), pp. 14–18 Google Scholar, and ‘The Portrayal of Moral Evaluation in Greek Poetry’, JHS 103 (1983), 35-48; also Nussbaum, M., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 424-5 n. 20 Google Scholar; Goldhill, S., Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 122-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14. Donlan, W., ‘Reciprocities in Homer’, Classical World 75 (1981-2), 137-75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Unequal Exchange between Glaucus and Diomedes in the Light of the Homeric Gift-Economy’, Phoenix 43 1989), 1-15; ‘Duelling with Gifts in the Iliad: As the Audience Saw It’, Colby Quarterly 29 (1993), 155-72. For a rather different model, based on the contrast between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ reciprocity, see Gouldner, A. W., ‘The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement’, American Sociological Review 25 (1960), 161-78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in For Sociology: Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today (New York, 1973), pp. 226-59.
15. Seaford, R., Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-Slate (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar; see esp. his pp. 65-73 and ch. 5. on Il.
16. See further Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N., and Seaford, R., edd., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Oxford Google Scholar, forthcoming), which explores the question how far the practices and thought-patterns associated with reciprocity in Homer persist in subsequent Greek culture. See further on this question Ch. IV, text to n 6.
17. On this see Donlan, ‘Duelling with Gifts’; see further Ch. IV, text to nn. 12-23.
18. See text to n. 7 above.
19. See Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, pp. 50-2; Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, ch. 1, esp. pp. 2-8.
20. See Taplin, O., ‘Agamemnon’s Role in the Iliad ’, in Peiling, , ed., Characterization, pp. 60–82, esp. pp. 75-7Google Scholar; Homeric Soundings: The Shaping of the Iliad (Oxford, 1992), pp. 207-10. As Taplin notes, Achilles’ words in 19. 270-5 restore the more normal Homeric pattern of combined divine and human motivation. On divine intervention and ‘double-motivation’, the best study remains Lesky, A., Göutliche und menschliche Motivation im homerischen Epos (Heidelberg, 1961)Google Scholar. Similar non-standard uses of the idea of divine power over human action are found in Euripides, Trojan Women 945-50, and Gorgias, Encomium of Helen 15,19-20; see Saïd, S., La Faute tragique (Paris, 1978), pp. 193-9, 252-7Google Scholar.
21. Williams, B., Shame and Necessity (Berkeley, 1993), ch. 3, esp. pp. 52-8,66-8Google Scholar; see also pp. 41-4, 98-102,158-63, on the influence of Kantian ideas about the will, freedom, and autonomy, taken with refs. to Adkins in Williams’s index. (William sees this latter type of idea as being also Platonic; for a different view on this point, see Gill, , Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy (Oxford, 1996), 6.6 Google Scholar.)
22. Williams, Shame and Necessity, ch. 4, esp. pp. 75-8, 91-5, 97-8.
23. Cairns, D. L., Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (Oxford, 1993), pp. 27–47 Google Scholar.
24. Williams, Shame and Necessity, ch. 4, esp. pp. 81-98. The idea of the ‘internalized other’ is one that he sees as capable of playing a role in modern versions of ‘shame-ethics’; it is drawn from Taylor, G., Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment (Oxford, 1985), pp. 53–68 Google Scholar. On the deliberative ethical thinking of Hector and Ajax, see further Gill, Personality, 1.4 and 3.4.
25. Cairns, Aidos, pp. 15-26, 141-6, argues that the distinction breaks down completely; Williams, Shame and Necessity, pp. 88-95, argues that there are two forms of (equally complex) ethical thinking involved. For an earlier, and less analytic, critique of the ‘shame-guilt’ distinction, see Lloyd-Jones, Justice of Zeus, ch. 1, esp. pp. 24-7.
26. MacIntyre, A., After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London, 1985,2nd edn.), esp. chs. 1-8,14-18Google Scholar. On the relevance of the latter idea to the study of Greek thinking, see also Ch. IV, section 1.
27. On Snell, see text to nn. 5-6 above. See Maclntyre, After Virtue, ch. 10, on Homeric ethics. Maclntyre does not discuss this particular passage there; he notes it in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London, 1988), pp. 15-16, in connection with Homeric ethical thinking.
