Notoriously, the Nicomachean Ethics lavishes attention on the practical virtues, explaining that they are dispositions to choose the ideal mean between extremes, dispositions that we acquire through training and repetition. Yet in the final book Aristotle adds that pure contemplation is to be preferred to virtuous practical activity. Is he telling us to spend our time doing philosophy in addition to being practically virtuous? Or telling us to forget practical virtue if circumstances allow, and spend all our time contemplating? As we’ve just seen in our examination of his metaphysics, Albert
...more