Philosophy: Ancient: Ethics

This book examines and expounds Plato's answer to the normative question, "How ought we to live?" It discusses Plato's conception of the virtues; his views about the connection between the virtues and happiness; and the account of reason, desire, and motivation that underlies his arguments about the virtues.

Introduction -- The background -- Socratic method and moral theory -- The Protagoras: a hedonist defence of Socratic ethics -- The Gorgias: problems in Socratic ethics -- The middle dialogues: criticisms of Socratic ethics -- The Republic: Plato's new theory -- Criticisms of Plato.

One of this century's most important philosophers here focuses on Plato's PROTAGORAS, PHAEDO, REPUBLIC, and PHILEBUS and on Aristotle's three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of good.

This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This edition, first published in 2001, features a preface by Martha Nussbaum.
Contents: ch. 1. Luck and ethics -- pt. 1. Tragedy : fragility and ambition -- ch. 2. Aeschylus and practical conflict -- ch. 3. Sophocles' Antigone : conflict, vision, and simplification -- pt. 2. Plato : goodness without fragility? -- ch. 4. The Protagoras : a science of practical reasoning -- Interlude 1 : Plato's anti-tragic theater -- ch. 5. The Republic : true value and the standpoint of perfection -- ch. 6. The speech of Alcibiades : a reading of the Symposium -- ch. 7. 'This story isn't true' : madness, reason, and recantation in the Phaedrus -- pt. 3. Aristotle : the fragility of the good human life -- ch. 8. Saving Aristotle's appearances -- ch. 9. Rational animals and the explanation of action -- ch. 10. Non-scientific deliberation -- ch. 11. The vulnerability of the good human life : activity and disaster -- ch. 12. The vulnerability of the good human life : relational goods -- Appendix to part 3 : human and divine -- Interlude 2 : luck and the tragic emotions -- Epilogue : tragedy -- ch. 13. The betrayal of convention : a reading of Euripides' Hecuba.

This examination of the development of virtue ethics in the early stages of western civilization deals with a wide range of philosophers and schools of philosophy - from Socrates and the Stoics to Plato, Aristotle, and the Epicureans, among others. This introduction examines those human attributes that we have come to know as the stuff of virtue: desire, happiness, the good, character, the role of pride, prudence, and wisdom, and links them to more current or modern conceptions and controversies.

Shows that Plato's middle dialogues develop and extend, rather than reject, philosophical positions taken in the early dialogues.
Contents: 1. Craft of Ruling in Republic I and Gorgias -- 2. The Craft Analogy in the Early Dialogues and The Craft of Justice in Republic IV -- 3. The Craft of Justice and Imitation in the Republic -- 4. Imitation and Inspiration in the Republic and the Symposium.

Julia Annas here offers a fundamental reexamination of Plato's ethical thought by investigating the Middle Platonist perspective, which emerged at the end of Plato's own school, the Academy.