Aristotle And Homer And Nicomachean Ethics And The Iliad

Aristotle and Homer wrote some of the world 's most influential and famous pieces of literature, and both have had their works translated into many languages. Together, they created important parts of Greek history that are still used centuries later to teach the basis of humanity to people who choose to pick them up. Nicomachean Ethics and The Iliad, written by Aristotle and Homer respectively, both describe understandings of human courage. This paper argues that Homer and Aristotle had quite different views of courage, as Homer 's definition focused more on hyper-masculinity instead of virtue and nobility. Aristotle viewed courage as less of a heroic act and more of a trait of human nature. Homer 's character Patroclus in The Iliad showed …show more content…
Homer focuses not on the idea of nobility and virtue, but instead on courage while in battle. Homer portrays the idea of courage more as standing up for everything you believe in and putting other peoples ' lives before your own. Achilles, the most courageous character in The Iliad, shows his courage on the battlefield by slaying as many of the enemies as he can. He is viewed as courageous not because he is virtuous, but because he is a skilled soldier and the most heroic of the Greeks. In the Trojan war, Achilles was considered a hero because he killed a lot of people, and he was not considered virtuous because of this. However, Homer and Aristotle had a few similarities in their views. Both writers believed that human beings are not courageous for themselves, but rather for other people. Aristotle said that everything one does should be for the noble, while Homer says that one is courageous when they stand up in the face of danger to protect other …show more content…
These two understandings of courage are linked, and Patroclus of Homer 's The Iliad proves this in Book 16 of the famous poem proves this. However, the two men had very different understandings of the virtue of courage, and they differ more than they are similar. Homer would not have believed that a man afraid of poisonous spiders is courageous, even if he is more so than someone who fears all insects because he didn 't see courage as circumstantial based on the person it revolves. On the other hand, Aristotle saw the virtues as dependent on the person to whom they belong, so a more virtuous person could have less courage than someone that Homer would refer to as a hero. Patroclus is more courageous by Aristotle 's definition of the word than by Homer