Antti Kauppinen Les philosophes se sont efforcés de montrer que nous devons être vertueux pour être heureux. Mais tant que nous nous en tenons à la compréhension moderne du bonheur comme quelque chose de vécu par un sujet – et je soutiens contre les eudaimonistes contemporains que nous devrions effectivement le faire – il peut au mieux exister un lien de causalité contingent entre la vertu et le bonheur. Néanmoins, nous avons de bonnes raisons de penser qu’être vertueux est non (...) accidentellement propice au bonheur. Pourquoi? Premièrement, le bonheur est, sommairement, la condition expérientielle de jouir d’états phénoménaux affectifs principalement positifs concernant des choses qui sont subjectivement importantes pour nous. Je soutiens que ce sentimentalisme à propos du bonheur a plusieurs avantages par rapport à la conception de Daniel Haybron comme état émotionnel. Deuxièmement, dans la mesure où nous sommes vertueux, nous pouvons identifier correctement ce qui vaut la peine d’être fait dans notre situation particulière et nous la poursuivrons habilement. En même temps, nous ne sommes pas dérangés par des choses qui ne valent pas la peine d’être prises en charge ou de s’inquiéter. Par conséquent, les personnes vertueuses sont susceptibles de profiter d’émotions positives centrales liées au succès et à l’approbation des autres, et d’éviter les émotions négatives communes liées à la comparaison sociale ou à l’avarice. Bien que leur bonheur soit encore en partie une question de chance, il l’est dans une moindre mesure que pour le reste d’entre nous. (shrink)

In his reflections on ethics, Descartes distances himself from the eudaimonistic tradition in moral philosophy by introducing a distinction between happiness and the highest good. While happiness, in Descartes’s view, consists in an inner state of complete harmony and satisfaction, the highest good instead consists in virtue, i.e. in ‘a firm and constant resolution' to always use our free will well or correctly. In Section 1 of this paper, I pursue the Cartesian distinction between happiness and the highest good in (...) some detail. In Section 2, I discuss the question of how the motivation to virtue should be accounted for within Descartes’s ethical framework. In Section 3, I turn to Descartes’s defence of the view that virtue, while fundamentally distinct from happiness, is nevertheless sufficient for obtaining it. In the final section of the paper , my concern is instead with a second and sometimes neglected distinction that Descartes makes between two different senses o.. (shrink)

Descartes explicitly states that virtue is sufficient for attaining happiness. In this paper I argue that, within the framework he develops, this is not exactly true: more than virtuous action is needed to secure happiness. I begin by analyzing, in Section 2, the Cartesian notion of virtue in order to show the way in which it closely connects to what, for Descartes, forms the very essence of morality – the correct use of our free will. Section 3, in turn, discusses (...) Descartes’s view of happiness and its relation to the highest good. Thereby is laid the foundation for Section 4, which offers a reconstruction of the argument that virtue leads to happiness. Section 5 concludes the discussion by suggesting how and why Descartes leaves a crucial premise – an intellectual insight that consists of three main elements – unmentioned when he claims that virtue is sufficient for happiness. (shrink)

The two most important and central concepts in ancient ethical theory are those of virtue and happiness. This is well-known by now, as is the way that many scholars and philosophers have in recent years investigated the structure of ancient ethical theories, at least partly in the hope that this would help us in our modern ethical thinking by introducing us to developed theories which escape the problems that have led to so much frustration with deontological and consequentialist approaches. And (...) there has indeed been considerable interest in developing modern forms of ethics which draw inspiration, to a greater or lesser extent, from the ancient theories. However, there is an asymmetry here. Modern theories which take their inspiration from Aristotle and other ancient theorists are standardly called virtue ethics, not happiness ethics. We have rediscovered the appeal of aretē, but eudaimonia is still, it appears, problematic for us. This has an important consequence for us, for in ancient theories virtue is not discussed in isolation; it is seen as part of a larger structure in which the overarching concept is happiness. If we focus on virtue alone and ignore its relation to happiness, we are missing a large part of the interest that study of the ancient theories can offer. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 19-37 [Access article in PDF] Eudaimonism and Theology in Stoic Accounts of Virtue Michael Gass The Stoics were unique among the major schools in the ancient world for maintaining that both virtue and happiness consist solely of "living in agreement with nature" (homologoumenos tei phusei zen). We know from a variety of texts that both Cleanthes and Chrysippus, if not also (...) Zeno, characterized such conduct both in essentialist terms, as a matter of living purposively in a manner natural for the human species, and in cosmological terms, as a matter of living in agreement with the purposes of nature as a whole, this being regarded as identical to Zeus. This is not to suggest, however, that cosmo-theological speculation figured prominently in the ethical systems of the early Stoics. Judging from extant summaries and discussions of Stoic ethical doctrines, those doctrines were justified in a dialectical fashion, not by appeal to facts about the purposive order of nature but simply from an analysis of ethical concepts patterned after similar analyses by earlier philosophers (most notably, Aristotle). It is this kind of learning that Chrysippus apparently had in mind when he maintained that ethics should be studied prior to undertaking a systematic investigation of nature: [T]here are three kinds of philosopher's theorems, logical, ethical and physical.... [W]hat should be ranked first of these are the logical, next the ethical, third the physical; and what should come last in the physical theorems is theology. 1On the other hand, as we learn from the testimony of Plutarch (and also from other indirect textual evidence examined recently by Jacques Brunschwig), 2 [End Page 19] Chrysippus also believed that physics in general and theology in particular yield a quite distinct, demonstrative knowledge of the matters first studied in ethics. A. A. Long and others have suggested that such knowledge was regarded by the Stoics as encompassing not just information about the ways in which virtuous living is encouraged by, and fits into, the wider aims of nature at large but also a deeper understanding of the very essence of virtue. 3 Specifically, virtue is revealed to consist in a conscious and deliberate harmonization of one's actions with the purposes of the divine architect. Thus, under this interpretation of their ethical intentions, the Stoics thought of the initial, analytical approach to ethics as necessarily incomplete even in its treatment of strictly ethical topics; the systematic study of nature was thought to impart additional wisdom regarding ethical matters.In her recent study of ancient ethical theories, Julia Annas seeks to counter this view of the place of cosmo-theological speculation in early Stoicism by arguing that such a religious characterization of virtue is incompatible with the eudaimonism to which all schools of ancient philosophy, including Stoicism, were committed. 4 She concedes that first Cleanthes and then much later the Roman Stoics did regard virtue in religious terms, but in her assessment this represents a radical departure from mainstream Stoic thinking on this subject (which is identified mostly with the views of Chrysippus and his disciples, all of whom were clearly and consistently committed to the eudaimonistic model of ethical inquiry). Annas argues that whereas the Stoic sage was traditionally depicted as a person whose commitment to morally appropriate conduct stems from his own rational reflection on his own needs and interests, a person who identified completely with the aims of the divine architect in his purposive activity would be someone who surrendered his right to decide for himself what his needs and interests are, and who therefore could even be required to act in violation of what he might judge by himself to be crucial to his happiness.In what follows I demonstrate that this argument, often advanced in the literature as a reductio ad absurdum of divine command theories of morality, falls wide of the mark in the present case due to the fact that those Stoics who characterized virtue in religious terms did so apparently because they regarded a complete identification with... (shrink)

