ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the various attempts to institutionalize ethics by distinguishing between the classical and modern understandings of how to secure good government. The classical understanding of the problem of rule, the importance of virtue and the need for education for good government is most clearly developed by Aristotle. In his famous and influential work on ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle differentiates between virtue of thought and virtue of character or ethos, which results from habituation and is developed by appropriate action. The chapter discusses the theoretical reflections on ethics and governance. Consequently, Aristotle makes the study of the legislative art, politics, subservient to the study of ethics: politics is to be guided, shaped and informed by ethics. An important aspect of Aristotle's understanding of moral education is the necessity of virtue for happiness and therefore the primacy of ethics as a practical science.
