25 Discussion Questions for Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (With Analysis) | Chapterly Blog
Quick Answer: The best Nicomachean Ethics discussion questions center on Aristotle's claim that the goal of life is eudaimonia (flourishing), achieved by cultivating virtues as habits that sit at the "mean" between extremes. The 25 questions below are organized by theme (happiness and eudaimonia, virtue and the mean, moral responsibility and choice, and friendship) and suit philosophy courses, book clubs, and readers working through one of the foundational texts of Western ethics. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the most influential work on ethics in the Western philosophical tradition, and these Nicomachean Ethics discussion questions are designed to help you engage critically with its arguments about happiness, virtue, and the good life. Whether you are in a philosophy course, a Great Books program, a theology seminar, or a book club, these questions will push you beyond summary and into genuine philosophical thinking about questions that remain as urgent today as they were 2,300 years ago. Written in the 4th century BCE (and likely edited by Aristotle's son Nicomachus, for whom the work is named), the Ethics argues that the highest human good is eudaimonia — often translated as "happiness" but better understood as "flourishing" or "living well." Aristotle's approach is practical: he...