The Physical and Metaphysical Foundations of Ethics for Aristotle

Having read Aristotle’s ethical treatises we might be inclined to define ethics as the theory of how human beings ought to behave if they wish to achieve their goal in life, which is happiness. However, such a definition would not provide us with the foundations of ethical thought, the foundations that enable us to see the meaning of ethics for Aristotle. In this paper I shall attempt to elucidate these foundations.

In the first place it may be said that Aristotle founds his ethics on human nature, but more specifically on the coordination of the two higher parts of the soul that are proper to human beings (NE I, xiii; EE II, i). The study of the soul falls under physics, and accordingly it would appear that there is in the first place a physical foundation of ethical thought.

In the second place Aristotle defines happiness as an energeia, which is a metaphysical term meaning not just activity, but realisation or actualisation. Virtuous or excellent (κ α τ 'ά ρ ε τ ή ν, kat'areten) actualisation of the soul is happiness. Thus we see that Aristotle has an underlying metaphysical view of ethical activity.

Thirdly I argue that there is a goal of Aristotle's ethical thought, and that this is not merely happiness, the goal he mentions. A careful examination of the numerous theological passages in Aristotle's ethical works can show us that there is a further goal of ethics, namely the search for the perfection and immortality of the unmoved mover. This further goal of ethics seems to bring Aristotle's ethical thought into harmony with the teleology of his physical thought. Just as animals and plants seek their full development and reproduce in order to achieve immortality as far as possible in the species, so too human beings appear to seek their full development and immortality as far as possible.

Aristotle himself does not make the connection between his ethical thought, on the one hand, and his physical and metaphysical thought, on the other hand. Numerous commentaries on the ethical works also make no connection between these branches of knowledge. But the connection is very clearly implicit, and it is certainly a mistake to not even raise the question of the connection between these branches of knowledge.

In my book Gott und Theoria bei Aristoteles, Die metaphysische Grundlage der Nikomachischen Ethik (1982) I argue for the importance of seeing the metaphysical dimension of Aristotle's ethical thought. In my book Aristotle's Concept of Chance, - Accidents, Cause, Necessity and Determinism (2012), Chapter 8, I elaborate a number of arguments for a parallel between ethics and physics for Aristotle. The paper I propose argues for a synthesis of these arguments.

[2] Alexander Pogonyaylo

St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation