Abstract

In this wide-ranging, richly detailed, and philosophically provocative volume, Annas presents not a history of ancient ethics but a study of "the form and structure of ancient ethical theory". Ignoring Plato and his predecessors almost entirely, and thinking Aristotle overrated, Annas concentrates on post-Aristotelian moral philosophy. She is thoroughly at home in the new work on Hellenistic philosophy that scholars, herself included, have been publishing in the last couple of decades. Here she provides the fullest overview to date of Hellenistic moral thought, beginning with Aristotle and covering the later Peripatetics, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Cyrenaics, and the Skeptics both Academic and Pyrrhonist.