Aristotle.

Abstract

In his Lives of the Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius depicts a very well known outline of Aristotle’s life and work, characterizing him as a morally good person. Diogenes transcribes Aristotle’s testament where he expressed his last will in a detailed way, taking care of his relatives, and freeing his slaves. This worry about all of them reflects the non ethereal character of his ethics which is firmly rooted and embedded in matter and time. Diogenes writes that Aristotle has taught that “virtue was not sufficient of itself to confer happiness; for that it had also need of the goods of the body, and of the external goods.” Hence, we should look after not only virtue but also these goods. According to Aristotle as quoted by Diogenes, “things which are ethical (…) concern politics, and economy, and laws.” In effect, Aristotle conceived economics as one of the practical sciences (epistèmè praktikè), which were the ethical sciences. For him, the highest practical science was politics, to which economics, as the other practical sciences, was subordinated.