4. Aristotle’s Ethics could be seen as a criticism of Plato’s Republic. Explain.

In Aristotle 's approach , quite in contradistinction to Plato 's , there is no particular need for involving oneself in the study of subjects such as mathematics and the sciences in to be perfectly virtuous Aristotle makes practicing virtue a much easier endeavor by drastically divorcing it from the necessity of engaging oneself in the specialized study of the natural world , and any kind of metaphysics . In fact Aristotle was the first person to make ethics an independent field in itself , though not a theoretical study , that does not rely on knowledge of

philosophy or expertise in other fields of human enquiry

Aside from that central difference , Aristotle 's main preoccupation in Ethics is very similar to that of Plato in the Republic both being investigations into ascertaining objective and sure grounds for evaluating moral life . In fact , Aristotle 's Ethics shares a fundamental motive with that Plato , which is that of refuting skepticism of the sophists , including the view of Thrasymachus , that all morality is relative and that moral systems are perpetuated by the stronger people in to suit their own interests . Plato essentially based his approach to counter the sophists on his mystical theory of forms which implied that there existed absolute moral truths which were accessible to a few people . Aristotle neither gives in to the relativism of the Sophists nor to the absolutism of his master Plato

Aristotle only shows in a general way how our good lies in the dominance of reason , and takes recourse to certain theoretical concepts such as the vegetative soul of plants , the perceptive soul of the animals , and the rational soul of man , to support his argument but these theoretical underpinnings are to a large extent based on common sense and do not require acceding to supernatural or mystical notions . In...