Aristotle on Virtue and Justice

Summary

All are invited to join Zephyr for this series of three dinner seminars, led by Zephyr's Director of Academic Programs, Landon Hobbs, on Aristotle's theory of justice.

What is justice? This pressing question of both ethics and politics was already a pressing question in Aristotle's day. Then, as now, many factions appealed to apparently incompatible considerations of justice to support their particular personal, social, and political agendas. In addition to an account of justice in order to fill in his account of the virtues—and so of the good life, the life in accordance with the virtues—Aristotle addresses this contemporary situation by arguing for a way of thinking about justice that he thinks can help clarify these points of disagreement, even where they do not cleanly resolve them. In this seminar, we will be investigating and critically evaluating Aristotle's account.

This seminar will proceed in three parts: in our first two meetings, we will consider Aristotle's theory of justice as articulated in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics; in our last session, we will look at some passages from the Politics where Aristotle deploys this account of justice to help clarify what is at stake in contemporary political disputes.

Schedule

16 January, 6:00–7:30pm

Nicomachean Ethics V.1–5

23 January, 6:00–7:30pm

Nicomachean Ethics V.6–11

30 January, 6:00–7:30pm

Politics III.6–12

Eligibility

This series is open to the general public.