| This work is an investigation of Aristotle's understanding of the imprecision that he says characterizes the Nicomachean Ethics [EN] as a whole. My argument is that this imprecision holds a more far-reaching significance than it is usually taken to have. Aristotle does not simply mean, as is often said, that general ethical discourses cannot replace the prudential task of tailoring one's actions to the particular situation; rather, he is concerned with the fact that the very elements of ethical discourse, such as the noble, prudence, human happiness, et cetera, are especially marked by tensions and ambiguities that create problems when one sets out to provide ethical accounts. That is, ordinary ethical experience and thus the opinions that arise out of it possess a certain inconstant or "wandering" nature, as Aristotle puts it, and Aristotle understands his task to include the preservation and drawing out of the tensions that follow from this inconstancy as aids in philosophic reflection. The imprecision of the things themselves is thus met by an imprecision of the treatment, and this would be a gain even if it were to do nothing more than make clear to us the fundamental aporiai (impasses) that arise from our ordinary experience and beliefs. Nonetheless, Aristotle usually provides at least some suggestions as to how one might move beyond the impasse, or at least come to understand that the impasse is not simply an impasse but a reflection of the complex nature of the things themselves.;While the goal of this work is to illumine Aristotle's general approach to imprecise writing in the Nicomachean Ethics, given the elliptical nature of Aristotle's most explicit statements on the matter, this is best done by delving into various concrete cases throughout the EN to see how he actually incorporates imprecision. Thus, I consider difficulties found in his treatments of the noble, especially in its relation to the good, of prudence and its relation to ends, of friendship and its relation to ethical virtue, and of human nature and happiness. I also include a chapter that situates Aristotle with respect to his forerunners among the Greeks, arguing that he is in continuity with Aeschylus, Euripides, and Plato regarding the problematic nature of treatments of ethical matters. |
