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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. How many senses of the word "good" does Aristotle discuss in VII.12?

2. Amongst what age group does Aristotle report observing friendships forming less frequently?

3. What sort of relationship does Aristotle claim is impossible for people who do not have the quality mentioned at the beginning of IX.5?

4. What is the immediate source of action, according to Aristotle in VI.2?

5. What two forces does Aristotle claim determine the strength of an obligation to another person, in a situation where there is a conflict, according to IX.2?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why does Aristotle state that pleasure is not a motion?

3. In what way, for Aristotle, do the pursuits of actions in accord with the virtues that pertain to politics and war differ from those that pertain to contemplation?

4. Explain the distinction, and its significance, between Socrates and Aristotle on the relationship between knowledge and moral action.

5. What is the Aristotelian relationship between happiness, the gods, human beings, and animals, as discussed in X.8?

6. 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?

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

8. What is one reason Aristotle gives for which someone ought not to treat former friends in some way different than strangers if the friendship was dissolved to to an excess of vice?

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

10. Why does Aristotle state that mothers have greater love for their children than children for their parents?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oftentimes, a true friend is considered to be, in a certain sense, a second self. Compose an essay which considers this claim in the context of Aristotle's examination of friendship. What would it mean for someone to be a second self? How is true friendship related to others? How is friendship related to the self? In what sort of acts does one treat another as though a second self? What characterizes these acts?

Essay Topic 2

In Book X of the Ethics, Aristotle discusses at some length the relationship between pleasure and true happiness. Compose an essay which discusses the nature of this relationship, explicating how the two are intertwined with one another. What is true pleasure? What is true happiness? In what sort of activities do true pleasure and true happiness consist? How is Aristotle's opinion different from those who preceded him? Is Aristotle's opinion superior? If so why, and if not, why not?

Essay Topic 3

Compose an analytical essay which presents a clear thesis on some aspect of justice as Aristotle discusses it in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. Be sure to answer the following:

-What is justice?

-Why is justice a virtue?

-What is unique about justice as a virtue?

(see the answer keys)

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