Luck and Good Fortune in the Eudemian Ethics | Zendy

Kent M. Johnson | Zendy

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Luck and Good Fortune in the Eudemian Ethics

Author(s) -

Kent M. Johnson

Publication year - 1997

Publication title -

ancient philosophy

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.188

H-Index - 17

eISSN - 2154-4689

pISSN - 0740-2007

DOI - 10.5840/ancientphil19971715

Subject(s) - luck , philosophy , epistemology

Recently there has been some discussion of Aristotle's treatment of good for- tune (£\m>x;{a) in the penultimate chapter of the Eudemian Ethics. I There are two claims about this chapter I wish to challenge. One maintains that the use of the word tUXll (usually translated as 'luck' or 'chance') in the EE is 'quite different' from Aristotle's theoretical discussion of luck, found in the Physics (Woods 1992, 67). The other claim is that good fortune is a subspecies of luck (Kenny 1992, ch. 5, esp. 71 and 75). In challenging these two views, I hope to develop an account of Aristotle's true intent in this chapter. In the first part of this article I consider the notion of luck as it is presented in the Physics and then argue that the discussion of luck in the EE accords with this. In the second part I argue that by the end of his discussion of good fortune in the EE, Aristotle does not consider good fortune to be any kind of luck at all. I. TuX1l in the Physics and the Eudemian Ethics

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