University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Philosophy 672: History of Ethics
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

Test—Aristotle

Please answer 100 points’ worth of the following questions during this class period. Don’t answer every question; if you do, I’ll ignore your answer to the last 10-point one. In answering these questions don’t use books, notes, or other people.

1. (20 points:) What is Aristotle’s function argument? Specifically, what is the conclusion it is meant to prove, and what is the reasoning leading to that conclusion?
2. (10 points:) How does the cultivation of a virtue of character in a person depend on action and habit?
3. (10 points:) What did Aristotle mean when he said that anyone with a certain virtue wants to act as that virtue requires?
4. (20 points:) Some people think that a moral theory is supposed to indicate what an agent’s duties are, given a non-moral specification of all of the facts of the situation that the agent is in. How might a person who thinks this think that Aristotle’s ethics is circular, and thus a failure; and what would Aristotle’s response to this objection be?
5. (20 points:) What are the three kinds of specific (as opposed to general) justice that Aristotle discusses? For each of them (one by one), what is Aristotle’s main idea or central principle?
6. (20 points:) What are the main points that Aristotle makes in regard to prudence? How is it different from, and yet related to, wisdom?
7. (10 points:) What is the difference between incontinence and intemperance? Which one is worse, and why?