Eudemian Ethics

Overview

The Eudemian Ethics is Aristotle's other great ethical treatise — the one that even most philosophy students have never read. Named for Eudemus of Rhodes, Aristotle's pupil who likely edited the work after his death, it contains eight books that cover the same ground as the better-known Nicomachean Ethics but with surprising differences. Three books are shared between the two works. The remaining five give us a version of Aristotle's ethics that is more focused on the role of fortune in the good life, more insistent on the completeness of virtue, and — in its final book — introduces a concept found nowhere else in Aristotle's corpus: kalokagathia, the beautiful and good nobility that unifies all the virtues.

For centuries the EE was treated as a rough draft, superseded by the NE. The work of Anthony Kenny, Christopher Rowe, and others has overturned that verdict. The EE is not a draft. It is a parallel treatment, probably earlier in composition, with its own distinctive arguments on happiness, virtue, friendship, and the precariousness of the good life. It deserves to be read alongside its more famous sibling — and in some respects, it is the more philosophically honest of the two.

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Timeline

| Date | Event | |---|---| | 384 BC | Aristotle born in Stagira | | 367 | At 17, travels to Athens to study at Plato's Academy | | 347 | Plato dies; Aristotle leaves Athens | | 343 | Tutors Alexander (later "the Great") at the request of Philip II | | 350 | Composes the Eudemian Ethics, probably during first stay at Assos/Lesbos or early Lyceum period | | 335 | Founds the Lyceum | | 322 | Dies at Chalcis | | 1st c. BC | Andronicus of Rhodes catalogues Aristotle's works; three books found to be common to both Ethics | | c. 1170 | Robert Grosseteste makes first Latin translation of the EE | | 1935 | Harris Rackham's Loeb edition makes the full EE accessible in English for specialists | | 1971 | Christopher Rowe's first book argues for the EE's importance | | 1978 | Anthony Kenny publishes The Aristotelian Ethics, arguing the common books belong to the EE | | 2011 | Kenny publishes the first complete English translation of the EE (Oxford World's Classics) | | 2013 | Inwood and Woolf publish the Cambridge translation | | 2023 | Rowe publishes new Oxford Classical Text of the EE | | 2025 | Rowe's Brill translation and commentary appears posthumously |

Aristotle's intellectual inheritance: Plato (his teacher), Socrates (via Plato), the medical tradition of his physician father, and the biological observation of the eastern Aegean. The EE was likely composed during the period when Aristotle was developing the core of his ethical system, before the more polished NE.

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The Book at a Glance

The Eudemian Ethics contains eight books. Books IV, V, and VI are identical to Books V, VI, and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics (the "common books" on justice, intellectual virtue, and continence/pleasure). The five exclusively Eudemian books are I, II, III, VII, and VIII.

| Book | Subject | Key Features | |---|---|---| | I | Happiness and the Good | Three lives; critique of Platonic Form; happiness as complete virtue | | II | The Nature of Virtue | Function argument; doctrine of the mean; voluntary action | | III | Particular Virtues | Detailed catalog including Nemesis (unique); Mildness as separate virtue | | IV (= NE V) | Justice | Common book; distributive, commutative, and political justice | | V (= NE VI) | Intellectual Virtues | Common book; phronesis, sophia, techne, nous | | VI (= NE VII) | Continence & Pleasure | Common book; akrasia analysis; pleasure psychology | | VII | Friendship | Philia in three forms; less detailed than NE but more integrated | | VIII | Kalokagathia & Fortune | The unique Eudemian contribution: good luck, noble goodness, theoria |

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The Central Thesis

The EE opens with the same question as the NE: what is the good for a human being? But the frame is different. Aristotle begins by distinguishing between three kinds of goods: goods of the soul (virtues, knowledge), goods of the body (health, beauty, strength), and external goods (wealth, friends, good fortune). Happiness is the best and most complete good — complete because it is chosen for its own sake, and best because it includes the finest and most praiseworthy activities.

The thesis is that happiness is energeia kat' areten teleian — activity in accordance with complete virtue. The word "complete" is doing heavy work. It means not just virtue across the board, but virtue that is fully actualized, exercised in action, sustained over a complete life, and supported by adequate external goods. A person cannot be happy on the rack, or in poverty, or friendless. Virtue is necessary but not sufficient. Fortune matters.

This is the signature claim of the EE. The NE acknowledges the role of luck, but the EE insists on it. Book VIII returns to the theme: what is the role of good fortune (eutychia)? Can it be a kind of natural virtue? The answer — controversial then and now — is that good fortune might be a gift of nature, something like divine inspiration, that helps the virtuous person complete their life.

