Nicomachean Ethics

In this collection, Nicomachean Ethics is cited by 11 other books.

It’s picked up by The Happiness Hypothesis, The Consolations of Philosophy and Justice and 8 others.

Scroll down to read the exact passages where other authors reference this book and what they say about it.

The Nicomachean Ethics is one of those rare ancient texts that modern authors still engage with as a live argument rather than a historical artifact. Michael Sandel draws on it extensively in Justice, Jonathan Haidt builds on Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia in The Happiness Hypothesis, and Ryan Holiday uses its treatment of courage as the mean between cowardice and recklessness in Courage Is Calling. Robert McKee grounds his taxonomy of protagonist desire and ethical choice in Aristotle's account of character revealed through action, and Robert Pirsig devotes substantial space in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to arguing that Aristotle's subject-object framework crippled Western thought.

Simone de Beauvoir extends its ethics-as-practical-wisdom approach in The Ethics of Ambiguity. Readers find it surprisingly readable for a 2,300-year-old text, though most benefit from a good translation and commentary. It remains the starting point for understanding virtue ethics and the question of what constitutes a good life.