This essay introduces some of the key topics at stake in the ongoing controversies about the place of eudaimonism in Christian ethics and theology. Whether and in what way a person should seek her or his own happiness and flourishing has been a central question in ethics for centuries. Here I summarize the contributions the essays in this focus issue make to that conversation, and conclude by briefly sketching a Neoplatonist approach to eudaimonism that may offer a way to build (...) on the insights and concerns articulated in the focus essays. (shrink)

Recent interest among both philosophers and the wider public in the tradition of virtue ethics often takes its inspiration from Aristotle or from Thomas Aquinas. In this essay I briefly outline the ethical approaches of these two towering figures, and then describe more fully the virtue ethics of Meister Eckhart, a medieval thinker who admired, though critically, both Aristotle and Aquinas. His related but distinctively original approach to the virtuous life is marked by a striking and seemingly paradoxical injunction to (...) “live without why.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-BeingDaniel H. FrankHava Tirosh-Samuelson. Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 596. Cloth, $50.00.Franz Rosenzweig tried hard to convince the neoKantian Hermann Cohen of the merits of Zionism and the normalization it would bring to Jews and Jewish life. His attempt met with this response from Cohen: "Oho! So the gang (...) now wants to be happy, does it?" For those ignorant of the history of Jewish philosophy, one might imagine that Jewish philosophers, no less than their non-philosophical kinsmen, were so weighed down by the burdens of history and persecution that happiness could play no role in their theorizing. But happiness plays a key role in the history of Jewish moral and political philosophy, especially in the premodern period. Even Spinoza, the last of the medievals and the first of the moderns, the great critic of the rabbinic tradition and of Maimonides in particular, is concerned in his Ethics with identifying those activities that together constitute human well-being and the good life. Only lately, since the Enlightenment and Kant, has non-eudaimonism been a live option for Jewish thinkers. Only with the rise of (modern) Orthodoxy, and its predilection for construing goodness as rectitude and rule-following, has eudaimonism fallen out of favor. But with Tirosh-Samuelson's weighty volume on happiness in premodern Judaism, there can be no excuse in the future to imagine that all Jews are, or must be, closet Kantians, strict deontologists. To think otherwise seems to come close to taking on the classical (anti-Semitic) dichotomy of legalistic Judaism vs. spiritual Christianity. In it own way, Happiness in Premodern Judaism is a critique of such a one-sided, monochromatic view of Judaism, whether from the Christian or even from the Jewish side.Tirosh-Samuelson writes explicitly as an intellectual historian, rather than as a philosopher. She understands herself and her project as one that presents just the facts, without evaluating them. While one may cavil at a lost opportunity, in the present case this would be churlish, given the enormous erudition on display. After an introductory chapter outlining the foundational moral theories of Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers, the text presents the (Greek-inspired) areteic wisdom literature of the Second Temple period, the teleological theocentrism of the rabbis, the Greco-Arabic Islamicate culture that nurtured Jewish philosophers from Saadia in the tenth century to Maimonides in the twelfth, the rabbinic and kabbalistic critiques of the philosophical ideal of happiness commencing [End Page 338] with the translation (into Hebrew) of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and finally, very important and the focus of much recent scholarly work, the transformation of Jewish eudaimonism through direct contact with Christian Scholasticism and later with the humanist Renaissance. All in all, a millennium and a half of Jewish intellectual history is presented in a sober and scholarly way.Not surprisingly Maimonides plays a pivotal role in the story that Tirosh-Samuelson relates. A Janus-like figure, he represents the culmination and height of accommodation with Greek and Greco-Arabic philosophical culture. However, with the gradual worsening of the socio-economic condition of European Jewry in the thirteenth century, his accommodationism seemed traitorous, and as a result generations of thinkers, mystics and philosophers alike, strove to critically distance themselves from Maimonidean Aristotelianism. Tirosh-Samuelson is admirably clear in pointing out that such anti-Maimonidean tendencies are ill-characterized as anti-philosophical. Hasdai Crescas in the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries launched a massive critique of Maimonides' physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, but did so in as rigorous a manner as any philosopher would. The picture that enfolds over the course of the text is one of vigorous dialectic between partisans of 'alien' (Greek) wisdom and those who viewed such wisdom with considerable suspicion. Such a dialectic parallels, not surprisingly, developments in Christian philosophy.The trajectory of the story of premodern Jewish musings on happiness is from the centrality of reason and intellect, and the contemplative activity that is reason's preeminent actuality, to the primacy... (shrink)

This paper argues that Mencius is a eudaimonist, and that his eudaimonism plays an architectonic role in his thought. Mencius maintains that the most satisfying life for a human being is the life of benevolence, rightness, wisdom, and ritual propriety, and that such a life fulfills essential desires and capacities of the human heart. He also repeatedly appeals both to these and to morally neutral desires in his efforts to persuade others to develop and exercise the virtues. Classical Greek eudaimonists (...) similarly regarded the life of virtue as both objectively good and subjectively desirable, and appealed to the desire for eudaimonia or happiness to motivate a commitment to the virtues. Mencius offers a carefully crafted, teleological account of human nature that appears designed in part to support his eudaimonism. In contrast with proposals by other scholars, I argue that Mencius’ notion of happiness, analogous to the Greek eudaimonia, is expressed by the construction jìn xìng 盡性, “fulfilling human nature” or the nearly equivalent jìn xīn 盡心, “fulfilling one’s heart.”. (shrink)

Julia Annas offers a new account of virtue and happiness as central ethical ideas. She argues that exercising a virtue involves practical reasoning of the kind we find in someone exercising an everyday practical skill, such as farming, building, or playing the piano. This helps us to see virtue as part of an agent's happiness or flourishing.