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The Unique Concept: Kalokagathia

The EE contains a philosophical concept found nowhere else in Aristotle: kalokagathia — literally "beautiful and goodness," the quality of the kalos kagathos (the gentleman, the noble-and-good man). In Book VIII, Aristotle argues that kalokagathia is the complete virtue that includes all the moral virtues and makes them function as a unity. It is what the virtuous person has when every particular virtue — courage, temperance, generosity, justice — is integrated into a single admirable character.

The passage is dense and contested. Some scholars read kalokagathia as the EE's answer to the NE's phronesis: in the NE, practical wisdom unifies the virtues; in the EE, kalokagathia plays that role. Others read it as a higher-order virtue, something like complete nobility, that the practically wise person achieves when fortune cooperates. Either way, it is a distinctively Eudemian idea that has no parallel in the NE.

The presence of kalokagathia changes the character of the EE. The NE is a book about achieving excellence through habituation. The EE is a book about being recognized as excellent by a community that values nobility of character. The social dimension is stronger.

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Virtue and Fortune

Book VIII also contains Aristotle's most extended discussion of good fortune (eutychia). Can a person be fortunate without being virtuous? Can virtue compensate for bad luck? Aristotle's answers are nuanced. He distinguishes between two kinds of good fortune: the irrational kind (like winning the lottery) and the rational kind (like being in the right place at the right time because of good character). The latter, he suggests, might be caused by a kind of natural intuition — something like a god-given instinct for the right decision.

This discussion has no parallel in the NE. It makes the EE a more realistic ethical treatise — one that acknowledges that the good life is partly at the mercy of external events. A person can do everything right and still fail. Virtue is the core, but fortune is the enabler.

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The Doctrine of the Mean in the EE

The EE presents the doctrine of the mean in a form slightly different from the NE. Where the NE describes virtue as a mean relative to us, the EE emphasizes that the mean is determined by right reason (orthos logos). The formulation is less organic, more rule-governed. Some scholars see this as evidence that the EE is earlier: Aristotle had not yet developed the perceptual model of phronesis that dominates the NE.

The EE also includes a virtue that the NE omits: Nemesis (righteous indignation), the mean between envy (feeling pain at others' deserved good fortune) and malicious glee (feeling pleasure at others' undeserved bad fortune). Its inclusion signals the EE's preoccupation with the social dimension of virtue — how we respond to the distribution of goods and fortunes among others.

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Friendship

Book VII covers friendship (philia) with the same threefold classification as the NE: utility, pleasure, and character. But the treatment is less detailed — one book instead of two. The EE compresses the analysis, losing some of the NE's richness on self-love and political friendship, but gaining a tighter integration with the overall argument about the role of other people in the good life.

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Why This Book Matters

The EE matters for three reasons.

First, it is our best evidence for the development of Aristotle's ethical thought. If the EE is earlier than the NE (as most scholars now believe), it shows Aristotle working out his system — starting with the function argument, developing the mean, surrounding virtue with the concepts of fortune and nobility, and only later arriving at the polished synthesis of the NE.

Second, the EE gives us a concept — kalokagathia — that challenges the NE's account of the unity of the virtues. Is it phronesis that unifies them, or is it something closer to social nobility? The debate is philosophically alive.

Third, the EE takes luck seriously. Aristotle is sometimes read as a philosopher of self-sufficiency, for whom the virtuous person needs nothing external. The EE corrects that reading. The good life depends on things beyond our control. Virtue is necessary. Fortune is necessary too. The honest philosopher admits it.

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Key Takeaways

• Happiness is activity in accordance with complete virtue — not just any virtue, but virtue fully actualized and sustained over a complete life
• Goods of the soul, body, and fortune all contribute to the good life; external goods are necessary conditions, not optional extras
• Kalokagathia (noble goodness) unifies the virtues in a way distinct from the NE's phronesis; it is the EE's signature concept
• Nemesis — righteous indignation at undeserved fortune — is a virtue in the EE, omitted from the NE
• Good fortune (eutychia) is partly natural and partly divine; the EE is more candid about luck than the NE
• Friendship is necessary for happiness but the treatment is shorter and less developed than in the NE
• The three common books (justice, intellect, continence) anchor the EE in the same conceptual framework as the NE
• The EE is probably the earlier work and shows Aristotle's ethics in development, before the NE's polished synthesis

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Who Should Read

| Reader Profile | Why | |---|---| | Aristotle scholars | Essential for understanding the development of his ethical thought; the EE is the NE's necessary companion | | Students of virtue ethics | Kalokagathia offers a different model of virtue-unity than phronesis | | Readers interested in luck and ethics | The EE's treatment of fortune is unmatched in ancient philosophy | | Anyone who found the NE too polished | The EE is rougher, more probing, more willing to admit the fragility of the good life | | Friends of the NE | Reading the EE will change how you read the NE |

