The Function Argument in the Eudemian Ethics

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the function argument of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 2.1. The argument (1) seeks to define happiness through the method of division; (2) shows that the highest good is better than all four of the goods of the soul, not only two, as commentators have thought; and (3) unlike the Nicomachean argument, makes the highest good definitionally independent of the human function.