For Kant, any authentic moral demands are wholly distinct from the demands of prudence. This has led critics to complain that Kantian moral demands are incompatible with our human nature as happiness-seekers. Kant’s defenders have pointed out, correctly, that Kant can and does assert that it is permissible, at least in principle, to pursue our own happiness. But this response does not eliminate the worry that a life organized around the pursuit of virtue might turn out to be one from (...) which we cannot expect any of this (permissible) happiness. To address this worry, Kant would need to establish that there is a kind of harmony between virtue and our own happiness that can give us confidence that aiming at morality does not require us to abandon our hope for happiness in this life. This paper aims to show that Kant—building on insights from Rousseau that Kant identifies with Cynicism—does offer an account of such a harmony between virtue and worldly happiness. (shrink)

Mencius maintains that the most satisfying life for a human being is the life of benevolence, rightness, wisdom and ritual propriety. He also repeatedly appeals to happiness in his efforts to persuade others to develop and exercise the virtues. Mencius is therefore a eudaimonist. He offers a carefully crafted, teleological account of human nature that appears designed in part to support his eudaimonism. In contrast with proposals by other scholars, I argue that Mencius’ distinctive conception of happiness is best expressed (...) by the construction jin xing 盡性, “fulfilling human nature” or the nearly equivalent jin xin 盡心, “fulfilling one’s heart.” The fact that human nature includes the sprouts of the four chief virtues allows Mencius to resolve common concerns about happiness as a motive for virtue. In addition to supporting his eudaimonism, Mencius’ conception of human nature also conceptually unifies his vision for human flourishing, including its emotional, material, social, moral, and cosmic dimensions. (shrink)

In contrast to eudaimonism, Kant argues that moral reasoning and prudential reasoning are two distinct uses of practical reason, each with its own standard for good action. Despite Kant’s commitment to the ineradicable potential for fundamental conflict between these types of practical reasoning, I argue that once we shift to consideration of a developmental narrative of these faculties, we see that virtuous moral reasoning is able to substantively influence prudential reasoning, while prudential reason should be responsive to such influence. Further, (...) Kant indicates the integration of virtue as a commitment concerning practical priorities, and so too what should and should not agree with the agent, is beneficial for prudential reasoning by prudential reasoning’s own standards. Although Kant’s ethical system breaks from eudaimonism in significant ways, it retains the eudaimonist claim that virtuously-informed pursuits of happiness are not only better for virtue, but also better for happiness. (shrink)

The continuing clash of ethical titans resounds with the cries of utilitarianism, virtue ethics, hedonism, rational egoism, emotivism, deontology, universal prescriptivism, rational contractarianism, and non-cognitivism. This fray is predicated upon each combatant assuming that his truth is complete and exclusive of all others and that his predecessors have been refuted. But are these assumptions true? Is it not possible that each has indeed grasped something true: the necessity of pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number in political action; the (...) indispensability of virtues; the ethical relevance of personal happiness; the goodness of pleasure and self-love; the priority of moral duty over inclinations; the universality of moral norms; and the importance of feelings in living the ethical life? And is it not possible that this fray is merely an historical artefact arising from the widespread—albeit uncritical—belief that Hume, Kant, and Moore destroyed the viability of eudaimonistic teleology, especially as expressed by Aristotle and Aquinas? If these possibilities are real, perhaps the rediscovery of ethical eudaimonia would include currently factional insights in such a way as to resolve on-going perplexities and provide a basis for a peaceful settlement. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve , Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires. The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving will. Beginning with the contrast (...) between "eastern" and "western" attitudes toward assertive willing, Davenport traces the lineage of the idea of projective motivation from NeoPlatonic and Christian conceptions of divine motivation to Scotus, Kant, Marx, Arendt, and Levinas. Rich with historical detail, this book includes an extended examination of Platonic and Aristotelian eudaimonist theories of human motivation. Drawing on contemporary critiques of egoism, Davenport argues that happiness is primarily a byproduct of activities and pursuits aimed at other agent-transcending goods for their own sake. In particular, the motives involved in virtue and in its practice as understood by Alasdair MacIntyre are projective rather than eudaimonist. This theory is supported by analyses of radical evil, accounts of intrinsic motivation in existential psychology, and contemporary theories of identity-forming commitment in analytic moral psychology. Following Viktor Frankl, Joseph Raz, and others, Davenport argues that Harry Frankfurt's conception of caring requires objective values worth caring about, which serve as rational grounds for projecting new final ends. The argument concludes with a taxonomy of values or goods, devotion to which can make life meaningful for us. (shrink)

John Wesley did not directly address the question, but he could have answered "Yes'" to "Was Jesus Ever Happy?" given his understanding of "happiness." His eudaimonistic understanding of happiness was that it consists in renewing and actualizing the image of God within us, especially the image of love. More particularly, it consists in actually living a life of moral virtue, love included, of spiritual fulfillment, of joy or pleasure taken in loving God, others, and self, and in minimizing unnecessary pain (...) and suffering, which we are morally obligated to do for others and even for ourselves. Jesus had it all most of the time, though not always, obviously not at the painful end of his life when he felt God-forsaken. -/- . (shrink)

The psychological condition of happiness is normally considered a paradigm subjective good, and is closely associated with subjectivist accounts of well-being. This article argues that the value of happiness is best accounted for by a non-subjectivist approach to welfare: a eudaimonistic account that grounds well-being in the fulfillment of our natures, specifically in self-fulfillment. And self-fulfillment consists partly in authentic happiness. A major reason for this is that happiness, conceived in terms of emotional state, bears a special relationship to the (...) self. These arguments also point to a more sentimentalist approach to well-being than one finds in most contemporary accounts, particularly among Aristotelian forms of eudaimonism. (shrink)