Who Might Skip

• Readers seeking a single, definitive Aristotelian ethics — the EE is not that; it is a companion, not a replacement
• Beginners to Aristotle — start with the NE; the EE assumes familiarity with the framework
• Anyone expecting a shorter NE — the EE is not a simplified version; it is a different argument

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Related Books

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics — The sister treatise; the two works share three books and differ in crucial arguments
• Aristotle, Magna Moralia — A shorter ethical work sometimes attributed to Aristotle; shows further development of EE themes
• Aristotle, Politics — The political framework that the EE's ethics presupposes
• Plato, Republic — The theory of justice that Aristotle inherits and transforms
• Anthony Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics — The seminal modern argument that the common books belong to the EE
• Michael Woods, Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics: Books I, II, and VIII — The standard commentary on the exclusively Eudemian books
• Christopher Rowe, The Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics: A Study in the Development of Aristotle's Thought — Rowe's early work establishing the EE's philosophical importance
• Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness — A modern treatment of luck and ethics that draws heavily on themes from the EE
• Brad Inwood and Raphael Woolf (trans.), Aristotle: Eudemian Ethics — The Cambridge translation with an excellent introduction

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Final Verdict

The Eudemian Ethics is not a rough draft of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is a separate work, with a different emphasis, a different set of conceptual tools, and a different philosophical temperament. It is more candid about the role of luck, more focused on the social recognition of virtue, and more willing to introduce concepts — kalokagathia, eutychia, nemesis — that the NE either omits or integrates into a smoother picture.

The EE is best read after the NE, as a companion that unsettles what the NE makes too neat. It is not a beginner's text. It is a scholar's text — necessary for anyone who wants to understand Aristotle's ethics not as a monolith but as a living, changing system of thought.

Rating: 7/10 — Less polished than the NE, less influential, more uneven. But philosophically indispensable for the serious reader, and in some ways more honest.

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Suggested Translation

The Kenny translation (Oxford World's Classics, 2011) is the most accessible complete English edition. The Inwood/Woolf translation (Cambridge, 2013) is the most accurate for scholars. The Rowe translation (Brill, 2025) is the most textually authoritative, based on the new OCT. For the Greekless reader, Kenny or Inwood/Woolf are the best starting points.

Book I: Happiness, the Good, and the Three Lives

The EE begins where the NE begins — with the question of the highest good — but the approach is different. Aristotle opens not with the function argument but with a tripartite classification of goods: goods of the soul (virtues, wisdom, knowledge), goods of the body (health, beauty, strength), and external goods (wealth, friends, noble birth, good fortune). All three matter, he insists. Happiness is not exclusively a matter of the soul. The body and the world must cooperate.

Aristotle then introduces the famous distinction of three lives: the life of pleasure (bios apolaustikos), the life of political action (bios politikos), and the life of contemplation (bios theoretikos). Each captures part of the truth. The pleasure-lover pursues enjoyment. The statesman pursues honor and noble action. The philosopher pursues wisdom. But none of these, taken alone, is complete.

The critique of Plato's Form of the Good follows. Aristotle argues, as he does in the NE, that a universal Form of the Good is useless for practical life. Even if such a Form existed, it would not help a doctor heal a patient or a general win a battle. The good must be achievable by human action — and the Form, being eternal and separate, is not. This is the same argument as in NE I.6, but the EE presents it more briefly, with less dialectical richness.

The book closes with the first definition of happiness: activity of the soul in accordance with complete virtue over a complete life. Two features are distinctive to the EE. First, the emphasis on complete virtue (arete teleia) — not just any virtue, but the full set of excellences integrated into a coherent character. Second, the insistence on complete life (bios teleios) — no one is called happy in a moment. The definition anticipates the EE's central concern with totality and integration, themes that drive Books II and VIII.

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Book II: The Nature of Virtue and Voluntary Action

Book II divides into two parts. The first part (chapters 1-5) develops the theory of moral virtue. The second part (chapters 6-11) analyzes voluntary and involuntary action — the preconditions for moral responsibility.

The Function Argument and the Mean

Aristotle presents the function argument (ergon argument) in a form close to the NE. Every thing has a characteristic activity. The characteristic activity of a human being is life in accordance with reason — not mere nutrition (shared with plants) or perception (shared with animals) but rational activity. The good of a human is to perform this activity excellently. Excellence of rational activity is virtue (arete).

What is virtue? It is a settled disposition (hexis) to choose the mean between excess and deficiency, as determined by right reason (orthos logos). The EE's formulation is subtly different from the NE's. Where the NE says the mean is "relative to us" and perceived by phronesis, the EE says it is determined by "right reason" — a more rule-governed formulation. Scholars debate whether this signals an earlier stage of Aristotle's thought (before he developed the perceptual model of phronesis) or a deliberate alternative.