28. See Maclntyre, After Virtue, ch. 12; for the contrast between Aristotle and modern theories, beginning with Kant, which MacIntyre sees as trying to ground ethical standards by reference to universal norms alone (without the mediation of communal values), see his chs. 4-6. See further Ch. V, text tonn.6-11.
29. See further Gill, Personality, 1.3-4.
30. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 122, refers to Finley, M. I., The Word of Odysseus (London, 1954)Google Scholar, ch. 5, which overstates the role-governed nature of Homeric society and the extent to which this minimizes the scope for rational deliberation. For a critique of Finley on this point, see Schofield, M., ‘Euboulia in Homer’, CQ NS 36 (1986), 6-31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31. See e.g. Prichard, H. A., Moral Obligation and Duly and Interest (Oxford, 1968), esp. chs. 1 and 3, published versions of papers first given in 1912 and 1935Google Scholar; Ross, W. D., Aristotle (Oxford, 1923), esp. p. 208 Google Scholar; Warnock, G. J., The Object of Morality (London, 1971), pp. 89–92 Google Scholar.
32. See text to n. 28 above.
33. Williams, B., Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London, 1985), esp. chs. 3-5, 10 Google Scholar; on ‘thick values’, see pp. 143-5. For a thoughtful critique of Williams on this point, see Scheffler, S., ‘Morality through Thick and Thin’, Philosophical Review 96 (1987), 411-34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both Williams and MacIntyre acknowledge that Aristotle, in NE 1.7, gives the general idea of human nature a role in ethical theory; see further Ch. V, section 1.
34. See esp. Irwin, T., Plato’s Moral Theory (Oxford, 1977), ch. 7Google Scholar, which explores the relationship between ‘eudaimonistic’ (happiness-centred theories) and ‘deontological’ (duty-centred) ones; also Plato’s Ethics (Oxford, 1995), esp. chs. 17-18; Aristotle’s First Principles (Oxford, 1988>), chs. 16-18. A broadly similar position is adopted by Engberg-Pedersen, T., Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar; The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis (Aarhus, 1990). See further Gill, Personality, 4.3, 5.2.
35. See Annas, J., The Morality ofHappiness (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar, esp. Introduction and ch. 22. On modern forms of virtue-ethics, see her pp. 7-10.
36. See Gill, Personality, subtitle The Self in Dialogue, esp. Introd, and ch. 6, where I present this image as expressing an ‘objective-participant’ conception of human personality; for examples of the interplay between two or more of these types of dialogue, see Ch. II, text to nn. 19-25, 27-31; see also Ch. VI, text to nn. 6-12.
37. See Gill, Personality, 5.3; also ‘Altruism or Reciprocity in Greek Ethical Philosophy?’, in Gill, Postlethwaite, Seaford, edd., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (forthcoming). Annas also expresses unease about the use of the notion of’altruism’ in connection with Greek ethical theory, pp. 225-6, an unease which I would reinforce. I accept that Greek ethical thought does provide a framework for explaining, and validating (what we should see as) ‘other-concern’ (the main theme of Annas, Morality of Happiness, part 3), though I think that Greek assumptions about interpersonal ethics mean that this process is conceived rather differently by them. An alternative move is to de-emphasize the difference between the ideals of altruism and mutual benefit, and thus to present Greek thought as closer to modern ethics than I am suggesting: see e.g. Kahn, C., ‘Aristotle and Altruism’, Mind 90 (1981), 20–40, esp. pp. 21-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraut, R., Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton, 1989), pp. 78–86 Google Scholar; on reciprocity and altruism as ideals which can be combined, see Gouldner, For Sociology (ref. in n. 14 above), p. 246.
38. See Gill, Personality, 4.5, 5.7, and 6.6-7. See further text to nn. 52-8, 67-71, 78-81 below; see also Ch. V, sections 3-4; and, for an analogous division in Greek patterns of thinking about the best form of community, see Ch. IV, text to nn. 10-11.
39. Vlastos, G., ‘The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato’, first given as a paper in 1969, in Vlastos, , Platonic Studies (Princeton, 1981, 2nd edn.), pp. 3-42, esp. pp. 30-4Google Scholar. For this type of criticism of Greek ethical thinking, see text to n. 31 above. Vlastos’s view is partly adopted and partly qualified (by reference to Alcibiades’ speech) in Nussbaum, M. C., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), ch. 6Google Scholar. For a review of the debate about the conception of love expressed in the Symposium, see Gill, G., ‘Platonic Love and Individuality’, in Loizou, A. and Lesser, H., edd., Polis and Politics: Essays in Greek Moral and Political Philosophy (Aldershot, 1990), pp. 69–88 Google Scholar.
40. For self-immortalization and procreation of virtue, see esp. Symposium (Smp.) 206a-b, 207d-209e, 212a. It is clear that there may be at least one change of partner in the course of the ascent, from one who is beautiful in body to one who is beautiful in mind (210b6-c6); but the latter partner may be retained throughout the rest of the ascent, and may be the recipient of educative discourse at 210d5 and 212a5-7.
41. See Price, A. W., Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle (Oxford, 1989), ch. 2, esp. pp. 38–54 Google Scholar; also ‘Martha Nussbaum’s Symposium’, Ancient Philosophy 11 (1991), 285-99, esp. pp. 289-90. See also Kosman, L., ‘Platonic Love’, in Werkmeister, W. H., ed., Facets of Plato’s Philosophy (Assen, 1976), pp. 53–69 Google Scholar; T. Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory, pp. 234-7, Plato’s Ethics, ch. 18, esp. pp. 306-13.
42. See Phaedrus 244-256, esp. 250-6. See further Price, Love and Friendship, ch. 3; Ferrari, G. R. F., Listening to the Cicadas: A Study of Plato’s Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1987), ch. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rowe, C. J., ‘Philosophy, Love, and Madness’, in Gill, C., ed., The Person and the Human Mind (Oxford, 1990), pp. 227-46Google Scholar.
43. For the role of the guide in the ascent, see Smp. 210a, c, e, 21lc; for Diotima’s guidance, see esp. 208b-c, 210a, 211d; for Socrates’ consequential advice to the others, see 212b.
44. See further Gill, Personality, 5.3 and 5.7.
45. It is important to mark the distinction between these three stages in Aristotle’s argument about friendship: (1) describing conventional ideas, NE 8. 1-2; (2) formulating an ideal model of friendship, NE 8. 3-5; (3) analysing issue which arise in connection with this ideal, NE 9. 4, 8, 9. The equivalent stages in the other main ethical treatise, Eudemian Ethics (EE) are 7.1; 7. 2; 7.6,12. On the structure of Aristotle’s argument in both treatises, see Price, Love and Friendship, ch. 4, esp. pp. 103-8, and ch. 5.
46. For this type of criticism of Aristotle’s approach, see e.g. Ross, W. D., Aristotle (London, 1923), p. 208 Google Scholar. This type of criticism is noted, but not endorsed, by Williams, in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, pp. 35,50-2.
47. See e.g. Cooper, J. M., ‘Aristotle on Friendship’, in Rorty, A. O., ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley, 1980), pp. 301-40, esp. pp. 332-4Google Scholar; Annas, J., ‘Plato and Aristotle on Friendship and Altruism’, Mind 86 (1977), 532-54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kahn, ‘Aristotle and Altruism’; R. Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good, ch. 2; Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles, chs. 17-18.
48. Annas, The Morality of Happiness, pp. 249-62, esp. pp. 260-2; Annas contrasts this idea with the Stoic view that the motivation to benefit oneself and to benefit others are distinct but (both) primary types of motivation, pp. 262-76. See also her illuminating account of two later accounts of ethical development which try to combine, in different ways, the Aristotelian and Stoic approaches (pp. 276-87).
49. See e.g. Arist. NE 9. 4, 1166a2-9; also 8. 8, 1159a28-33: Aristotle’s example of the loving mother, arguably, presupposes the norm of the mutually benefiting shared life (cf. Euripides, Medea 1024-7, 1029-35) which is not available in the case that Aristotle cites.