This volume provides a clear and accessible overview of central concepts, positions, and arguments in virtue ethics. While it focuses primarily on Aristotelian virtue ethics, it also includes discussion of alternative forms of virtue ethics and competing normative theories. The first six chapters are organized around central questions in normative ethics that are of particular concern to virtue ethicists and their critics: -/-  What is virtue ethics?  What makes a trait a virtue?  Is there a link between (...) virtue and happiness?  What is involved in being well-motivated?  What is practical wisdom?  What makes an action right? -/- The last four chapters focus on important challenges or objections to virtue ethics: -/-  Can virtue ethics be applied to particular moral problems?  Does virtue ethics ultimately rely on moral principles?  Can it withstand the situationist critique?  What are the prospects for an environmental virtue ethics? -/- With useful Summaries and Further Reading sections at the end of each chapter, the book is written for advanced undergraduates, but should also be useful to graduate students, professional philosophers, and anyone interested in normative ethics, applied ethics, moral psychology, or moral education. (shrink)

The idea that the phenomenon of morality and, consequently, our ability to distinguish between vice and virtue can be explained by sympathy has been challenged as a highly controversial hypothesis, since sympathy appears to be easily influenced by proximity and selective, and would therefore seem incompatible with the possibility of taking an impartial, objective point of view. We intend to show that even a sentimentalist moral perspective such as the ‘Humean’ one, which places empathy (or ‘sympathy’, as Hume calls it) (...) at the core of morality, is capable of accounting for and justifying moral responsibility to future generations. Moreover, if we consider things from a Humean perspective, it is immoral not only to harm future generations, but also not to care at all about the extinction of the human species. For in the former case, we perform actions that cause misery, pain and suffering, whilst in the latter, we are not at all concerned about the welfare (i.e., happiness) of possible people who may, in the near future, come into the world and have a life worth or very much worth living. That is, in both cases, we show no ability to empathize with the possible people who will or may be born tomorrow. (shrink)

Later versions of Platonic ethics fit the frame of eudaimonism and specify a telos based on Theaetetus 176B and Timaeus 90A-D: 'likeness to god in so far as possible'. This paper examines the development of this idea from the middle Platonist Alcinous to the Neoplatonist Proclus. It examines the way in which Proclus makes this specification of human happiness a bit less "other worldy".

Aquinas’s eudaimonism is normally interpreted as twofold in that it divides into the imperfect natural happiness of Aristotle and the perfect supernatural happiness of Augustine. I argue that Aquinas is logically committed to a third type of happiness that, in light of the standard view, renders his eudaimonism threefold. The paper begins with an overview of the standard twofold model of Aquinas’s eudaimonism; it then turns to the model’s logical problem whose solution requires the postulation of a third type of (...) happiness. In the second part of the paper, two clarificatory issues are addressed and several objections are considered. In closing, I explain why Aquinas’s commitment to a third type of happiness offers the Christian wayfarer grounds for a new optimism. (shrink)

Originally published in 1991, this book focuses on the concept of virtue, and in particular on the virtue of wisdom or knowledge, as it is found in the epic poems of Homer, some tragedies of Sophocles, selected writings of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. The key questions discussed are the nature of the virtues, their relation to each other, and the relation between the virtues and happiness or well-being. This book provides the background and interpretative framework to (...) make classical works on Ethics, such as Plato’s _Republic_ and Aristotle’s _Nicomachean Ethics_, accessible to readers with no training in the classics. (shrink)

In recent decades, historians of moral philosophy started to pay more attention to Baruch Spinoza, studying the often-neglected ethical dimension of his philosophy. Nevertheless, despite this growing interest, Spinoza is rarely placed in the canon of moral philosophy, and therefore his relation to various traditions of normative ethics remains unclear. In this article, I attempt to show that Spinoza’s moral theory relies heavily on a certain tradition in normative ethics, usually called eudaimonism or eudaimonist virtue ethics. This assertion is justified (...) through close examination of two conceptual features that unite Spinoza’s moral theory with virtue-ethical eudaimonism. The first feature is its moral naturalism: this theory is explicitly derived from Spinoza’s metaphysical views on nature sive substance and human nature in particular. The second feature is Spinoza’s active reliance on a developed normative concept of the highest good (summum bonum), also called “happiness” (felicitas) or “blessedness” (beatitudo) – the concept that is directly manifested in the moral ideal of a “free man” (homo liber), put forward in Part IV of the “Ethics”. (shrink)

The eudaimonistic thesis claims that being virtuous is a necessary aspect of the development of some important kind of happiness. To be true, it must be the case that virtue is associated with a kind of happiness that is clearly recognizable as something that we want, that we can appreciate as a good state for us to be in, that we can identify as a state of our own well-being. So here is the empirical question: in our ordinary experiences, is (...) it the case that virtue is necessary to developing this kind of state? This is a very large, and very important, question. In this paper, I chip away at one piece of this question by exploring virtue’s role in mediating our relationships with others. Caring about others and treating them well is clearly part of being virtuous and I think it is also one aspect of being virtuous that we can see to be an important part of our happiness—at least, in our non-skeptical moments. (shrink)

This study of Plato's ethics focuses on the concept of virtue. Based on detailed readings of the most prominent Platonic dialogues on virtue, it argues that there is a central yet previously unnoticed conceptual distinction in Plato between the idea of virtue as the supreme aim of one's actions and the determination of which action-tokens or -types are virtuous. Appreciating the 'aiming/determining distinction' provides detailed and mutually consistent readings of the most well-known Platonic dialogues on virtue as well as original (...) interpretations of central Platonic questions. Unlike most examinations of Plato's ethics, this study does not take as its centrepiece the 'eudaimonist framework', which focuses on the relationship between virtue and happiness. Instead, it argues that the dialogues themselves begin with the idea of the supremacy of virtue, examine how that claim can be defended, and address how to determine what constitutes the virtuous action. (shrink)