The Catalog of Virtues

Book II concludes with a table of virtues and their corresponding vices. Aristotle lists:

| Virtue | Excess | Deficiency | |---|---|---| | Courage | Rashness | Cowardice | | Temperance | Licentiousness | Insensibility | | Mildness | Irascibility | Spiritlessness | | Liberality | Prodigality | Stinginess | | Magnificence | Vulgarity | Pettiness | | Magnanimity | Vanity | Pusillanimity | | Ambition | Overambition | Lack of ambition | | Truthfulness | Boastfulness | Irony (self-deprecation) | | Wittiness | Buffoonery | Boorishness | | Friendliness | Obsequiousness | Surliness | | Nemesis | Envy | Malicious glee | | Dignity (Semnotes) | Pomposity | Servility |

Three features are unique to the EE and absent from the NE:

1. Mildness (praotes) is listed as a separate virtue between temperance and liberality. In the NE, mildness is a minor virtue treated in Book IV. In the EE, it gets a more prominent position.

2. Friendliness and Dignity replace the NE's Gentleness and Agreeableness.

3. Nemesis — righteous indignation at another's undeserved good or bad fortune — is included as a full virtue. The NE mentions nemesis in passing (Book II) but never treats it. The EE makes it a substantive virtue, complete with its own excess (envy) and deficiency (malicious glee, epichairekakia).

The inclusion of nemesis is significant. It shows the EE's preoccupation with how we respond to the distribution of goods and fortunes in the community. The virtuous person does not merely act rightly; he also feels rightly about what happens to others.

Voluntary Action

The second half of Book II (chapters 6-11) examines the conditions of moral responsibility. Aristotle distinguishes the voluntary (hekousion) from the involuntary, using criteria of compulsion and knowledge. An act is voluntary if its origin is in the agent and the agent knows the particular circumstances. An act is involuntary if done under compulsion or in ignorance.

The analysis is broadly parallel to NE III.1-5. But the EE shows a greater interest in the psychology of action — what Daniel Wolt has called the "archē praxeōn" (origin of actions). Aristotle asks what internal state generates voluntary action, and he distinguishes three candidates: desire (orexis), choice (prohairesis), and thought (dianoia). The discussion anticipates the more detailed treatment of the practical syllogism in the common books.

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Book III: The Particular Virtues in Detail

Book III is a catalogue of the moral virtues, each treated in turn with its corresponding vices. The book corresponds roughly to NE III.6-IV.9, but with important differences.

Courage (andreia) is the mean in matters of fear and confidence. The courageous person fears the right things, in the right way, at the right times. Aristotle distinguishes true courage from five counterfeit forms: civic courage (acting from shame or honor), experience (professional soldiers), spirit/thumos (animal-like boldness), optimism (ignorance of danger), and fear of punishment (acting to avoid disgrace). The account closely matches NE III.6-9.

Temperance (sophrosune) governs bodily pleasures, especially touch and taste. The temperate person enjoys pleasures in the right way and to the right degree. The intemperate person goes to excess; the insensible person (a rare type) takes no pleasure at all. The EE emphasizes that natural desires (hunger, thirst) admit of excess — it is possible to want too much of even necessary things.

Mildness (praotes) is the mean concerning anger. The mild person gets angry at the right things, toward the right people, for the right duration. The irascible person gets angry too quickly and too intensely. The spiritless person never gets angry at all — and Aristotle considers this a genuine vice, since some situations call for anger.

Liberality (eleutheriotes) governs the giving and taking of money. The liberal person gives to the right people, in the right amounts, at the right times. The prodigal gives too much and takes too little; the stingy gives too little and takes too much. Aristotle adds an interesting observation: prodigality is more curable than stinginess, because the spendthrift tends to run out of money and may then learn moderation.

Magnificence (megaloprepeia) is liberality on a large scale — public works, festivals, grand gifts. It is the virtue of the wealthy citizen who spends wisely and tastefully for the common good. The vulgar person overspends for display; the pettily frugal person underspends and spoils the effect.

Magnanimity (megalopsychia) is the mean in matters of honor and self-worth. The magnanimous person claims great things and deserves them. He is the paradigm of virtue who knows his own worth. The vain person claims great things without deserving them; the pusillanimous person deserves great things but does not claim them.

Nemesis (nemesis) — present in the EE, absent from the NE's execution — is the mean in feeling pleasure and pain at others' fortunes. The nemesetikos feels pain at the undeservedly fortunate and pleasure at the deservedly fortunate. The envious person feels pain at all good fortune of others. The malicious person (epichairekakos) feels pleasure at all bad fortune of others, deserved or not. Nemesis is the socially aware virtue, the one that makes a person care about justice in the distribution of goods beyond their own share.

