Instructions: Students are to answer the following questions to the best of their ability, using ONLY the text of the Ethics from this class. There are to be NO outside sources on any course assignments unless otherwise noted.
Book I
1. Aristotle calls politics the science of the good for man.” What does he mean? Why is politics
the master art?
2. What are the three characteristics or features associated with what Aristotle calls the good,
or the chief good?”
Book II
3. Aristotle distinguishes between intellectual and moral virtue; what is the difference? How do
human beings acquire virtue of any kind? And, what destroys virtue, according to Aristotle?
4. What does Aristotle mean by passions, faculties, and states of character in section 5?
Are virtues and vices passions, faculties, or states of character?
5. In section 6 Aristotle defines virtue as an intermediate between excess and defect (i.e., the
famous doctrine of the mean). What does he mean by this? Use some of his examples from
section 7 to illustrate.
Book V
6. What characteristics define the “unjust man” according to Aristotle?
7. Aristotle calls equity a corrective of legal justice.” What does he mean by this? What is
equity, and how does it act as a corrective to the laws?
Book VI
8. Aristotle splits the intellect into the contemplative and the calculative. What is the difference
between these two parts of the intellect, and which is related to practical wisdom, and which to
scientific knowledge?
9. What is practical wisdom, according to Aristotle, and how does it differ from legislative and
political wisdom?
Book X
10. Aristotle argued in Book I that it is commonly accepted that the good for man is happiness,
but that there is disagreement about what constitutes happiness, with there being three
contenders: the active life of politics, the contemplative life of philosophy, and the hedonistic life
of physical pleasure. How does Aristotle rank these forms of life? Which is the highest form, in
Aristotles opinion, and why? [Note: you will have to refer back to Book I, since Aristotles
discussion of this topic is split between Books I and X].