50. See NE 8.3-5, esp. 1156b12-17,1157b33-6; EE 7. 2, esp. 1236al4-15,1236b3-6. The importance in Aristotle’s account of the ideas of ‘the shared life’ and of reciprocation of well-wishing (antiphilēsis, antiphilia) is brought out by Price, Love and Friendship, pp. 118-19, 138-48; Sherman, N., The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue (Oxford, 1989), ch. 4, esp. pp. 132-6Google Scholar.
51. This line of thought is particulary clear in NE 9. 8, esp. 1168al8-l 169b2, in which the link with the heroic ideal of cooperative honour is evident; on the heroic ideal, see text to nn. 10-17 above. See further Gill, Personality, 5. 4-5; and ‘Altruism or Reciprocity in Greek Ethical Philosophy?’, in Gill, Postlethwaite, and Seaford, edd., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (forthcoming). These comments are intended as qualification of the view of the scholarly works cited in n. 47 above; Annas, ref. in n. 48 above, raises separate issues which I shall discuss elsewhere.
52. See Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N., The Hellenistic Phibsophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar (=LS): 22 F(2), Q(5) and (6), also G, H; numbers refer to sections, letters and bracketed numbers to ancient passages within sections.
53. See LS 21 E(2), also 21 A-B, O-P. ‘Pleasure’, for Epicurus, is defined as the absence of physical pain (aponia) and the absence of psychological disturbance (ataraxia).
54. See LS 22 E, F, I, O esp. (3), taken with the commentary in LS, vol. 1, pp. 137-8.
55. See LS 22 0(3) – Cicero, De Finibus (Fin.) 1.67. See further Mitsis, P., Epicurus’Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability (Ithaca, 1988), ch. 3, esp. pp. 98-104,112-17Google Scholar; Annas, The Morality of Happiness, pp. 236-44, esp. 239-40. The line of thought ascribed to Epicurus is similar to that ascribed to Aristotle, as a way of reconciling the pursuit of one’s own happiness with the valuation of altruistic friendship; see refs. in n. 47 above.
56. Mitsis frames the issue in these terms and reaches this conclusion; Epicurus’ Ethical Theory, pp. 123-8; cf. Annas’s differently conceived, but similarly negative, conclusion, The Morality of Happiness, pp. 240-4.
57. LS 22 F(6-7), also 22 C(2), and 24 D-E.
58. For these two conditions, as reconciled in the ideal Epicurean friendship, see text to nn. 54-5 above. See further Gill, Personality, 5.7.
59. See e.g. Republic (R.) 519c8-d7, e4, 520a8-9, c1, e2, 521b7-10; also 499b5, 500d4.
60. On this role, see R. 520b5-c6; also 412c-e, 428a-429a, 433a-c.
61. R. 520d6-8, also b3-4.
62. On the basic argument in R. (and on the question whether it is coherently carried through), see e.g. Annas, J., An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford, 1981), chs. 3, 6, 12-13Google Scholar; Kraut, R., ‘The Defense of Justice in Plato’s Republic ’, in Kraut, , ed., The Cambridge Companion in Plato (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 311-37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63. See Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory, pp. 242-3, also 233-41; a similar, but more moderately stated, view, is offered in Plato’s Ethics, pp. 298-317, esp. 298-301, 313-16. For other responses to this problem see Annas, Introduction in Plato’s Republic, pp. 266-71; Reeve, C. D. C., Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic (Princeton, 1988), pp. 199–203 Google Scholar.
64. On this role, and on the idea of ‘justice’ involved, i.e. ‘doing your job’, see refs in n. 60 above.
65. The latter point is highlighted in R. 519c-520a, 520d2-7, e4-521a4. It partly explains the language of ‘compulsion’ (refs. in n. 59 above); a further (partial) explanation for the use of such language is that the logic of Plato’s argument requires (or ‘compels’) the philosopher-rulers to act in this way: see 519c9-10, 520a8, 521b7, 520d3.
