Arianna Fermani

Ethics, Economic Organizations, and Human Flourishing: Lessons from Plato and Aristotle

This paper seeks to show the importance of the thought of Plato and Aristotle for today’s economics and business, especially in the light of the global financial and economic crisis. Our aim is twofold. On a general level, we illustrate the intrinsic connection between ethics and economic processes and organizations. On a more detailed level, we describe several specific values and principles highlighted by both Greek philosophers that can play a fundamental role in today’s organizations and business leadership. To this end, the first two sections examine Plato and Aristotle’s reflection on economics and riches and analyse how they relate to human flourishing (Sect. 18.2) and social justice (Sect. 18.3). Sect. 18.4 and Sect. 18.5 focus on several specific values and principles examined by Plato and Aristotle that can be key in enabling economics to foster the good of the individual and society. More specifically, Sect. 18.4 describes the notions of virtue, self-moderation and excellence, whereas Sect. 18.5 focuses on self-knowledge and wisdom, which are strictly interrelated. The concluding section shows how the values and principles described in the previous sections can play a fundamental role in today’s economic organizations and business leadership.

Between Friendship and Self-sufficiency. The Possibility of “Human Flourishing” in the Relationship Between Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics: A Multifocal Approach

This paper aims to discuss the link between friendship and self-sufficiency in Aristotle’s ethical and political works. Friendship and self-sufficiency are needed in order to achieve happiness, which consists in the full actualization of the good possibilities inscribed in human nature. It is the irreducible complexity of human nature that gives origin to opposite (but not contradictory) statements in Aristotle’s texts, according to which in one sense, human beings, different from gods, cannot be happy alone; but in another sense, from the point of view of his intellect (nous), the divine part in human nature man can be happy alone. The different points of view adopted by Aristotle allow for the application of different – even opposite – theoretical frames, or for what I would like to call a ‘multifocal approach’: from different point of views, Aristotle can thus be said to maintain that for a human being to be happy, he or she needs both friendship and self-sufficiency.

Essere «divorati dal pentimento». Sguardi sulla nozione di metameleia in Aristotele

To be « devoured by remorse». Gazes on the notion of ‘ metameleia ’ in Aristotle This paper aims at crossing that complex crossroads of emotions, desires and memories represented by the thorny question of remorse, on which Aristotle engages in some passages of his reflections. These passages prove to be of great interest for the series of implications and repercussions, in the ethical, anthropological and also juridical field. After a complete, lexicographic research on the terms of the semantic field of the notion in question ( metameleia , metamelo , metameletikos , and also, e contrario , ametameletos ) inside the corpus aristotelicum , I intend to read the topic of remorse by means of that paradigm (already verified in other fields), that can be said multifocal approach . This is the paradigm, typically Aristotelian (and, more in general, characteristic of the ancient thought), consisting in the constant multiplication of the explicative models of reality and in the refusal of the alternative logic aut-aut . In this conceptual horizon, this paper aims at reconstructing the multiple connections and the very different conceptual frames of the notion of remorse with other crucial notions: passion ( pathos ) – and, more particularly, with the passion of pain ( lype ) –, modesty ( aidos ), shame ( aischyne ), ignorance, choice, vice and lack of self-control ( akrasia ). Furthemore it is necessary to reflect on the opposite evaluations expressed by Aristotle on the remorse: in a certain sense, it represents a sign of the regret of the agent, while, in another sense, it has to be connected to error and to the awareness to have done a wrong action.