Author(s)

RuoNan Liu

Affiliation(s)

Keystone Academy, Beijing 101138, China.

Corresponding Author

RuoNan Liu

ABSTRACT

In contemporary scholarship on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the recurring conjunction of “children and animals” has frequently been treated as a minor rhetorical gesture rather than a philosophically structured argument. This essay contends, however, that Aristotle’s coupling of the two figures is both deliberate and conceptually significant. While prior analyses have primarily denoted behavioral similarities between these subjects, this study examines the underlying logic behind such an alignment. It proposes that Aristotle’s pairing not only equates non-rational beings, but also constructs a graduated ontology of capacity. In short, children occupy a liminal category: like animals, they act from appetite and habituation; unlike animals, they possess the innate faculty of logos awaiting cultivation. Hence, the comparison forebodies Aristotelian education, wherein moral pedagogy is tasked with actualizing the latent rationality of the young. Ultimately, the essay demonstrates how this nuanced textual device reinforces Aristotle’s vision of virtue as a rational achievement, and it suggests that overlooking such stylistic precision may obscure further coherence of his ethical thought. 

KEYWORDS

Ethics; Education; Reason; Virtue; Rationality; Happiness

CITE THIS PAPER

RuoNan Liu. Simplified interpretations on Aristotle's 'children and animals'. Journal of Language, Culture and Education Studies. 2026, 3(1): 9-12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/jlces3022.

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