How Many Actions Does One Need to Generate Moral Virtue?: From the First Lecturae on the Nicomachean Ethics to John Buridan’s Quaestiones

Abstract

In this paper, I examine several commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics that have asked the question "Whether a single action is sufficient for moral virtue or whether several actions are necessarily required". I assemble the arguments and solutions proposed in several commentaries authored by masters of arts and theologians between the 1240s and 1340-1345 to identify the main trends in approaching this issue and to establish whether they evolved or changed over that period.