School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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Aristotle on the mean streets

Cassin, Raymond John ( 2003)

This thesis uses a work of crime fiction by Raymond Chandler, The Long Good-Bye, to examine some problems in the moral philosophy of Aristotle. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle devotes considerable attention to a discussion of the role of friendship in human happiness. The renewal of interest in virtue ethics has revived friendship as a topic of philosophical contention among analytical philosophers, but Aristotle's theory remains much disputed, even among philosophers well disposed to the project of virtue ethics. In this thesis I use a novel set in a modern Western city to argue that a fundamental aspect of ethical life, the experience of close friendship, is best understood through reference to Aristotle's arguments. The aim is partly to disarm a recurrent criticism of the Aristotelian tradition, and of the application of that tradition to virtue ethics in particular; namely that the tradition is enmeshed in cultural assumptions no longer tenable in the modern world. The examination of a work of fiction that is undeniably modern in its setting and modernist in its tone, yet contains clear resonances of Aristotle's moral world in its characterisation, is one way of refuting this claim. The progressive unfolding of the refutation addresses a second aim: to demonstrate the relevance of literary texts to philosophical reflection, especially in ethics and moral psychology.