Aristotle’s Ethics Made Easy

For members of Generalist University, I’m starting a series called “___ Made Easy” where I plan to compile a collection of “busy person” lesson plans, featuring a personally curated mix of reading, listening, and Youtube videos. My goal is to make difficult matters easy (or at least easier!) and simplify core concepts in everything from philosophy, theology, science, fitness, writing, music, business, and more. Keeping with our minimalist theme, I have tried to pare each lesson down to the essentials.

By way of preview, here’s what I have for “Aristotle’s Ethics Made Easy” SO FAR (the final iteration will likely have a few additions/adjustments). For more, please consider joining GU.

Aristotle’s Ethics Made Easy

^ Start here.  

Overview: The purpose of this lesson plan is to introduce Aristotelian virtue ethics, which is concerned with what it means to live “a good life.” Aristotle’s account of virtue is oriented toward eudamonia, often translated as human flourishing. (As Bill and Ted might say, it’s about being “most excellent.”) Here are a few questions/exercises to think about as you work through the lesson plan.

• Why are virtues important?
• Explain the concept of “Golden mean?”
• Name a couple of virtues and their corresponding vices.
• What are the differences between commutative and distributive justice?

Required Reading: Nicomachean Ethics Books 1 – 6: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

Alternatively, you can find the free audiobook here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQhZNy9nkDg

(Note: There’s a lot of longer form videos explaining Aristotle’s ethics on YouTube, and many of them are quite good. But in the interest of “busy people” I’ve tried to select the videos which I felt offered the best explanation in the least number of minutes. Furthermore, while I endorse the videos I’ve curated for this lesson, I don’t necessarily endorse all the videos on each of these channels, simply because I haven’t watched all of them : ) 

Going Deeper

For those who want more, I’d recommend the following books to supplement your study.

Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer Adler

Aquinas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics