ABSTRACT
Aristotle's ethical writings are partly in the Eudemian Ethics, an early work of doubtful authorship that is considered generally inferior to the work of Aristotle while he was head of the Lyceum, and in the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle's ethics begins with happiness, which is the aim of all human activity. Every activity aims at some good, and Aristotle said that everyone agrees that happiness is the good in personal pursuits and in political science. Aristotle spoke of moral virtue as one aspect of fulfilling the human function, but he considered intellectual virtue the most important. Pleasure is a product of the perfection of the human function. Aristotle's moral philosophy is based on virtue, in contrast to ethics based on duty. The 'golden mean' is not the way to determine what is right and wrong; it is an interpretation of what virtue is. Justice is both an important ethical concern and a political matter.
