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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. With what sort of friendship is VIII.14 concerned?

2. What fact does Aristotle point to in support of the hypothesis that living itself is a good?

3. With what is the second part of the reasoning part of the soul concerned in the view of Aristotle?

4. In what way does Aristotle claim the incontinent person is unlike the vicious?

5. What determines the proper level of affection that one ought to give another, according to Aristotle?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Aristotle end his discussion of ethics by beginning a discussion of politics?

2. What is the essential unity that Aristotle claims between knowledge and action in the person possessed of practical judgment?

3. Explain the distinction of Aristotle between having goodwill and having friendship that Aristotle points to in IX.5.

4. Explain Aristotle's distinction between affection and friendship.

5. In what way does Aristotle agree with Socrates concerning knowledge and moral action?

6. What is meant by Aristotle saying that pleasures from different sources can be impediments to activities?

7. Why is it that having friends in a time of one's good fortune is, in the philosophy of Aristotle, more beautiful than in other times?

8. For Aristotle, in what does the relationship between man's nature and his need for friends consist?

9. Explain the three sorts of friendship described in Book VIII.

10. Through the possession of what virtue, according to Aristotle, is man said to have possession of all the intellectual virtues, at least to some degree, and why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In many cases, ethical rectitude depends not merely on a bland and level equality between men, but upon a sense of proportionality; justice is not merely ensuring that everyone has the same things, according to Aristotle, but that everyone has that which he is due, according to merit. Examine this claim in a structured analytical essay. Why does Aristotle advocate proper proportionality? In what situations does he advocate it? What are the strengths and weaknesses of his argument? Upon what does his argument depend? Upon what does proportionality depend? What is the relationship between proportionality and the various virtues?

Essay Topic 2

A rather interesting part of Aristotle's Ethics is where he describes the relationship between law and justice: for all justice is, in a sense, lawful, but not all laws are just. In a careful interpretative essay, examine this relationship according to the text of Aristotle. What is the nature of law? What is the nature of justice? How do they influence one another? From where do laws come? From where should laws come? Why does justice operate through law?

Essay Topic 3

Analyze in a comparative essay the three archetypal kinds of friends--utility, pleasure, and virtue--as they relate to man and to man's happiness. Which is the most perfect and truest kind of friendship, and why? What does true friendship do for man's moral character? What does true friendship have to do with happiness? What is the relationship between happiness and the lesser levels of friendship? What is the principal lesson that one ought to take away from Aristotle's extensive discussion of the topic of friendship?

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