Nicomachean Ethics

It was Aristotle who first used the term "ethics" to name a field of study which had been developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato. Philosophical ethics is the attempt to offer a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded politics and ethics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state.