Chapter 1 - The Nicomachean Ethics in Hellenistic philosophy

Summary

Two late Hellenistic authors display detailed knowledge of Aristotle's ethics. In Stobaeus' compendium of ancient philosophical schools, Eclogae II, one can find a summary of "The Ethics of Aristotle and the Other Peripatetics". Arius' presentation of Peripatetic ethics draws heavily on Stoic terminology. After the death of Theophrastus, his associate Neleus of Scepsis, incidentally, the son of Aristotle's "everyman" Coriscus, inherited all the books in Theophrastus' possession, thereby cutting off later Peripatetics from Aristotle's and Theophrastus' most important work. According to Kenny, the ten-book Nicomachean Ethics (N.E.) that we know was most likely created by the Aristotle commentator Aspasius in the second century AD through an inventive act of cut-and-paste. This chapter follows Irwin's lead and examines the relationship between Zeno's eudaimonism and the account of happiness defended by Aristotle in N.E. It revisits Long's arguments for supposing that Aristotle exerted a profound influence on early Stoic ethics.