Book III also discusses truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, dignity, and shame (aidos). Shame is not a virtue but a passion — appropriate for the young, who have not yet fully formed their character, but not for the mature virtuous person.

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Books IV-VI: The Common Books

Books IV, V, and VI of the EE are identical to Books V, VI, and VII of the NE. These are the "common books" — the same text transmitted in both manuscripts. Their content is:

Book IV (= NE V): Justice

Justice is treated as both a complete virtue (the whole of virtue toward others) and a particular virtue (one excellence among others). As complete virtue, justice is "the disposition to act justly and to wish what is just." As particular virtue, justice concerns distribution of goods (geometric proportion), correction of transactions (arithmetic proportion), and reciprocity. Political justice holds only among citizens in a constitutional community. Natural justice is universal; legal justice is conventional.

Book V (= NE VI): Intellectual Virtues

This book distinguishes five ways the soul arrives at truth: techne (art, craft), episteme (scientific knowledge), phronesis (practical wisdom), sophia (theoretical wisdom), and nous (intuitive understanding). Phronesis is the intellectual virtue that governs moral action. It is not theoretical knowledge but the perception of particulars. The practically wise person discerns what to do in each situation.

Book VI (= NE VII): Continence and Pleasure

The book addresses akrasia (weakness of will) — acting against one's own better judgment. Aristotle rejects the Socratic denial of akrasia. The akratic person knows the right thing to do but appetite overrides the conclusion of the practical syllogism. Three types are distinguished: akrasia proper (deliberate weakness), propetheia (impulsiveness), and malakia (softness). The second half of the book discusses pleasure as an unimpeded activity of the natural state.

The presence of these common books in the EE raises a question that has occupied scholars for decades: were they written for the EE and later inserted into the NE, or the reverse? Anthony Kenny argues the former. The debate is not resolvable given the evidence, but the placement of the common books within the EE's eight-book structure gives them a different emphasis: justice appears as the completion of the particular virtues (Book III → Book IV), and intellectual virtue appears as the foundation for the discussion of friendship (Book V → Book VII).

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Book VII: Friendship (Philia)

Book VII examines friendship in three types — utility, pleasure, and character — mirroring NE VIII-IX but in a single book rather than two. The structure is simpler:

| Type | Basis | Duration | Level | |---|---|---|---| | Utility | Mutual usefulness | As long as the use lasts | Lowest | | Pleasure | Mutual enjoyment | As long as the pleasure lasts | Intermediate | | Character | Mutual recognition of virtue | Lifelong | Highest |

Only character friendship is true friendship in the strict sense. Utility and pleasure friends are not friends of each other but of what each provides. The true friend is "another self" — a person whose good is inseparable from one's own.

The EE's treatment of friendship has three distinctive features:

1. More integrated into the argument about fortune. Friendship, for the EE, is one of the external goods that the good life requires. A person cannot flourish without friends. This is not a concession but a structural requirement: the complete life needs the complete set of human relationships.

2. Less emphasis on self-love. Where NE IX devotes sustained attention to the relationship between friendship and self-love, the EE passes over this more quickly. The EE is less concerned with the psychology of the friend and more concerned with the social fact of friendship.

3. No treatment of political friendship or benefaction. The EE lacks the NE's rich discussion of friendship in the polis and the psychology of benefaction.

Despite the compression, Book VII contains what Kunio Watanabe has called the "focal analysis of friendship" — a proto-analytic approach that defines friendship in terms of its primary instance (character friendship) and treats the other forms as related by analogy.

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Book VIII: Kalokagathia, Good Fortune, and Theoria

Book VIII is the most distinctive book of the EE — the one that has no equivalent in the NE. It divides into three sections: (1) the epistemology of virtue, (2) good fortune (eutychia), and (3) kalokagathia (noble goodness) and the contemplative life.

The Epistemology of Virtue

The opening chapters discuss how virtue is known. Aristotle asks whether virtue is a kind of knowledge, and he argues that it is not — or at least, not entirely. Moral virtue involves perception of particulars, not deduction from universals. This section corresponds roughly to NE I.9 but is placed here as a transition from friendship to the closing arguments.

Good Fortune (Eutychia)

Chapters 2-3 contain Aristotle's most extended discussion of luck. Can a person be fortunate without being virtuous? Is good fortune a natural gift? Aristotle distinguishes two kinds:

1. Irrational good fortune — the kind that operates without reason, as when someone consistently makes the right decision without being able to explain why. This might be caused by nature or by something like divine inspiration.

