Gli eph’hemin e l’unidirezionalità degli abiti – una conciliazione possibile tra le Etiche di AristoteleThe eph’hemin and the Unidirectionality of Habits – One Possible Reconciliation between the Ethics of Aristotle

Abstract

In the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle states that human beings are starting points of things that could be otherwise and that the eph’hemin are this kind of things. Famously, in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle endorses the thesis of habits’ unidirectionality, according to which the agent who already possesses moral habits, hexeis, will perform only actions consistent with the habits she possesses. Despite this apparent inconsistency, I aim to show that the two texts can be harmonized and that the Eudemian Ethics can actually provide a theoretical background for habits’ unidirectionality.