Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics - Essay Example He asserts that what we require, in order to live well, is maximum appreciation of the manner in which such goods as pleasure, friendship, virtue, wealth, and honor match together as a whole. In order to apply that general comprehension to particular situations, we must acquire, through significant habits and upbringing, the ability to view each occasion, which course of behavior or action is best backed by reason. Thus, practical wisdom and knowledge as Aristotle understands it, cannot be acquired by solely learning general rules. Human beings must acquire them through practice, social and emotional skills that ensure that we put our general comprehension of well being into practice in manners that are suitable to each occasion or situation. In his book 9 chapter eight, Aristotle explores the necessity of friendship in life of human beings. He argues that some people believe that when fortune is kind to them, they do not see the need of having friends, which according to Aristotle i s irrational thinking that expresses human selfishness. It is a disputed case whether a happy man requires friends or not. It is argued that those who are supremely self-sufficient and happy have no need of having friends for they posses things that are good and therefore being happy and self sufficient they need nothing further. On the other hand, a friend is another self which man is unable to provide by his own efforts. Aristotle argued that it seems weird when one gives all good things to a happy and self-sufficient man, not to give friends, who are viewed as the greatest of external goods. And if it is more plausible of a friend to do well by another person or man than to be well done by, and to bestow rewards is a characteristic of the good man and of virtue and it is rational and nobler to do well by friends than by unknown individuals or strangers. Therefore, the good man will need people for them to prosper and do well in their lives. This situation propels us to ask whethe r we need, friends in adversity or for success/prosperity, on the assumption that a man in adversity requires people to give rewards on him, and those who are successful need people to be more successful than they are. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics tries to explain the system of principles contained in men and how they affect the society. A dynamic debate arises with a question of whether a man has a duty to love oneself most or someone else. People criticizes those who are most lovers of themselves by calling them self-lovers and tend to consider good men who act for honor’s sake, friend’s sake and endures his own interest. But facts conflicts with these arguments where it is said by men that, one should love best one’s best friend of which man in this case, is his own best friend and ought to love himself more. It is suggested that, possibly if those self-lover would act justly and temperately in assigning themselves the great share of wealth, bodily p leasures and integrity, then no one would blame them. Such people would therefore differentiate themselves from other self-lovers by striving towards what is noble and straining to do noblest deeds. This suggestion therefore, shows that a good man ought to be a lover of self. A complex question is moved to a