2. Rational good fortune — the kind that arises from good character and practical wisdom. The phronimos is "fortunate" because he has trained himself to perceive the right action and seize the right opportunity.

Aristotle leans toward the view that irrational good fortune is a natural gift, akin to the inspiration of poets or prophets. Filip Grgic has argued that this discussion connects to Aristotle's theology: irrational good fortune might be a trace of the divine in human life.

The treatment of fortune is the EE's most important contribution to Aristotelian ethics. The NE acknowledges that external goods are necessary for happiness, but it never devotes sustained analysis to how they enter the good life. The EE does — and the answer is that fortune is a genuine factor, irreducible to virtue.

Kalokagathia

The final section (chapters 3-5) introduces kalokagathia — the "beautiful and good" character of the kalos kagathos, the gentleman. Aristotle defines it as the virtue that includes all the particular virtues and makes them function as a unity. The kalokagathos is not simply a person who has each virtue individually. He is a person whose virtues harmonize — whose courage does not conflict with his mildness, whose liberality does not undercut his justice.

The concept has no parallel in the NE. In the NE, the unity of the virtues is secured by phronesis — practical wisdom perceives the right action and integrates character. In the EE, the unity is secured by kalokagathia — a higher-order virtue that is the completion of all the others. The kalokagathos possesses "all the virtues together" and acts from a fully unified character.

Scholars disagree on what kalokagathia adds. Some read it as the EE's equivalent of NE's phronesis (a different label for the same idea). Others read it as a distinct concept — a social virtue of nobility that includes the recognition of the virtuous person by the community. The second reading is more plausible given the EE's emphasis on external goods and fortune: the kalokagathos is the person whose virtue is seen and acknowledged by others.

The book closes with a brief discussion of theoria (contemplation), parallel to NE X. The contemplative life is the highest, but the EE gives it less emphasis. The final note is not about the superiority of the philosopher, but about the integration of virtue, fortune, and noble character into a single complete life.

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Reading Guide

How to Read the Eudemian Ethics

The EE is best read alongside the NE, not instead of it. The two treatises are complementary. Follow these approaches depending on your goals:

| Goal | Recommended Path | |---|---| | Understand Aristotle's ethics fully | Read NE first, then EE. Note every difference. | | Study Aristotle's intellectual development | Read EE Books I-III, VII-VIII first (the exclusively Eudemian books), then NE, then the common books | | Focus on the distinctive concepts | Read EE Book II (virtue table, nemesis), EE Book VIII (kalokagathia, fortune), compare with NE II and NE X | | Quickest path to the EE's unique content | EE Book VIII only — it has no parallel in the NE |

Chapters to Read or Skip

• Must read: EE I (happiness definition), EE II (virtue theory, voluntary action), EE III (nemesis and the catalog), EE VIII (kalokagathia and fortune)
• Read if studying in depth: EE VII (friendship, compare with NE VIII-IX)
• Skip (read in NE instead): EE IV-VI (common books, better served by NE editions with more extensive commentary)

Sufficiency Note

The EE alone is not sufficient for understanding Aristotelian ethics. It omits crucial discussions from the NE: the detailed treatment of pleasure in Book X, the rich analysis of friendship in NE VIII-IX, the extended discussion of akrasia's psychology, and the Book X argument for the contemplative life. The EE is a companion — indispensable but incomplete. Read them together.

1. Historical Context

The Eudemian Ethics was composed around 350 BC, probably during Aristotle's first teaching period at Assos or Lesbos, or possibly in the early years of the Lyceum. It is named for Eudemus of Rhodes, a pupil who edited Aristotle's works after his death and who may have assembled the EE from Aristotle's lecture notes. The work was known and cited in antiquity: the second-century AD commentator Aspasius referred to it, and it was transmitted through the Byzantine manuscript tradition alongside the NE.

The EE nearly did not survive. Only a handful of Greek manuscripts preserve the exclusively Eudemian books. The three common books survived as part of the NE tradition. The work was largely neglected in the Latin Middle Ages (though Robert Grosseteste translated it in the 13th century) and was treated as a minor curiosity until the 20th century.

Christopher Rowe, in his recent authoritative study, describes the EE as the "poor relation" of the NE — a status that reflects transmission history, not philosophical merit.

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2. The Central Problem

The EE addresses the same core problem as the NE: what makes a human life worth living? But it frames the problem differently. The NE asks: what is the highest good achievable by action? The EE asks: what combination of virtue, natural endowment, and external fortune constitutes a complete life?

The difference matters. The NE's framework is agent-centered: what must I do to flourish? The EE's framework is world-centered: what must the world be like — what must I receive as well as what must I do — for my life to be complete? The EE is more honest about human vulnerability.