This volume explores the relationship between rationality and happiness from ancient Greek philosophy to early Latin medieval philosophy. What connection is there between human rationality and happiness? This issue was uppermost in the minds of the Ancient Greek philosophers and continued to be of importance during the entire early medieval period. Starting with theSocrates of Plato's early dialogues, who is regarded as having initiated the eudaimonistic ethical tradition, the present volume looks at Plato, Aristotle, the Skeptics, Seneca [Stoicism], Epicurus, Plotinus (...) [neo-Platonism], Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and ends with Abelard, the final major figure in early medieval philosophy. Special efforts are made to reveal and trace the continuity and development of the views on rationality and happiness among these major thinkers within this period. The book's approach is historical, but the topics it treats are relevant to many discussions pursued in contemporary philosophical circles. Specifically, the book aims to make two major contributions to the ongoing development of virtue ethics. First, contemporary virtue ethics often draws distinctions between ancient Greek ethics and modern moral philosophy [mainly utilitarianism and Kantianism], and seeks to model ethics on ancient ethics. In doing so, however, contemporary virtue ethics often ignores the transition from Greek ethics to the early Latin medieval tradition. Second, contemporary virtue-based ethics, in its efforts to seek insights from ancient ethics, centers on virtue. In contrast, in ancient and medieval ethics, virtue is pursued for the sake of happiness [eudaimonia], and virtue is conceived as excellence of rationality. Hence, the relationship between rationality and happiness provides the framework for ethical inquiry within which the discussion of virtue takes place. Contributors: JULIA ANNAS, RICHARD BETT, JORGE J.E. GRACIA, BRAD INWOOD, WILLIAM MANN, JOHN MARENBON, GARETH B. MATTHEWS, MARK L. McPHERRAN, DONALD MORRISON, C.C.W. TAYLOR, JONATHAN SANFORD, JIYUAN YU. Jiyuan Yu is Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Jorge J. E. Gracia is Samuel P. Capen Chair and SUNY Distinguised Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo. (shrink)

In this book I look at the tradition of eudaimonistic ethics which stems from Aristotle's treatment of ethics, and which takes distinct, though related forms in Epicurus, the Stoics and the Sceptics. I look at this tradition from different points of view: how is it related to human nature, how does it account for other-related virtue and action, and how much does it require in terms of revising previously held priorities. I discuss the methodology of discussing ancient texts in ways (...) that relate them to contemporary concerns, particularly the importance of respecting the texts and avoiding anachronism. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that neither St. Bonaventure nor St. Thomas are eudaimonists in the normal sense. Neither holds that happiness--which is a condition of human persons, and thus falls on the creature side of the Creator/creature divide--is the ultimate end of human beings strictly speaking, being rather a penultimate end. God is the true ultimate end of human beings, and He falls on the other side of the Creator/creature divide. -/- Both St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure hold that (...) happiness consists in the attainment of God. They differ in that St. Bonaventure holds that loving God constitutes the attainment of God, for he who loves God has God. St. Thomas, on the other hand, holds that loving God does not in and of itself mean having Him. Love causes us to desire union with God, but is not itself union with Him. God is attained when He is known. However, St. Thomas also holds that loving God is better than knowing Him, and thus better than happiness. This is because God Himself, and not our happiness in knowing Him, is our true ultimate end. -/- On the basis of these theories, both St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas avoid the self-centeredness objections to eudaimonism, while being able to incorporate all of the strengths of virtue ethics. (shrink)

Le Grand's introduction to philosophy, written for use in Cambridge, was the first to be written along Cartesian lines. A section on moral philosophy, first included in the second edition 1672, drew on the common Aristotelian-style way of dealing with the subject-matter, but with modifications inspired by Descartes. In the third edition 1675 this section was almost doubled in size. The additional chapters are an unacknowledged paraphrase of the bulk of Pufendorf's De officio hominis et civis 1673. Le Grand's revision (...) can be taken as a point of transition from an older moral philosophy to modern moral philosophy. It is argued that the contrast between them is not one of virtues vs rules. Rather, the important difference is that the older is essentially eudaimonistic, both in its Aristotelian and Cartesian varieties, but the modern one is not. It relegates the quest for happiness to other disciplines such as psychology, and imports concepts which had belonged to moral theology, such as conscience, imputation, obligation, etc. into moral philosophy. Le Grands für den Gebrauch in Cambridge geschriebene "Einführung in die Philosophie" ist die erste, die nach kartesianischen Richtlinien verfaßt wird. Der Abschnitt über Moralphilosophie, der in die zweite Auflage von 1672 eingefügt wird, ist zwar immer noch in dem gebräuchlichen aristotelischen Stil geschrieben, enthält aber Modifikationen, die von Descartes inspiriert sind. In der dritten Auflage von 1675 wird der Umfang dieses Abschnitts nahezu verdoppelt. Die neu hinzugekommenen Kapitel sind eine Wiedergabe des Hauptteils von Pufendorfs "De officio hominis et civis" von 1673, die als Wiedergabe jedoch nicht kenntlich gemacht wird. Man kann Le Grands Bearbeitung als einen Schritt auf dem Weg von der alten zur modernen Moralphilosophie ansehen. Der Unterschied zwischen beiden ist nicht der Unterschied zwischen der Lehre von den moralischen Tugenden und der von den moralischen Gesetzen. Der entscheidende Unterschied ist vielmehr, daß die ältere Moralphilosophie, sowohl in ihrer aristotelischen, als auch in ihrer kartesianischen Variante, im wesentlichen eudämonistisch ist, während das auf die moderne Moralphilosophie gerade nicht zutrifft. Dadurch wird die Suche nach dem Glück an andere Disziplinen, beispielsweise die Psychologie, verwiesen, während die Moralphilosophie Konzepte wie "Gewissen", "Zurechnung", "Verbindlichkeit" übernimmt, die von der Moraltheologie entwickelt worden waren. (shrink)

