Aristotle's Moral Epistemology: The Possibility of Ethical Demonstration

Abstract

In one common book and in two texts of the eudemian ethics", aristotle compares the ends of ethics with the hypotheses of scientific demonstration. t irwin has argued that this comparison is inaccurate and ought to have been abandoned by aristotle. the author argues against irwin's position by contending that ethical ends are comparable to scientific hypotheses. because they are comparable, he further argues that ethical ends, grasped as ends that entail certain necessary pre-conditions for the achievement of these ends, enable aristotle to formulate ethical demonstrations that are most comparable to that kind of demonstration used in the natural sciences.