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3. The Argument

The argument unfolds in three movements:

Movement 1 (Books I-III): Happiness is defined as activity in accordance with complete virtue. Virtue is a mean between extremes. The individual virtues are catalogued, including nemesis (unique to EE). Voluntary action is analyzed as the precondition for praise and blame.

Movement 2 (Books IV-VI, the common books): Justice completes the moral virtues. Intellectual virtues — especially phronesis — govern correct reasoning about action. Akrasia is analyzed as disruption of the practical syllogism. Pleasure is defined as unimpeded natural activity.

Movement 3 (Books VII-VIII): Friendship is necessary for happiness; three types are distinguished. Good fortune is analyzed as a natural or divine gift that enables the complete life. Kalokagathia — noble and good character — integrates all virtues into a unified whole.

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4. Strengths

Philosophical Honesty About Luck

The EE's treatment of fortune is its greatest strength. Martha Nussbaum, in The Fragility of Goodness (1986), draws on the EE to argue that the best ethical theories acknowledge vulnerability. The EE admits that the good life is partly at the mercy of external events. A person can be virtuous and still fail. This is more honest than the NE's tendency to downplay luck.

Kalokagathia as a Unifying Concept

The concept of kalokagathia — noble goodness — offers a distinctive model of moral unity. In the NE, phronesis unifies the virtues by perception. In the EE, kalokagathia unifies them by completion: the kalokagathos has all the virtues together, integrated into a single admirable character. Anthony Kenny calls this "the most original contribution of the EE" and argues that it complements the NE's account.

The Inclusion of Nemesis

The EE catalogues nemesis (righteous indignation) as a full virtue. This is a genuine moral insight: the virtuous person cares about distributive justice at the level of feeling. The NE mentions nemesis but never develops it. Harris Rackham noted in his Loeb introduction that the EE's catalog is "in some respects more complete" than the NE's.

The Tripartite Classification of Goods

By explicitly distinguishing goods of the soul, goods of the body, and external goods, the EE gives a more structured account of what happiness involves. The NE's treatment is less systematic. Brad Inwood and Raphael Woolf, in their Cambridge introduction, praise this classification as "analytically fruitful."

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5. Weaknesses

Uneven Development

The EE is less polished than the NE. Passages are compressed; transitions are abrupt. Book VII on friendship is noticeably thinner than NE VIII-IX — the psychology is less developed, the examples are fewer, the argument is less nuanced. Michael Woods, in his commentary on EE I, II, and VIII, notes that the "compression sometimes obscures the argument."

The Problem of the Common Books

The presence of three books identical to the NE creates a structural awkwardness. Modern editions must either include them (duplicating material) or omit them (creating a five-book fragment). Christopher Rowe argues that neither EE nor NE was a fully unified and finished work — they are "assemblages like the Politics, Physics, and the Metaphysics" — and that the common books' origin is ultimately indeterminate.

Kalokagathia Is Under-Theorized

The concept appears only in Book VIII, occupying perhaps 10 Bekker pages of a much longer work. It is introduced, briefly characterized, and never revisited. John M. Cooper has argued that kalokagathia is not a separate concept at all but simply the EE's name for the NE's "complete virtue." If Cooper is right, the EE's most distinctive contribution evaporates.

Social Parochialism

Kalokagathia is explicitly the virtue of the kalos kagathos — the Athenian gentleman of the propertied class. The concept is socially loaded in ways that limit its universal application. The EE inherits, without critical distance, the aristocratic values of 4th-century Athens.

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6. Named Critics and Their Arguments

Anthony Kenny

Kenny's The Aristotelian Ethics (1978, rev. 2016) is the most influential modern defense of the EE. His central thesis: the three common books originally belonged to the EE, not the NE. Kenny argues from stylistic analysis, cross-references within the EE, and the coherence of the eight-book structure. His translation (Oxford World's Classics, 2011) made the EE accessible to a general audience for the first time.

Christopher Rowe

Rowe's earliest work, The Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics: A Study in the Development of Aristotle's Thought (1971), argued for the philosophical importance of the EE. His new Oxford Classical Text (2023) is now the definitive critical edition. In his final work (Brill, 2025), Rowe argues that both EE and NE were assembled by editors from sets of smaller treatises — a more radical position than Kenny's.

Brad Inwood

Inwood, co-translator of the Cambridge edition (2013) with Raphael Woolf, emphasizes the EE's value as a parallel treatment rather than a predecessor. In his review of Rowe's Brill volume (BMCR 2026.03.35), Inwood calls the EE "an approachable book" that is "essential" for anyone working on Aristotle's ethics. He notes that the EE's growing importance is a recent development, driven by better translations and textual work.

