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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. What person does Aristotle claim most notably feels love just in knowing a person, and not in receiving love returned?

2. How many things does Aristotle state there are in the soul that govern action and truth?

3. With what sort of friendship is VIII.12 concerned?

4. Which two thinkers does Aristotle reference in X.8 concerning the nature of those who are happy?

5. Which virtue does Aristotle explicitly claim to be concerned with regarding the sorts of pleasures that concern the incontinent man, in VII.4?

Short Essay Questions

1. Give an example of something affirmed by knowledge, as that which cannot be otherwise than it is.

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

3. According to Aristotle, why ought a good person be a lover of himself and a bad person not?

4. 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?

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

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

7. Why does Aristotle state that politics and practical judgment cannot be the highest or most serious things for man's consideration?

8. What is the significance of Aristotle saying that the active conditions of the soul that are the intellectual virtues produce something, not as medicine produces health, but as health produces health?

9. Why does Aristotle state that words concerning feelings and actions are less believable than actions themselves?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oftentimes, examining a thing's contrariness is helpful in understanding the thing itself: consequently, Aristotle speaks at some length on the conditions in which man is found to be consumed with vice. These are scattered throughout the Ethics; in an insightful essay, unite and analyze the nature of vice as it is presented by Aristotle. What characterizes the vicious man? What is the vicious man's relation to knowledge of his actions? Why can the vicious man not engage in true friendships? How is the nature of vice demonstrated through particular examples of the behavior of vicious men?

Essay Topic 2

What good is understanding a particular virtue if the concept of virtue itself is not understood? Compose an analytical essay which examines the very roots of virtuosity itself, starting with the relationship between particular virtues and Aristotle's conception of it as a mean condition between two extremes. To what does virtue relate? How is that to which virtue is related suspect to extremes of excess and deficiency? What is the essence of virtue itself? What are some particular examples by which this essence is demonstrated?

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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