Abstract

According to Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, character-development is closely connected to perception and our emotional pull towards objects of desire. The problem is, though The Ethics is brimming with a variety of psychological mechanisms, we lack supporting theories to understand how they work together. My aim with this thesis is to establish the theoretical scaffolding necessary with Aristotle's text as a theoretic basis. To test the theories, if have constructed a though-experiment that concerns a person undergoing early development. This thesis inquires in which transitions and methods are present in the Nicomachean Ethics that inform us of our development of desiring capacities and capabilities to seek out objects of desire that are in fact good. In order to explain Aristotle's arguments on the necessity of motivational development, I have presented an overview of what we can call an Aristotelian psychology. I examine which components the soul consists of, in Aristotle's terminology, but especially how we can conceive of them influencing each other and functioning in practice. By separating these transitions into emotional development, intellectual development and social development, I discuss which factors play into our capabilities to desire the good". In my treatment of Aristotle's theory of motivational' development I discovered how emotions and thought influence each other, that the intellect is a sensing organ in its own right and that development of our desiring faculties relies heavily on social recognition.