Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-25T05:08:51.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The meta-ethics of law: Book One of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2010

Eric Heinze
Eric Heinze*
Affiliation:
Department of Law, Queen Mary University of LondonE-mail: e.heinze@qmul.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Traditional scholarship has approached Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics mostly as a system of positive ethics. Less attention has been paid to the work’s meta-ethics – the claims Aristotle makes about what any system of positive ethics must say or do in order to count as an ethical theory. In this article, Book One of the Nicomachean Ethics is read not simply as an introduction to Aristotle’s system of positive ethics, but as a statement of distinct meta-ethical principles, which can be evaluated independently of any view that might be taken of his positive ethics. Insofar as Aristotle inscribes his legal theory within his ethical theory, those principles stand as a meta-ethics of law. Under Aristotle’s legal meta-ethics, law necessarily presupposes: (1) a concept of the ‘good’; (2) purpose; (3) dialectics; (4) objectivist ethics; (5) a best constitution; (6) a positive ethics; and (7) a concept of the ‘human’.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 23 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackrill, J. L. (1980) ‘Aristotle on Eudaimonia’, in Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (ed.) Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 15–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, (1908) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Ross., W. D.Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (1941) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Ross, W. D., in McKeon, Richard (ed.) The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York, NY: Random House, 927–1112.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (1984) The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translations, vols. 1 and 2, ed. Barnes, Jonathan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (1998) Politics, trans. Reeve, C. D. C.. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (1999) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Irwin, Terence H, 2nd edn. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (2002) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Rowe, Christopher, ed. Rowe, Christopher and Broadie, Sarah. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (2004) Éthique à Nicomaque, trans. Bodéüs., RichardParis: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (ica online) Nicomachean Ethics, trans.Ross, W. D., in Stevenson, Daniel C. (ed.) The Internet Classics Archive, at http://classics.mit.edu/ Aristotle/nicomachaen.html (last visited 22/12/2009).Google Scholar
Austin, John (1998) The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, ed. Hart., H. L. A.Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Bloom, Allan (1991) The Republic of Plato, 2nd edn. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bostock, David (2000) Aristotle’s Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1967) L’écriture et la difference. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Frank, Jerome (2009) Law and the Modern Mind, ed. Bix, BrianPiscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Fuller, Lon (1969) The Morality of Law, revised edn. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Galston, Miriam (1994) ‘Taking Aristotle Seriously: Republican-Oriented Legal Theory and the Moral Foundation of Deliberative Democracy’, California Law Review 82: 329–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1987) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, vols 1 and 2, 4th edn. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A (1994) The Concept of Law, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin (1979) Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Heinze, Eric (1995) Sexual Orientation: A Human Right. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinze, Eric (1999) ‘The Construction and Contingency of the Minority Concept,’ in Bowring, Bill and Fottrell, Deirdre (eds) Minority and Group Rights Towards the New Millennium. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 25–74.Google Scholar
Heinze, Eric (2007a) ‘Epinomia: Plato and the First Theory of Law’, Ratio Juris 20: 97–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinze, Eric (2007b) ‘The Status of Classical Natural Law: Plato and the Parochialism of Modern Theory’, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 20: 323–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyman, Steven J. (1991–1992) ‘Aristotle on Political Justice’, in ‘Symposium: Corrective Justice and Formalism – The Care One Owes One’s Neighbors’, Iowa Law Review 77: 851–79.Google Scholar
Hintikka, Jan (1973) ‘Remarks on Praxis, Poesis, and Ergon in Plato and in Aristotle,’ Studia philosophica in honorem Sven Krohn – Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, ser. B, 126, 53–62.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Linda R. (1992) ‘The Book of “A”’, Texas Law Review 70: 971–98.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas (1998) Leviathan, ed. Gaskin., J. C. AOxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Höffe, Otfried (1999) Aristoteles, 2nd edn. Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag.Google Scholar
Homiak, Marcia (1993) ‘Feminism and Aristotle’s Rational Ideal’, in Lloyd, Geneviève (ed.) Feminism and History of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 80–102.Google Scholar
Houser, Susan (1993) ‘Meta-ethics and the Overlapping Consensus’, Ohio State Law Journal 54: 1139–68.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1968a) Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, in Werkausgabe, vol. 7, ed. Weischedel., WilhelmFrankfurt: Suhrkamp, 5–102.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1968b) Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, in Werkausgabe, vol. 7, ed. Weischedel., WilhelmFrankfurt: Suhrkamp, 104–305.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1968c) Metaphysik der Sitten, in Werkausgabe, vol. 8, ed. Weischedel., WilhelmFrankfurt: Suhrkamp, 303–634.Google Scholar
Kelsen, Hans (1960) Reine Rechtslehre, 2nd edn. Vienna,: Franz Deuticke Verlag.Google Scholar
Kraut, Richard (2002) Aristotle: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraut, Richard (ed.) (2006) The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Gavin (2006) ‘Human Good and Human Function’, in Kraut, Richard (ed.) The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 37–75.Google Scholar
Martin, Thomas R. (1996) Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich (1990) Manifest der kommunistischen Partei, in Werke, vol. 4, 11th edn. Berlin: Dietz Verlag.Google Scholar
Miller, Fred D. Jr. (1995) Nature, Justice and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas, 1980, ‘Aristotle on Eudaimonia’, in Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (ed.) Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 7–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. (1991–1992) ‘Aristotle, Feminism, and Needs for Functioning’, Texas Law Review 70: 1019–49.Google Scholar
Pakaluk, Michael (2005) Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato, (1997) Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M., CooperIndianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Politis, Vasilis (2004) Aristotle and the Metaphysics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Roberts, J. W (1998) City of Sokrates, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ross, David (1995) Aristotle. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964) Du Contrat Social, in Écrits Politiques. Paris: Gallimard (Pléiade).Google Scholar
Sayre-mccord, Geoff (2007) ‘Meta-ethics’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meta-ethics/ (last visited 22/12/2009).Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles (1992) ‘Atomism’, in Avineri, Shlomo and de-Shalit, Avner (eds) Communitarianism and Individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Charles M. (2006) ‘Aristotle’s Justice,’ in Kraut, Richard (ed.) The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 179–97.Google Scholar