Aristotle wrote three ethical treatises: the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics, and the Great Ethics. The first is considered richer, more systematic, and more thorough.

Understanding Aristotle's Ethics requires relating it to his Politics, of which it is somewhat a part. Ethics concerns the good of the individual, while politics concerns the good of the city-state, that is, the social whole that is regarded as greater, more perfect, more beautiful, and more divine.

For Aristotle, ethics and politics constitute a twin framework in which ethics represents the core of politics. The common denominator of ethics and politics is man: man as the bearer of virtues and man as a citizen.

According to Aristotle, ethics and politics are two autonomous domains of practical philosophy with distinct conceptual identities and particular contents, which certainly not only can but must coexist in a harmonious unity that can be called politics in the broader sense of the term.

What legitimizes Aristotle to call practical philosophy as a whole political is the fact that he sees man, the bearer of moral actions, as a citizen, as a member of political society. The unity of ethics and politics derives from their common purpose, which is ultimately always happiness, the prevailing element of both ethics and politics.