The paper outlines Aristotelian and Aquinian eudaimonistic conception of hap_piness and its criticism in modern ethics in the context of the rehabilitation of this concept in contemporary moral philosophy. On the background of the modern discussion it presents the objectivist theory of happiness in the frame of Neoaristotelian ethics of virtues. In its description the author introduces the inclusive concept of happiness. He defines the true happiness as an optimal relationship between the subject and the world, making a difference between (...) an apparent and a true hap_piness and stressing the function of practical reason in reaching the latter.The principle of the true happiness is true love, which is made possible by the moral virtues considered as good dispositions, supporting the operative human skills. The ideal of happiness works as an regulative idea, which directs the human behavior and gives it its meaning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Le etiche della virtù. La riflessione contemporanea a partire da Hume by Alessio VaccariSarin MarchettiAlessio Vaccari. Le etiche della virtù. La riflessione contemporanea a partire da Hume. Firenze : Le Lettere, 2012. Pp. 320. ISBN 9788860876324, Paper, €29.00.Alessio Vaccari’s volume represents a major achievement in Hume scholarship as well as in contemporary reflection on philosophical ethics. Le etiche della virtù. La riflessione contemporanea a partire da Hume (Virtue (...) Ethics: From Hume Onwards) will be of much value to both historians of moral philosophy and contemporary ethicists who are versed in the ongoing discussions over the nature and point of moral thought. In an intellectual landscape dominated by a legalistic conception of ethics, Vaccari’s investigation is a historiographically committed and theoretically inspired inquiry into (and re-evaluation of) the health of and current regard for the paradigm of the virtues. On the one hand, the author is interested in challenging the influential narrative—voiced by Elizabeth Anscombe (1958) and Alasdair MacIntyre (1981)—according to which modern moral philosophy has been characterized by the most unfortunate eclipse of the language of the virtues; on the other, he aims at reconstructing an effective, viable understanding of virtue ethics along those Humean lines best suited to address the distinctive difficulties facing our contemporary progressive societies. (The challenge of environmental sustainability and future generations is taken as exemplary.) Against Anscombe and MacIntyre, and following the lesson of Jerome B. Schneewind (1990 Jerome B. Schneewind (1998), Vaccari argues that in the post-Enlightenment moral debate, we have not paid enough attention to distinctively modern articulations of the central features of [End Page 123] virtue ethics, including the cultivation of one’s character as a prime moral goal, an enriched understanding of the qualitative dimension and intrinsic value of human happiness, and the acknowledgement of the moral significance of both personal and social relationships for the realization of the good.These historiographical and theoretical concerns represent two sides of the same coin, as Vaccari compellingly argues that the oversight (if not disregard) of the typically modern conception of the virtues finely elaborated by Hume in his works—partly reprised and further refined by John Stuart Mill—deprives us of precious analytical resources to resolve some general impasses that are features of contemporary moral reflection (for example, the demandingness of duty based ethics and the limits of impartial accounts of moral principles) as well as the tensions internal to virtue ethics, especially of neo-Aristotelean and neo-Kantian sorts, (for example, their conflicting pictures of the virtuous agent and the experiential unsoundness of their accounts of the stabilization of moral responses). Humean virtue ethics is depicted, in the first instance, as a radical approach to—and style of—moral philosophy: descriptive and yet normative, explicative without being prescriptive. It is thus Vaccari’s claim that by re-discovering neglected and yet central aspects of Hume’s practical philosophy, illuminated by Mill’s romantic utilitarianism and contrasted to both Kant’s rationalism and (partly) Nietzsche’s perfectionism, we would gain access to a fresh conceptual possibility about how best to reflect on the moral life. This operation also opens up a fertile space for a metaphilosophical investigation of the very character and stakes of moral thought itself, whose lack of reflexivity upon its philosophical credentials is often at the basis of the aforementioned difficulties.The two tasks are brilliantly coordinated, resulting in a volume that is a gold mine of both historical and speculative details that provide a critical store of intellectual resources for thinking through these issues. Besides firmly mastering the primary sources, Vaccari digests an impressive body of secondary literature, which is clearly explained and skillfully assessed. Targeted at scholars of Hume and virtue ethics, Le etiche della virtù is highly recommended for advanced undergraduate courses as well as for graduate seminars both on the history of modern moral philosophy and on contemporary meta-ethics and normative ethics. An English translation of the volume would surely widen its audience and boost its circulation.The volume comprises a preface, five chapters, and an exhaustive bibliography. In the preface, Vaccari sets the stage for his defense of a sentimentalist version of virtue... (shrink)

As in many other fields of practical ethics, virtue ethics is increasingly of interest within nursing ethics. Nevertheless, the virtue ethics literature in nursing ethics remains relatively small and underdeveloped. This article aims to categorize which broad theoretical approaches to virtue have been taken, to undertake some initial comparative assessment of their relative merits given the peculiar ethical dilemmas facing nurse practitioners, and to highlight the prob- lem areas for virtue ethics in the nursing context. We find the most common (...) approaches fall into care approaches grounded in sentimentalist or feminist ethics, eudaimonist approaches grounded in neo-Aristotelianism, and those grounded in MacIntyre’s practice theory. Our initial assessment is that the eudaimonist approach fares best in terms of merit and relative to criticisms of virtue ethics. But an outstanding issue concerns the motivational psychology of virtuous nursing and whether virtue ethical accounts of right action are self-effacing, i.e. justify an act on grounds that cannot function as the agent’s reason for doing it if she is to act well. One of us, Newham, believes that a virtue consequentialist approach is the best response to these issues. Some form of pluralistic theory, such as Christine Swanton’s, may be needed to explain the many competing values and goods involved in ethical nursing. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Philosophers since antiquity have argued the merits of mathematics as a normative aid in ethical decision-making and of the mathematization of ethics a theoretical discipline. Recently, Anagnostopoulos, Annas, Broadie and Hutchinson have probed such issues said to be of interest to Aristotle. Despite their studies, the sense in which Aristotle either opposed or proposed a mathematical ethics in subject-matter and method remains unclear. This paper attempts to clarify the matter. It shows Aristotle’s matrix of exactness and inexactness for ethical subject-matter (...) and ethical method in the Nicomachean Ethics. Then it probes a resultant puzzle from the matrix, namely, the HL model of the happy life without consideration of mathematical justice and the HJL model of the happy life with such consideration. Finally, it examines Aristotle’s twofold rationale for differentiating these two models in his overall moral feedback loop system: differences in the intellectual virtue of good deliberation; the priority of friendship over justice for the happy life. This suggests Aristotle saw no objection either to using mathematics as an aid to ethical decision-making for a happy life, or to mathematizing at least some parts of an ethical theory of eudaimonism. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to show that animal motives play an important role in guiding human agents to virtue, according to Reid. Animal motives, for Reid, are constituted of desires and of their objects. These desires are intrinsic desires for objects other than moral or prudential worth. However, from a rational and moral point of view, animal motives are good and useful parts of the human constitution that lead to happiness, teach self-government, create the habit of acting virtuously, (...) and add force to rational motives. Understanding animal motives as guides to virtue provides Reid with the hybrid sentimentalist/rationalist account he seeks to offer. (shrink)