66. See e.g. Il. 12. 310-28; see also text to nn. 14-17 above.
67. The two stages are described in Books 2-3 and 6-7 of R. respectively. On the idea of the ‘inter-nalization’ of values (in heroic ethics), see text to nn. 24-5 above; on Plato’s tripartite psyche, and the process of making this ‘reason-ruled’, see Ch. II, text to nn. 27-31.
68. See R. 500b-501b (also 498e), taken with 400d-402c, esp. 402a-c; also 519b-520c.
69. See R. 485d-e, contrasted with the pre-reflective sōphrosunē of 430e-432a, 442a, c-d, also 402c-403c. See also the philosopher’s courage, based on knowledge of ‘all time and all reality’ (486a-b), contrasted with the pre-reflective (citizen’s) courage of 429b-430c.
70. R. 580-7, esp. 581b, 582b-d, 585c-586b.
71. See further Gill, Personality, 4.6.
72. For reviews of the debate, see Kraut, Aristotle and the Human Good, pp. 7-9 and ch. 5; Kenny, A., Aristotle on the Perfect Life (Oxford, 1992), pp. 4-42, 86-93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Rorty, Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, chs. 1-2,18-20 relate to this question.
73. See e.g. Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, pp. 373-8; Wilkes, K. V., ‘The Good Man and the Good for Man in Aristotle’s Ethics’, in Rorty, , Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, pp. 341-57Google Scholar.
74. Key relevant passages are NE 1.7,1098al6-18;6.7,esp. 1141al8-bl2;6.12, esp. 1144al-6;6. 13, esp. 1145а6-11; also Metaphysics 12. 7, 9, taken with NE 10.7, 1177b26-1178a22. For this view, see e.g. Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good;] Lear, J., Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Oxford, 1988), esp. chs. 1,4, and 6. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A further issue is whether EE holds the same view on this matter as NE. Kenny takes EE to present an inclusive conception of happiness, Aristotle on the Perfect Life, pp. 93-102. But the crucial passage at the end of EE 8. 3, 1249b6-25, is interpreted by M. Woods as expressing a dominant conception; see Aristotle: Eudemian Ethics I, II, and VIII, tr. with commentary (Oxford, 1992, 2nd edn.), pp. 180-4. On the relationship between EE and NE, in general, see Kenny, , The Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
75. Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good, ch. 2, esp. pp. 78-86; for a different view, see text to nn. 49-51 above.
76. NE 10. 8, 1178b5-6, taken with 1178a9-22. See Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good, pp. 177-82, 188-9, 341-53; also Kenny, Aristotle on the Perfect Life,, pp. 90-1, 105.
77. Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good, pp. 59-60 and ch. 6, esp. pp. 341-5; also pp. 74, 170-8, 182-4.
78. See text to nn. 43-4 above.
79. Broadie, S., Ethics with Aristotle (New York, 1991), pp. 392-8Google Scholar. In general, Aristotle states that a practical understanding of ethical virtue is a prerequisite of worthwhile ethical enquiry. See NE 1. 3-4, 10. 9, esp. 1179b4-29, taken with Burnyeat, M., ‘Aristotle on Learning to be Good’, in Rorty, , ed. Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, pp. 69–92, esp. pp. 75-81Google Scholar. Aristotle’s own surviving treatises are based on lectures in his school to students and fellow-philosophers whom he, presumably, regarded as meeting these requirements.
80. See 10. 7, 1177b30-l, 1178a2-4, taken with 9. 4, 1166al3-23, 9. 8,1168b34-1169a2. For this suggestion, see Gill, Personality, 5.7. On the form of argument in NE 10. 7-8, see also Ch. V, text to nn. 69-72.
81. Thus, this interpretation fits in with an ethical framework which regards mutual benefit rather than altruism as the norm of interpersonal ethics, and which conceives the motive to benefit others in the light of this norm.
82. See esp. text to nn. 21-9 above.
83. See nn. 1 and 37 above; I take it that this framework provides the explanatory context for the (complex) ethical cases considered in this section; see esp. text to nn. 64-6, 78-81 above.