Michael Woods

Woods' commentary Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics: Books I, II, and VIII (1982, rev. 1992) is the standard scholarly commentary on the exclusively Eudemian books. He argues that the EE is earlier than the NE and shows Aristotle developing his ethical vocabulary. His analysis of EE VIII's kalokagathia remains influential.

Harris Rackham

Rackham's Loeb edition (1935) was the first to make the full EE accessible in English. His introduction remains valuable for its lucid outline of the EE's structure and comparison with the NE. He argued that the EE has passages that are "fuller in expression or more discursive" than the NE.

Filip Grgic

In "Good Luck, Nature, and God: Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics 8.2" (Res Philosophica, 2019), Grgic argues that the EE's treatment of good fortune has theological implications. He suggests that irrational good fortune might be understood as a divine gift — a trace of the unmoved mover's influence in human decision-making.

Hilde Vinje

In "Complete Life in the Eudemian Ethics" (Apeiron, 2023), Vinje analyzes the EE's distinctive emphasis on completeness (teleiotes). She argues that the EE's definition of happiness as "activity in accordance with complete virtue over a complete life" is not a redundancy but a substantive requirement: a life must have a narrative arc to be judged happy.

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7. Comparison with the Nicomachean Ethics

| Dimension | Nicomachean Ethics | Eudemian Ethics | |---|---|---| | Structure | 10 books, no common books | 8 books, 3 shared with NE | | Happiness | Activity of soul in accordance with virtue | Activity in accordance with complete virtue | | Virtue-unity | Secured by phronesis (practical wisdom) | Secured by kalokagathia (noble goodness) | | Fortune | Acknowledged but not analyzed | Devoted analysis in Book VIII | | Nemesis | Mentioned but not developed | Full virtue in the catalog | | Pleasure | Extended analysis in Book X | Covered in common books only | | Friendship | Two full books (VIII-IX) | One book (VII) | | Self-love | Detailed analysis | Minimal | | Contemplation | Book X climax | Brief discussion in Book VIII | | Readability | Polished, repetitive, lecture-notes style | Rougher, more compressed |

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8. Influence

The EE's influence has been limited compared to the NE. It was known to the Greek commentators (Aspasius, Alexander of Aphrodisias) and to the Latin Middle Ages (Grosseteste, Albert the Great), but never achieved canonical status. The recovery of the EE in the last fifty years — driven by Kenny, Rowe, Woods, Inwood, and Woolf — has changed the scholarly landscape. Philosophers of luck and fragility (notably Nussbaum) have drawn on it. The EE is now recognized as indispensable for understanding Aristotle's ethics in the round.

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9. Practical Applications

The EE's practical applications cluster around three themes:

1. Acknowledging luck in moral assessment. The EE reminds us that outcomes are not wholly within our control. A just society acknowledges the role of fortune — providing safety nets, forgiving failure, rewarding effort.

2. The completeness of virtue. The EE's insistence on complete virtue challenges the modern tendency to admire isolated excellences. A person can be brave but unjust, generous but cowardly. The EE asks for integration.

3. Nemesis as a civic virtue. The EE's inclusion of righteous indignation suggests that a good citizen does not merely follow rules but feels the right way about the distribution of goods in society. This connects to modern discussions of moral emotion and social justice.

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10. Unresolved Questions

1. Did Aristotle intend the EE and NE as separate works? The common books make this uncertain. If he wrote one set of lectures that was later split, the two Ethics are less independent than they appear.

2. Is kalokagathia genuinely distinct from phronesis? The question divides scholars. If kalokagathia is just another name for complete virtue, the EE adds nothing new. If it is a distinct concept — a social virtue of nobility — it changes how we read the entire work.

3. What is the relationship between fortune and virtue? The EE's Book VIII raises the question but does not settle it. Can fortune genuinely contribute to virtue, or does it only enable virtue's expression?

4. Why did the NE eclipse the EE? Is it because the NE is philosophically superior, or because of accidents of transmission? The question remains open.

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11. Sufficiency

The Eudemian Ethics is not sufficient as a standalone text for understanding Aristotelian ethics. It must be read alongside the NE. The EE is indispensable for:

• Understanding the role of luck in Aristotle's ethics
• Analyzing the concept of kalokagathia
• Comparing the two ethic's treatments of virtue, friendship, and happiness
• Studying the development of Aristotle's moral philosophy

But the EE alone cannot replace the NE. The NE's treatments of pleasure (Book X), self-love (Book IX), the detailed akrasia analysis (Book VII), and the extended friendship discussion (Books VIII-IX) are not matched in the EE.

Definitive ranking: The EE is the second most important Aristotelian ethical text — essential for scholars, illuminating for serious readers, but not the right starting point for beginners.