Abstract

My doctoral dissertation is concerned with understanding and answering the question "Can Aristotle's ethics be rightly considered as an Aristotelian science?" I argue that an affirmative response to this question provides a basis from which one can deal with forceful objections to moral realism. ;There are a number of remarks having to do with the imprecision and inexactness of what is said in the Nicomachean Ethics that have been taken to maintain that ethics is not a science in Aristotle's sense of the term. Most of these comments can be understood as characterizing the nature of the inquiry Aristotle is conducting and not necessarily the subject-matter of the inquiry. Those that remain support the idea that what one can come up with in ethics holds only for the most part . However, Aristotle often uses the phrase 'hos epi to polu' in a technical sense that seems to involve unconditional necessity in some important respect. The fact that anagke haplos is a core component of Aristotelian science points to a striking connection between Aristotelian ethics and Aristotelian science. ;I argue that no recent attempt to construct an account of the relation between relevant aspects of Aristotelian ethics and science is successful. I propose an interpretation of technical hos epi to polu relations that is consistent with Aristotle's use of this phrase in his ethics. The interpretation I present makes hos epi to polu propositions legitimate candidates for inclusion in Aristotelian scientific demonstrations. In addition, I argue that there are fundamental concepts in ethics with respect to which some unconditionally necessary propositions can be formulated. ;What emerges is a construal of Aristotelian ethics according to which one can understand the universal principles involved in the major premises of practical syllogisms as being demonstrable from more fundamental principles that express necessary features of eudaimonia, arete, and other fundamental ethical concepts. ;Having provided a model of Aristotelian ethics as an Aristotelian science, I proceed to address different objections that might be raised