Nicomachean Ethics - Softcover

Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is considered to be one of the most important treatises on ethics ever written. In an incredibly detailed study of virtue and vice in man, Aristotle examines one of the most central themes to man, the nature of goodness itself. In Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics," he asserts that virtue is essential to happiness and that man must live in accordance with the "doctrine of the mean" (the balance between excess and deficiency) to achieve such happiness.

Nicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to the most well-known work by Aristotle on virtue and moral character. It plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics. It consists of ten books based on notes said to be from his lectures at the Lyceum which were either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus. In many ways this work parallels the similar Eudemian Ethics, which has only eight books, and the two works can be fruitfully compared. Aristotle states in the opening chapter that eudaimonia, often translated as well-being or happiness, is the highest goal of all human deliberate actions, and coincident with the aim of Politics, the subject of another closely related work of Aristotle. He takes this as a starting point, going on to describe what is necessary to be happy.