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ἈΡΧΗ ΠΡΑΞΕΩΝ ΙΝ ARISTOTLE'S EUDEMIAN ETHICS II 6, 1223a9–16

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2018

Daniel Wolt
Daniel Wolt*
Affiliation:
University of São Paulo
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Eudemian Ethics II 6 is meant to introduce Aristotle's discussion of voluntary action in II 7–9. The majority of II 6, however, consists of a somewhat obscure discussion of the ways in which humans, alone among animals, are origins of action (ἀρχαὶ πράξεων). It is not at all clear how that topic is meant to relate to the topic of voluntary action until the following passage, towards the end of the chapter, in which Aristotle relates being the cause (αἴτιος) and origin of action to praiseworthiness and blameworthiness and to the voluntary (1223a9–16):

ἐπεὶ δ’ ἥ τε ἀρετὴ καὶ ἡ κακία καὶ τὰ ἀπ’

αὐτῶν ἔργα τὰ μὲν ἐπαινετὰ τὰ δὲ ψεκτά (ψέγεται γὰρ    (10)

καὶ ἐπαινεῖται οὐ διὰ τὰ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἢ τύχης ἢ φύσεως

ὑπάρχοντα, ἀλλ’ ὅσων αὐτοὶ αἴτιοι ἐσμέν· ὅσων γὰρ ἄλλος

αἴτιος, ἐκεῖνος καὶ τὸν ψόγον καὶ τὸν ἔπαινον ἔχει), δῆλον

ὅτι καὶ ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἡ κακία περὶ ταῦτ’ ἐστιν ὧν αὐτὸς

αἴτιος καὶ ἀρχὴ πράξεων. ληπτέον ἄρα ποίων αὐτὸς αἴτιος   (15)

καὶ ἀρχὴ πράξεων.

Now, since virtue and vice and the works that come from them are praiseworthy and blameworthy respectively (for one is not blamed or praised for what obtains on account of necessity or chance or nature but for the things we are ourselves causes of; for where someone else is the cause, he bears both the blame and the praise), it is clear that virtue and vice are concerned with what one is oneself a cause of and starting point of action.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , May 2018 , pp. 330 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

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References

2 My translation.

3 Kenny, A. (trans.), Aristotle, The Eudemian Ethics (Oxford, 2011), 24Google Scholar.

4 Rackham, H. (trans.), Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution, Eudemian Ethics, On Virtues and Vices (Cambridge, MA and London, 1935), 267Google Scholar.

5 Solomon, J. (trans.), ‘Eudemian Ethics’, in Barnes, J. (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton, 1984), 2.1936–7Google Scholar.

6 Woods, M., Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics Books I, II, and VIII (Oxford, 1992), 22Google Scholar.

7 Perhaps, as an anonymous reviewer points out, Woods does this because ‘of which’ is meant to refer back to πράξεων in the preceding sentence, making πράξεων in line 16 redundant. Woods does not, however, note that he is departing from the OCT text, which suggests that perhaps he was simply trying to render Aristotle's prose somewhat more elegantly by letting πράξεων in line 16 be understood.

8 Inwood, B. and Woolf, R. (edd. and trans.), Aristotle: Eudemian Ethics (Cambridge, 2012), 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 I thank Ben Morison for suggesting this as a translation that better suits my interpretation than ‘origin of actions’.

10 Inwood and Woolf's translation with minor modifications.