The first translations

During the Middle Ages the Nicomachean Ethics received less attention than Aristotle's writings on natural philosophy and metaphysics, and still less than his logical writings. Although the Ethics was never condemned in any form, it was apparently not until the second half of the fourteenth century that it was adopted as a regular textbook in the Arts faculties; and it was only in the fifteenth century, as the number of commentaries shows, that it began to be studied really intensively.

We are not so well informed about this period as we are about the beginnings of philosophical ethics in the Middle Ages. According to the latest historical research, the first translation of the Nicomachean Ethics appeared in the twelfth century; but it covered only the second and third books (ethica vetus.) A second translation, of which only the first book (ethica nova) and a few fragments remain, came at the start of the thirteenth century.

The new conception of philosophical ethics

The texts thus made available to Latin readers make two claims for philosophy: (a) happiness and human perfection are a legitimate object of philosophical concern; (b) virtue, or good human character, can be rationally discussed without recourse to theology.

These philosophical claims were not easy to accept. The problem does not lie in the conception of a natural virtue. Such an idea was already present in twelfth-century theology, and so the reception of the Aristotelian concept of virtue was not a revolutionary step.