This dissertation evaluates the contemporary viability of Aristotelian ethics. It argues that neo-Aristotelians are right in thinking that some version of Aristotle's ethics is viable today. However, standard interpretations are wrong in several respects: Aristotle's ethics does not and cannot ground ethics in eudaimonia as Nussbaum suggests it does. Nor does it treat virtue as a means to eudaimonia as Kant thought. Furthermore, Aristotle denies that ethics can be grounded at all. Instead, he suggests that arguments persuade only those who (...) have been properly habituated. ;The dissertation defends the relevance of Aristotle's ethics by arguing against some of the central challenges raised against it. First, Aristotle's argument in the Ethics need not presuppose an outdated metaphysical biology. Rather, he starts by analyzing the teleological structure of human action. Second, although Aristotle does not remove the tension between the contemplative and the ethical life, he argues convincingly that they can and must coexist in every complete human life. Third, even though Aristotle allows for more paternalism than do most contemporary thinkers, he still makes autonomy a necessary part of eudaimonia. Fourth, once we understand that Aristotle is not grounding ethics in eudaimonia, we see that many of Kant's criticisms of eudaimonistic ethics do not apply to him. Nevertheless, important disagreements remain, and the dissertation suggests that one important difference concerns the nature of inclinations and thus is psychological rather than ethical. Finally, the dissertation examines Nussbaum's attempt to create an Aristotelian ethics. It objects to her interpretation of Aristotle, and it also questions her project of grounding ethics in eudaimonia. ;The dissertation concludes that according to Aristotle, ethics cannot be grounded in anything other than the idea of what is intrinsically valuable, an idea which we acquire through habituation. It also suggests that Aristotle's ethics can withstand the objections that have been discussed. Indeed, it argues that Aristotle's ethics, which derives the virtues from an analysis of rational action and which gives inclinations a crucial role in moral action, is both viable and attractive. (shrink)

Aristotle thinks that happiness is an activity---it consists in doing something---rather than a feeling. It is the best activity of which humans are capable and is spread out over the course of a life. But what kind of activity is it? Some of his remarks indicate that it is a single best kind of activity, intellectual contemplation. Other evidence suggests that it is an overarching activity that has various virtuous activities, ethical and intellectual, as parts. At stake are questions about (...) how we should live and the correct balance of theoretical and practical activity. Numerous interpreters have sharply disagreed about Aristotle's answers to such questions. This book offers a fundamentally new approach to determining what kind of activity Aristotle thinks happiness is, one that challenges widespread assumptions that have until now prevented a dialectically satisfactory interpretation. This approach displays the boldness and systematicity of Aristotle's practical philosophy. (shrink)

There is now, I think, widespread consensus that the field of ethical theory would benefit from taking more into account a tradition of ethical thinking which is best represented in ancient ethics: that of eudaimonism. These theories take the agent’s final end as primary, and hold that to be happiness. There has been a renewal of interest in Aristotle’s ethics, and a development of various forms of what is called ‘virtue ethics’. However, a true appraisal of the interest and importance (...) for us of eudaimonistic theories needs a fuller study of the general structure of these theories than has been readily available. Too much focus on Aristotle, for example, can hide the extent to which some features of his theory are idiosyncratic to him, and not typical of eudaimonistic theory generally. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle on Happiness, Virtue, and Wisdom by Bryan ReeceJakub JirsaREECE, Bryan. Aristotle on Happiness, Virtue, and Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 240 pp. Cloth, $99.99In contemporary discussions about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, dissatisfaction is growing with the exclusivist and inclusivist interpretations. Bryan Reece's book stands out for two reasons: He conducts extensive analysis, pinpointing conflicting principles in previous interpretations of happiness, and he persuasively bridges the gap between (...) exclusive and inclusive readings of Aristotle's text.Reece rebrands the two families of interpretation as "monism" and "pluralism." According to monists, happiness is contemplative activity, which does not include ethically virtuous activities as parts. According to [End Page 552] pluralists, happiness is virtuous activity, a composite that includes not only contemplative activity but also ethically virtuous activities as parts. It is another virtue of this book that Reece is generous and charitable; he looks for convincing arguments for each theory and viewpoint in question.In the second chapter Reece turns to what he calls the "divergence thesis," namely, the claim that Aristotle believes "that it is possible to possess theoretical wisdom and reliably manifest it in contemplation without possessing practical wisdom." Reece's argument against this thesis is that since the manifestation of theoretical wisdom in contemplation is a voluntary, reliably performed, fine activity, it must imply the activity of the practical intellect. This in turn implies the manifestation of practical virtue. For a reliably performed contemplation one needs tamed passions and properly managed leisure (see Politics 7.15.133a24–34). Moreover, the voluntary nature of theoretical knowledge (see De anima 2.5.417b18–25) implies the role of practical wisdom as well.Chapter 4 discusses whether there are two kinds of happiness, one corresponding to contemplation, the other to the ethically virtuous activities (the "duality thesis"). The claim that there are two kinds of happiness is usually based on lines Nicomachean Ethics 1178a6–10. Here Reece suggests a novel reading: "Life in accordance with intellect is proper to a human being, since intellect is a human being most of all. So, this life also is happiest. (Life) in accordance with the other kind of virtue is (proper to a human being) in a secondary way, for activities in accordance with this (kind of virtue) are properly human." The comparison in these lines is then between life in accordance with intellect and life in accordance with the virtues of character. The first life is proper to us, because we are above all our intellect. The life in accordance with moral virtue reflects our complex nature, and it is proper to us due to this complexity of our human nature.How could Aristotle claim that it is human to live in accordance with the intellect? According to Aristotle, the gods contemplate, and so contemplation cannot be proper to human beings. Reece calls this statement "the divinity thesis" and deals with it in chapter 5. Reece's argument for the difference in type between divine and human contemplation is based on the fact that human contemplation is manifestation of theoretical wisdom. Theoretical wisdom includes intellect (nous) and knowledge (epistēmē). Reece then goes through possible contemplating divine beings and shows why their formal cause of contemplation cannot be theoretical wisdom. Formal differences between activities mark type distinctions. Therefore, divine and human contemplation are of different types.Chapters 2 through 4 paved the way for Reece's own conclusion: "[H]appiness belongs to all and only those to whom contemplation and ethically virtuous activities belong, and contemplation is proper to happiness in a primary way, whereas ethically virtuous activities are proper to that same kind of happiness in a secondary way." According to [End Page 553] Reece, Aristotle claims that something can be said to be proper to x as its essence or as its idia (from idios, proper or own). To be proper in the sense of an essence is to be proper in a primary way; idia are then proper in a secondary way. Therefore, Reece says, contemplation is proper to happiness in a primary way, whereas virtuous activities are proper to happiness in a secondary way.I have concerns about Reece's argument... (shrink)

