Abstract

There is a tendency in current studies to consider the Aristotelian ethics somehow determinist. This article aims to analyze a specific passage from book IX of Ethica Nicomachea where Aristotle asks whether we should remain friends of a man who has become bad. This passage has had different interpretations by commentators, such as Bodéüs and Irwin, who discuss it from different points of view. Irwin sees the passage as dealing with a change in the agent’s character, whereas Bodéüs categorically denies this kind of reading. The main intent of this article is to show possible interpretation nuances, as well as to initially propose an indication of a solution, though not final, in view of the complexity that arises from the various passages of the corpus aristotelicum on this theme.