Named for Aristotle?s son Nicomachus who was the first to edit this work The Nicomachean Ethics plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics. In the ten books of this work Aristotle explains the good life for man: the life of happiness.
For Aristotle happiness exists when the soul is in accordance with virtue. Virtue exists in a deliberate choice of actions that take a middle course between excess and deficiency; this is the famous doctrine of the ?golden mean.? Courage for example is the mean between cowardice and rashness. Justice is the mean between a man?s getting more or less than his due. The supreme happiness according to Aristotle is to be found in a life of philosophical contemplation or at least in a virtuous life of political activity and public munificence.
A student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great Aristotle is one of the towering figures in Western thought.
