Aristotle repeatedly claims that character-virtue “makes the goal right”, while Phronesis is responsible for working out how to achieve the goal. Many argue that these claims are misleading: it must be intellect that tells us what ends to pursue. I argue that Aristotle means just what he seems to say: despite putative textual evidence to the contrary, virtue is (a) a wholly non-intellectual state, and (b) responsible for literally supplying the contents of our goals. Furthermore, there are no good textual or philosophical reasons to reject this straightforward interpretation. Contrary to widespread opinion, Aristotle does not characterize Phronesis as supplying ends. Instead, its ethical import lies wholly in its ability to “determine the mean”. Moreover, because character involves non-rational cognition of the end as good, Aristotle can restrict practical intellect to deliberation without abandoning his anti-Humean view that we desire our ends because we find them good.

>“Virtue Makes the Goal Right”: Virtue and Phronesis in Aristotle’s Ethics

https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/39489/74688_alhill.pdf?sequence=1

Distributed leadership in schools

Introduction Part I. Prelude: Before Ethics: Metaphysics A and Posterior Analytics B 1. Metaphysics A: on 'metaphysics' and desire 2. Posterior analytics: on Nous and Aisthesis 3. Architecture as first philosophy Part II. Main Section: Ethikon Nikomakheion Alpha-Eta: 4. Human initiative and its orientation to the good 5. On happiness 6. On the soul 7. On justice 8. The virtues of the intellect Part III. Interlude: Metaphysics Gamma: 9. Aporiai of the science of 'being qua being' 10. The principle 'by nature' 11. Reiterations 12. Teleology, indefinable and indubitable 13. The phenomenon of truth and the action of thinking Part IV. Concluding Section: Ethikon Nikomakheion Theta-Kappa 14. Friendship and justice: inceptive remarks 15. Perfection and friendship 16. Again on friendship and justice 17. On happiness or the good 18. Again on Logos and Praxis Part V. Kolophon.

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Aristotle's Ethics as First Philosophy

In this reading a notion of the human is developed through an engagement with the work of French philosopher Emanuel Levinas. The argument is that, with the help of Levinas, it is possible for the ...

/pdf/resaying-the-human-levinas-beyond-humanism-and-antihumanism-3rgddteq3q.pdf

Resaying the human: Levinas beyond humanism and antihumanism

http://oro.open.ac.uk/9737/1/GeoFTsunami.pdf

Living through the tsunami : vulnerability and generosity on a volatile earth

Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics: Promise of Enrichment, Threat of Destruction

Cognition of value in Aristotle's ethics

What Ought I to Do?: Morality in Kant and Levinas

The Crossroads of Norm and Nature: Essays on Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics

In Essential Vulnerabilities , Deborah Achtenberg contests Emmanuel Levinas's idea that Plato is a philosopher of freedom for whom thought is a return to the self. Instead, Plato, like Levinas, is a philosopher of the other. Nonetheless, Achtenberg argues, Plato and Levinas are different. Though they share the view that human beings are essentially vulnerable and essentially in relation to others, they conceive human vulnerability and responsiveness differently. For Plato, when we see beautiful others, we are overwhelmed by the beauty of what is, by the vision of eternal form. For Levinas, we are disrupted by the newness, foreignness, or singularity of the other. The other, for him, is new or foreign, not eternal. The other is unknowable singularity. By showing these similarities and differences, Achtenberg resituates Plato in relation to Levinas and opens up two contrasting ways that self is essentially in relation to others.

Deborah Achtenberg

Papers

Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics: Promise of Enrichment, Threat of Destruction

Cognition of value in Aristotle's ethics

What Ought I to Do?: Morality in Kant and Levinas

The Crossroads of Norm and Nature: Essays on Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics

Essential Vulnerabilities: Plato and Levinas on Relations to the Other