Aristotle and the Virtues is an interpretation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as an unabashed ethic of virtue. Curzer gives pride of place to the Aristotelian virtues of character, highlights the relationship between justice and friendship, and provides an account of moral development, giving a taxonomy of different types of people. He also argues for a novel view of contemplation as reflecting and concentrating on matters of everyday life. His style is engaging and often colloquial. Where Aristotle himself is cryptic or seems to be on the wrong track, Curzer makes his own suggestions, and he treats Aristotle as a participant in contemporary discussion.
It would be correct but misleading to say that Curzer devotes one chapter to each of the virtues of character, since each chapter may weave together discussion of several virtues and allow different doctrines to emerge, comprising what Curzer calls “Aristotle's architectonic.” The most important doctrines, according...
