The notion of the highest good used to occupy a primary role in ethical theorising, but has largely disappeared from the contemporary landscape. The notion was central to both Aristotle's and Kant's ethical theories, however--a surprising observation given that their approaches to ethics are commonly conceived as being diametrically opposed. The essays in this collection provide a comprehensive treatment of the highest good in Aristotle and Kant and show that, even though there are important differences in terms of content, there (...) are also important similarities in terms of the structural features of Aristotle's and Kant's value theories. By carefully analysing Aristotle's and Kant's theories of the highest good, a team of experts in the field shed light on their respective ethical theories and highlight the richness, complexity, and fruitfulness of the notion of the highest good. (shrink)

Two crucial questions, if unanswered, impede our understanding of Aristotle’s account of pleasure inenx.4-5: What are the activities that pleasure is said to complete? In virtue of what does pleasurealwaysaccompany these activities? The answers fall in place if we read Aristotle as responding to the Delian challenge that the finest, best and most pleasant are not united in one and the same thing. I propose an ‘ethical’ reading ofenx.4 according to which the best activities in question are those integral to (...) the exercise of virtue. (shrink)

Presents a new translation with commentary exploring the final book of Aristotle's Ethics in a philosophically rigorous yet interpretatively open way.

Plato's Philebus contains an intricate difficulty. Plato seems to hold both (a) that all pleasures are processes of becoming, a crucial premise in the argument that no pleasure is good (53c?55c) and (b) that some pleasures contribute in their own right to the goodness of the best life (64c?67b). Since it seems also plausible that only things which are good can contribute to the goodness of the best life in their own right, Plato's view seems to be inconsistent. Interpreters usually (...) reject either (a) or (b). As Plato seems firmly committed to both (a) and (b), I propose a third way of dealing with the inconsistency. The apparent inconsistency highlights a vital contrast between what is independently good (good per se), what is dependently good (good through participating in what is independently good), and what is derivatively good (good through standing in a certain relation to dependent goods). I argue that while pleasure's being a process of becoming marks it out as derivatively good, some kinds of pleasure are also dependent goods in virtue of their objects ? irrespective of their being processes of becoming. (shrink)

The so-called ‘Olympian’ proof in Plato's Republic contains one of the first explicit distinctions between the nature of intellectual and bodily pleasures. The argument for the superiority of the former rests on a) identifying pleasure and pain with certain kinds of filling and emptying, and b) differentiating between bodily and intellectual pleasures according to the kind of filling: Bodily depletions differ from depletions of the soul in the kind of lack and, accordingly, in the kind of thing that fills the (...) lack: hunger and thirst are bodily lacks which food and drink can cure, whereas ignorance and folly are cured by intelligence.Thus,, the kind of lack, together with the kind of filler, and derivatively the method of filling determine the kind of filling.Kinds of filling differ in truth: filling A is truer than filling B if and only if the kind of fillers used in A are more than the kind of fillers used in B and the kind of thing filled via A is more than the kind of thing filled via B.Fillers of the soul are more than bodily fillers.The soul is more than the body.Therefore,, filling of the soul is truer than bodily filling, that is, filling of the soul is more really a filling. (shrink)

This thesis is a study of the theories of pleasure as proposed in Plato’s Philebus, Aristotle’s EN VII.11-14 and EN X.1-5, with particular emphasis on the value of pleasure. Focusing on the Philebus in Chapters 1 and 2, I argue that the account of pleasure as restorative process of a harmonious state in the soul is in tension with Plato’s claim that some pleasures are good in their own right. I show that there are in fact two ways in which (...) pleasure can have value in the Philebus. The tension in Plato’s position arises because he focuses exclusively on only one way in which pleasure can have value. Chapter 3 deals with Aristotle’s response to Plato in EN VII.11-14. According to the standard interpretation only complete activities can be pleasures in their own right, but not incomplete activities. Since this interpretation attributes to Aristotle both an implausible view and a bad response to Plato, I offer a novel interpretation of EN VII.12 according to which the central contrast is not between complete and incomplete activities, but between states and their use. This interpretation is more faithful to Aristotle’s text and gives him a better response to Plato. In Chapter 4 I turn to the central claim of EN X.4-5 that pleasure perfects an activity. I argue that we cannot understand how pleasure functions unless we take into account the state whose activation is perfected by pleasure. In particular, the agent’s disposition of being a lover of a certain activity is crucial for explaining why the agent takes pleasure in it. The focus on the agent’s attitude highlights that the value of pleasure does not depend solely on the value of the activity. I suggest instead that pleasure is valuable when and because it is an appropriate response to a given situation. (shrink)

How should we understand ‘philosophy' in Plato’s Republic? Sarah Broadie develops a thoroughly practical notion of the philosopher's activity. Her interpretation helps with the old puzzle about the philosopher's qualification to rule. It also addresses a new problem, namely that Plato ought to have subdivided the rational part of the soul into two parts if the philosophers engage in both theoretical and practical thinking. By conceiving of wisdom in practical terms, Broadie downplays the possible conflict between theory and praxis. I (...) argue that her account of the philosopher's conflict between needing to rule and wanting to theorise does not hold up. Therefore, ‘philosophy’ in the Republic should not be understood in purely practical terms. (shrink)