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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. Aristotle states that the good of one person is also, to a different degree, the good of what according to I.2?

2. How many virtues does magnanimity require, for Aristotle, in order to be in a person?

3. In I.12, Aristotle states that praise belongs properly to what?

4. Aristotle says that the magnanimous man cares more for what than for people's opinions?

5. Living in accordance with virtue can be said to be what, according to Aristotle?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Aristotle characterize those who are rash?

2. What does Aristotle mean by saying that a virtue is an active condition or state of the soul?

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

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

5. What characterizes Aristotle's distinction between "willing" and "choice"?

6. What is the tripartite distinction in the soul that Aristotle makes in Chapter 13 of the first book?

7. What is the content of the suggestion of Aristotle regarding overcompensation and the acquisition of personal virtue?

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

9. Explain Aristotle's distinction between the good and the apparent good, and those who pursue each, as given in III.4.

10. What is the relationship that Aristotle cites as existing between opposites in coming to know what is or is not the right way for a thing to be, such as health?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Book X of the Ethics, Aristotle discusses at some length the relationship between pleasure and true happiness. Compose an essay which discusses the nature of this relationship, explicating how the two are intertwined with one another. What is true pleasure? What is true happiness? In what sort of activities do true pleasure and true happiness consist? How is Aristotle's opinion different from those who preceded him? Is Aristotle's opinion superior? If so why, and if not, why not?

Essay Topic 2

Truly vicious men are rare, though not so rare as truly virtuous men. Most men exist in one or another state of struggle. Examine this struggle, that which is experienced by both the man of self-restraint and the unrestrained man, in regards to the pleasures with which all men are concerned, in a thoughtful and well-organized critical essay. Why are only these two states of character truly states of struggle? How do they confront these struggles? What emotions, feelings, and reactions accompany these struggles? With what do these men struggle? What characterizes the pleasures that are most likely to cause a man to struggle?

Essay Topic 3

Oftentimes, examining a thing's contrariness is helpful in understanding the thing itself: consequently, Aristotle speaks at some length on the conditions in which man is found to be consumed with vice. These are scattered throughout the Ethics; in an insightful essay, unite and analyze the nature of vice as it is presented by Aristotle. What characterizes the vicious man? What is the vicious man's relation to knowledge of his actions? Why can the vicious man not engage in true friendships? How is the nature of vice demonstrated through particular examples of the behavior of vicious men?

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