Abstract

With a historicist sensibility and attention to the ancient language, this paper attempts to sort out the question of how the ultimate end, and therefore how the starting point, of Aristotelian practical reasoning is determined. Some have argued that AristotIe’s practical reasoning must begin with desire in order to be motivational, beginning with his psychological works and interpreting his ethical works from that standpoint. I counter with the claim that an appropriate and sufficiently motivational form of reason grasps the end, beginning with the ethical works and interpreting the psychological works from that aIternative standpoint. Along the way, I sort out questions of interpretive strategy and the relationship between AristotIe’s psychological and ethical works.