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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which alone among the virtues seems, for Aristotle, to be someone else's good?

2. What is the difficulty Aristotle cites concerning the praise and blame of the moral quality of the actions of others?

3. With which of the following is politics imminently concerned, as described by Aristotle in I.3?

4. Deliberation is, for Aristotle, principally about the things to be done by whom?

5. What sort of person is he who brings food fit for a wedding to a small dinner, according to Aristotle?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the distinction Aristotle makes between magnificence and generosity?

2. With what virtuous dispositions are Book IV, Chapters 6-9 concerned?

3. What is the relationship of virtues to extremes of excess and deficiency in the philosophy of Aristotle?

4. What sort of ruler becomes a tyrant, according to Aristotle's observations?

5. According to Aristotle, in what way is justice reciprocal, and why?

6. What are the conditions Aristotle gives for properly calling someone happy in Book I, Chapter 9, and why does he give these?

7. What characterizes Aristotle's notion of the generous person?

8. What is the relationship that Aristotle claims exists between the virtues of courage and temperance?

9. In what way does Aristotle state that it is impossible for one to do injustice to himself?

10. The magnanimous man is concerned with what things and in what manner, according to Aristotle?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Near the end of his Ethics, Aristotle states that perfect happiness comes through the act of contemplation, the only activity that man does entirely for its own sake. Analyze this postulation in a very insightful and carefully planned essay. Why is contemplation considered a perfect action? Does this claim seem justified? Why or why not? Why does Aristotle state that the act of contemplation is that in which perfect happiness and perfect pleasure exist?

Essay Topic 2

A rather interesting part of Aristotle's Ethics is where he describes the relationship between law and justice: for all justice is, in a sense, lawful, but not all laws are just. In a careful interpretative essay, examine this relationship according to the text of Aristotle. What is the nature of law? What is the nature of justice? How do they influence one another? From where do laws come? From where should laws come? Why does justice operate through law?

Essay Topic 3

Of the five intellectual virtues, wisdom receives almost as much attention as practical judgment, but is simultaneously put somewhat out of the reach of human beings. In an analytical essay, examine the nature of wisdom as a virtue: its ends and objects, its purpose, and its position as an excellence or perfection as an intellectual virtue. How is it distinct from the other intellectual virtues? Why is it difficult, or perhaps even impossible, for human beings to attain? Answering this question will take some consideration of the whole of the Ethics.

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