The increased governmental focus on happiness since the late 1990s, and particularly since the economic crash of 2008, has been informed predominantly by a conceptualisation of happiness promoted by the field of positive psychology, and adopted and developed in fields such as behavioural economics and more recently in fields such as neuroeducation. Concepts, or traits, associated with feeling happy or satisfied with our lives, such as resilience, are now promoted across both public and private domains as a means to improve (...) our quality of life, our productivity and our attainment. The promotion of this positive psychological notion of happiness in the context of education not only presents these traits as virtues of the productive learning citizen but also effects a delegitimisation of the negative. Analysis of curricula programmes, seen alongside the shift taken towards a focus on the individual as brain, highlights the pedagogical and political implications of this. (shrink)

My question in this paper concerns what eudaimonist virtue ethics (EVE) might have to say about what makes right actions right. This is obviously an important question if we want to know what (if anything) distinguishes EVE from various forms of consequentialism and deontology in ethical theorizing. The answer most commonly given is that according to EVE, an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances. However, understood as a claim (...) about what makes particular actions right, this is not especially plausible. What makes a virtuous person’s actions right must reasonably be a matter of the feature, or features, which she, via her practical wisdom, appreciates as ethically relevant in the circumstances, and not the fact that someone such as herself would perform those actions. I argue that EVE instead should be understood as a more radical alternative in ethical philosophy, an alternative that relies on the background assumption that no general account or criterion for what makes right actions right is available to us: right action is simply too complex to be captured in a ‘finite and manageable set of…moral principles’ (McKeever and Ridge, Principled ethics, Oxford University Press, 2006 , p. 139). This does not rule out the possibility that there might be some generalizations about how we should act which hold true without exception. Perhaps there are some things which we must never do, as well as some features of the world which always carry normative weight (even though their exact weight may vary from one context to another). Still, these things are arguably few and far between, and what we must do to ensure that we reliably recognize what is right in particular situations is to acquire practical wisdom. Nothing short of that could do the job. (shrink)

This paper treats of Husserl’s phenomenology of happiness or eudaimonia in five parts. In the first part, we argue that phenomenology of happiness is an important albeit relatively neglected area of research, and we show that Husserl engages in it. In the second part, we examine the relationship between phenomenological ethics and virtue ethics. In the third part, we identify and clarify essential aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology of happiness, namely, the nature of the question concerning happiness and the possibility of (...) a phenomenological answer, the power of the will, the role of vocation, the place of obligation, the significance of habituation, the necessity of selfreflection and self-criticism, the importance of sociability and solidarity, the impact of chance and destiny, and the specter of regret. In the fourth part, we establish the inextricable linkage between Husserl’s metaethics and his metaphysics. In the fi ft h part, we provide a provisional exploration of his conception of the connection between happiness and blessedness. We acknowledge that there is an extensive literature on Husserl’s phenomenological ethics, and our study has benefitted greatly from it, but we also suggest that our holistic approach critically clarifies his description of happiness, virtue, and blessedness by fully recognizing that his phenomenological metaethics is embedded in his phenomenological metaphysics. (shrink)

Ethical rationalism has recently dominated the philosophical landscape, but sentimentalist forms of normative ethics (such as the ethics of caring) and of metaethics (such as Blackburn's projectivism and various ideal–observer and response–dependent views) have also been prominent. But none of this has been systematic in the manner of Hume and Hutcheson. Hume based both ethics and metaethics in his notion of sympathy, but the project sketched here focuses rather on the (related) notion of empathy. I argue that empathy is essential (...) to the development of morally required caring about others and also to deontological limits or restrictions on self–concern and other–concern. But empathy also plays a grounding role in moral judgement. Moral approval and disapproval can be non–circularly understood as empathic reflections of the concern or lack of concern that agents show towards other people; and moral utterances can plausibly be seen not as projections, expressions, or descriptions of sentiment but as “objective” and “non–relative” judgements whose reference and content are fixed by sentiments of approval and disapproval. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has steadily been opening up for philosophical study an increasingly wide range of the philosophical literature of antiquity. We no longer think only of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and their pre-Socratic forebears, when someone refers to the views of the ancient philosophers. Julia Annas has been one of the philosophers most closely engaged in the renewed study of Hellenistic philosophy over the past fifteen years, enabling herself and other scholars to acquire the necessary ground-level knowledge of the widely-dispersed (...) texts and the problems of interpretation—both historical and philosophical—that they present. In her new book she takes the next step. She presents to the general philosophical public of today an extended reconstruction of the systems of moral philosophy that were developed and pitted in competition with one another during the period when refinement and professionalism were at their height in Greek philosophy—between the end of the 4th and the middle of the 1st centuries B.C. These include the moral philosophies of Epicurus and his followers, several generations of Stoics, sceptical philosophers both Academic and Pyrrhonian, and the “hybrid” theories put together by Antiochus of Ascalon and other Stoic-influenced philosophers as part of the modernizing revival of Aristotelian ethical thought that took place in the 1st century B.C. She finds significant commonalities among these otherwise very disparate theories, and much of the book is devoted to examining these and showing how the conception of ethics and morality that is common to the ancient theorists compares with and differs from what we are familiar with in modern and contemporary theory. She traces these commonalities back to Aristotle in his ethical treatises, and accordingly includes Aristotle’s theory as one among those to be examined—indeed, in a significant sense as the intellectual father or grandfather of the rest of them. She leaves Plato’s dialogues out of account, and she has nothing to say about ethics and moral philosophy in the revived Platonism that gradually came to dominate philosophical thought in later antiquity. Her book, then, is a book about the structure and content of ancient ethical theory during the Hellenistic period, the period when Greek philosophy was at its high-point in professionalism and sophistication. (shrink)