The editors of Philosophy, the flagship journal of The Royal Institute of Philosophy, are delighted to announce the winner of the 2025 Essay Prize.
The 2025 winner is Edward Lamb (University of Oxford) with his essay ‘Aristotle and the Ageing Body’.
The topic of the prize was ‘Bodies’ and the prize is £2,000. The paper will be published in Philosophy. Congratulations Edward!
Abstract: Aristotle believes that our appraisal of whether someone has lived happily must consider their life as a whole. For many, this includes old age. Yet he consistently suggests that old age presents many obstacles to virtue, especially in a pessimistic portrait from Rhetoric II.13. His biological commitments seem to underlie this view, for ageing is a non-voluntary process of degradation: the blood becomes cool and dry, diminishing or even eliminating our spirit and desires. Unless we accept a conflict between Aristotelian biology and ethics, this would seem to seriously hinder the performance of virtuous activity, and therefore happiness, for those who experience severe physical and cognitive incapacity with age, even if they had a stably virtuous character before. Given Aristotle suggests that ageing can involve obstacles to happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics itself, I argue that we must use resources within this work to show how eudaimonia could be retained by those undergoing bodily degradation, drawing on his concepts of prudence, study, and friendship.
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