'Magna Moralia'

I have started to read the ‘Magna Moralia’, which may or may not have been written by Aritotle, but which gets included in his 'complete works', such as the revised Oxford translation (1984), which adds a note to the reader stating that: “the traditional ‘corpus aristotelicum’ contains several works which were certainly or probably not written by Aristotle. A single asterisk against the title of a work indicates that its authenticity has been seriously doubted; a pair of asterisks indicates that its spuriousness has never been seriously contested.” (The ‘Magna Moralia’ gets one asterisk.)

That aside, what, if anything, does the text have to tell us in the 21st century? I am curious.

I am using the Loeb translation of the ‘Magna Moralia’, which is possibly more quaint than the revised Oxford translation (but seems fine and has the benefit of including the Greek text beside the English translation). It begins with references to character (‘without character, a man can achieve nothing in association with his fellows’) and moral worth (‘moral worth means possession of the virtues’), and then looks at the nature and origin of Virtue (here the Loeb translation uses a capital ‘v’).

Next there is a run-down of what Pythagoras had said of virtue, then Socrates, and then Plato, with errors and confusions noted. Aristotle (or whoever it is who wrote this text) then sets out to concentrate on: “not of what is absolutely good, but good for us men. We are not to deal with the good the gods enjoy; other science treats of this, and the consideration of it is of a different nature. The good of man in society is, then, the subject of our discourse.”

The good of man in society. Hmmm. Stay tuned.