The Possibility of a Christian Appropriation of Aristotle’s Ethical Philosophy

istorically, the Christian tradition has heavily relied on Aristotle’s ethical philosophy to provide a conceptual basis for the articulation of its own ethical doctrines, but Aristotle’s concepts are coming up less and less frequently in contemporary ethical debates. The Roman Catholic Church, however, continues to be characterized by their reliance on Aristotelian formulations of theological doctrine. This, however, is not true of the Protestant church, which produced many of the Modern and nineteenth century attempts to find rational grounds for ethical philosophy without reference to Aristotle. According to Alasdair MacIntyre, these attempts have failed, and as a result there is no longer a “rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture.”1 It would seem, then, that the Protestant church would do well to reexamine Aristotle’s ethical philosophy if they are to preserve the integrity of their ethical claims in the contemporary context. Not all interpretations of Aristotle’s ethical philosophy portray him as particularly helpful for articulating the ethics of the Christian tradition, though. A particularly problematic interpretation comes from Martha Nussbaum’s work The Fragility of Goodness. She argues that Aristotle is a completely anthropocentric ethical philosopher, and he is thus able to Aporia Vol. 14 number 1—2004