Written in the tradition of Aristotle’s teacher, Plato–and of Plato’s teacher, Socrates–the Nicomachean Ethics addresses the question, “What is the best life for man?” An extended reflection on virtue, happiness, and friendship, it helped to inform the moral and political thought of America’s Founders. There are echoes of it, for instance, in President George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, when he states “that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.”

C. 350 B.C.

Book 1

Chapter 1. Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has been beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim. Read more