title: Aristotle's Ethics: Writings from the Complete Works - Revised Edition
author: Aristotle
description: "Reviews from The Complete Works of Aristotle: "This new edition makes a landmark of scholarship available in a very usable form."" (<i>Library Journal</i>)
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## THE ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE
  
  
  #### INTRODUCTION
  
  
  The _Ethics_
  
  
  of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his _Politics_
  
  
  is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is
  what Aristotle calls in one place the "philosophy of human affairs;" but more
  frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we
  have their author's whole theory of human conduct or practical activity, that
  is, of all human activity which is not directed merely to knowledge or truth.
  The two parts of this treatise are mutually complementary, but in a literary
  sense each is independent and self-contained. The proem to the _Ethics_
  
  
  is an introduction to the whole subject, not merely to the first part; the
  last chapter of the _Ethics_
  
  
  points forward to the _Politics_
  
  
  , and sketches for that part of the treatise the order of enquiry to be
  pursued (an order which in the actual treatise is not adhered to).
  
  
  The principle of distributio