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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. With what state of man's character is VII.5 concerned?

2. What fact does Aristotle point to in support of the hypothesis that living itself is a good?

3. With what sort of friendship is VIII.12 concerned?

4. Aristotle compares the relationship between spiritedness and reason to the relationship between what?

5. Which two thinkers does Aristotle reference in X.8 concerning the nature of those who are happy?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Aristotle end his discussion of ethics by beginning a discussion of politics?

2. In what way does Aristotle agree with Socrates concerning knowledge and moral action?

3. What would it mean, for Aristotle, to describe a sort of friendship as being a hybrid?

4. Why does Aristotle state that mothers have greater love for their children than children for their parents?

5. Why is it difficult, in the opinion of Aristotle, for a person to have many close and virtuous friends?

6. Explain the distinction of Aristotle between having goodwill and having friendship that Aristotle points to in IX.5.

7. Explain the three sorts of friendship described in Book VIII.

8. Give an example of something affirmed by knowledge, as that which cannot be otherwise than it is.

9. What is the essential unity that Aristotle claims between knowledge and action in the person possessed of practical judgment?

10. Why does Aristotle state that words concerning feelings and actions are less believable than actions themselves?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What good is understanding a particular virtue if the concept of virtue itself is not understood? Compose an analytical essay which examines the very roots of virtuosity itself, starting with the relationship between particular virtues and Aristotle's conception of it as a mean condition between two extremes. To what does virtue relate? How is that to which virtue is related suspect to extremes of excess and deficiency? What is the essence of virtue itself? What are some particular examples by which this essence is demonstrated?

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, a true friend is considered to be, in a certain sense, a second self. Compose an essay which considers this claim in the context of Aristotle's examination of friendship. What would it mean for someone to be a second self? How is true friendship related to others? How is friendship related to the self? In what sort of acts does one treat another as though a second self? What characterizes these acts?

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