Among the works on ethics in the Aristotelian corpus, there is no serious dispute among scholars that the
Eudemian Ethics
is authentic. The
is
increasingly read and used by scholars as a useful support and confirmation and sometimes contrast to the
Nicomachean Ethics
. Yet, it remains a largely neglected work in the study of Aristotle's ethics, both among scholars and moral philosophers.
Peter L. P. Simpson provides an analytical outline of the entire work together with summaries of each individual section, making the overall structure and detailed argument clear. His translation and explanatory notes include the common books that the
Eudemian
Ethics
shares with the
Nicomachean
. This translation contains renderings of words and phrases, and proposals for emending the text that differ from what other translators and scholars have adopted.
This translation is literal, without expansion or paraphrase, and yet also readable. A readable but literal translation is necessary because in the
, more than usual in Aristotle's writings, the logic of the argumentation can turn on the peculiar wording or order. Simpson explains the argumentation where necessary in notes and separate explanatory comments. This book is a fresh, twenty-first-century rendition of the work of one of the most eminent philosophers of all time.