Love and justice at work. A Reflection from Aristotle

Abstract

When ethics is applied to work, it is often reduced to justice as an impersonal system of mutable rules, devoid of objectivity, functional only in the setting of work contracts or the market, valid as long as nothing better is discovered. Rather, justice is a human virtue that an occupation demands as a primary goal, beyond suitable rules, to then open up to a higher dimension of love, generosity and beauty. The present essay draws on a paragraph of the Nicomachean Ethics wherein Aristotle uses an inspiring analogy between love and work. In the introduction, the author also proposes an alternative outlook for the consideration of human activities and ethics in regard to the original Aristotelian perspective.