Aristotle on the Human Good / / Richard Kraut.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Kraut, Richard,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1989
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (391 p.)

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which equates the ultimate end of human life with happiness (eudaimonia), is thought by many readers to argue that this highest goal consists in the largest possible aggregate of intrinsic goods. Richard Kraut proposes instead that Aristotle identifies happiness with only one type of good: excellent activity of the rational soul. In defense of this reading, Kraut discusses Aristotle's attempt to organize all human goods into a single structure, so that each subordinate end is desirable for the sake of some higher goal. This book also emphasizes the philosopher's hierarchy of natural kinds, in which every type of creature achieves its good by imitating divine life. As Kraut argues, Aristotle's belief that thinking is the sole activity of the gods leads him to an intellectualist conception of the ethical virtues. Aristotle values these traits because, by subordinating emotion to reason, they enhance our ability to lead a life devoted to philosophy or politics.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- INTRODUCTION 3 1. Consistency, Hierarchy, Inclusivism, 3. 2. Egoism, 9. 3. An Overview, 11 -- CHAPTER ONE Two Lives -- CHAPTER TWO Self and Others -- CHAPTER THREE Philosophy and Other Goods -- CHAPTER FOUR The Hierarchy of Ends -- CHAPTER FIVE Inclusivism -- CHAPTER SIX Function, Virtue, and Mean -- Bibliography -- General Index -- Index of Passages