Aristotle's Ethical Theory: a Synthesis of Platonic and Protagorean Doctrines Fatemeh Seyfollahi

In his teleological ethics, Aristotle investigates moral virtues in order to present practical moral rules. What he describes in Nicomachean Ethics as virtues are characteristics which in his age Athenians considered as virtues. In this paper, we have shown that this aspect of Aristotle's ethics roots in Protagoras. On the other hand, inspired by Plato, Aristotle considers such virtues as products of intellect in discovering and inventing moral rules. Therefore, contrary to Protagoras, for Aristotle, moral rules are not relativistic and conventional. Thus, we can take Aristotelian Ethics as a synthesis of Platonic ethics, which seeks moral rules in the heavens and considers it as an unconventional product, and Protagorean ethics, which considers morality as a product of convention.