philosophy · 335 BCE – 322 BCE
The Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle writes down the first full-scale ethics of character: the good life is eudaimonia, achieved through habituated virtues exercised in the particular, with practical wisdom choosing the mean. The relevant inheritance for alignment is the doctrine of the mean and the refusal to treat virtue as a rulebook — a disposition has to be trained, and a disposition is only exercised on cases no rule anticipated.
“The highest good, then, is happiness; and the definition of it is the pursuit of happiness. (paraphrase of Nicomachean Ethics I.1)”
Advances
- Eudaimonia as the organising telos of a life, which gives other goods a hierarchy
- Virtue as a trained disposition rather than a compliance rule
- The doctrine of the mean: virtue sits between excesses, in a position only judgement can find
Landmarks
335 BCE
Founded the Lyceum
Teaching begins in Athens the year his patron Andocides dies.
322 BCE
Nicomachean Ethics compiled
Dates are reconstructed from the cross-references; no manuscript carries an authorial colophon.
Who was arguing
Alignment stack at 322 BCE (0 of 20 techniques)
Techniques introduced in this era: