Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty

Philosophical Review 108 (4):576 (1999)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This collection of essays contains revised versions of papers delivered at a conference entitled “Duty, Interest, and Practical Reason: Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics” that was organized by Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting at the University of Pittsburgh in 1994. One of the main aims of the conference was to bring together scholars on Aristotle, the Stoics, and Kant to reevaluate the common view that Greek and Kantian ethics represent fundamentally opposed conceptions of ethical theory and the roles of morality and happiness in practical reasoning. According to a common view, the ancients are eudaimonists; they derive or justify the virtues by showing how they contribute to the agent’s own eudaimonia or happiness. By contrast, Kant sharply criticizes eudaimonism for deriving or justifying morality in terms of happiness. This criticism applies to eudaimonism of all sorts, even Stoic eudaimonism, which is perhaps closer in some respects to Kant’s own views, and of which he is somewhat less critical than he is of other forms of eudaimonism. For Kant, moral duty and respect for the moral law must be grounded in reason itself and cannot be made to depend on any independent standard. These and related assumptions about ancient and Kantian ethics have helped structure much contemporary systematic work in ethical theory, as well as common conceptions of these ethical traditions. But this common view has been under reexamination lately; some of the most interesting work in the history of ethics in recent years has been in Greek and Kantian ethics, and much of it challenges one or another aspect of the received view of the ethical theory and moral psychology of Kant or the Greeks. However, with some exceptions, renewed interest and recent work in these two traditions has proceeded in parallel. The conference aimed to correct this, by bringing together some of the most distinguished scholars of ancient and modern ethics to compare and assess the role of moral duty and happiness in the two traditions. Most of the essays have such a comparative assessment as their main theme; but even those that focus more exclusively on one of the traditions contribute indirectly to this comparative assessment.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Making room for character.Barbara Herman - 1996 - In Stephen Engstrom & Jennifer Whiting (eds.), Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty. Cambridge University Press. pp. 36--60.
Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics.David O. Brink - 1999 - Philosophical Review 108 (4):576-582.
The concept of the highest good in Kant's moral theory.Stephen Engstrom - 1992 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (4):747-780.
Kant’s Moral Theory and Demandingness.Alice Pinheiro Walla - 2015 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (4):731-743.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-09-07

Downloads
47 (#298,872)

6 months
13 (#118,494)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

David Brink
University of California, San Diego
Stephen Engstrom
University of Pittsburgh
Jennifer Whiting
University of Pittsburgh

Citations of this work

The Inner Voice: Kant on Conditionality and God as a Cause.Rachel Barney - 2015 - In Joachim Aufderheide & Ralf M. Bader (eds.), The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 158-182.
Advising as inviting to trust.Edward S. Hinchman - 2005 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (3):355-386.
Two Dogmas of (Modern) Aristotle Scholarship.Tom Angier - 2019 - Ancient Philosophy Today 1 (2):237-255.
Kantian virtue.Anne Margaret Baxley - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (3):396–410.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references