Individual And Conflict In Greek Ethics

by White, Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9780199275427
• ISBN10: 0199275424
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-02-10
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

White opposes the long-standing view that ancient Greek ethics is fundamentally different from modern ethical views. He examines the ways in which Greek ethics has been interpreted since the 18th century, and traces the history in Greek ethical thought of the idea of conflict among human aims, in particular the conflict between conformity to ethical standards and one's own happiness.

Author Biography

Nicholas White is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
1. The Idea of Hellenic Harmony	1	(46)
I. Motivations of Philosophical Historiography	1	(2)
II. Historiographical Themes: Modern Fragmentation and Ancient Harmony	3	(13)
III. More Recent Responses among Classicists to the Theme of Hellenic Harmony	16	(4)
IV. Some Philosophers' Responses to Greek Ethics	20	(2)
V. The Kantian Response	22	(5)
VI. Schiller's Reaction	27	(2)
VII. The Hegelian Response	29	(14)
VIII. Nietzsche and his Influence	43	(4)
2. Deliberative Conflict	47	(35)
I. The Kantian and Hegelian Responses Early in the Twentieth Century	47	(7)
II. Moore's Non-Eudaimonist Reading of Plato	54	(1)
III. More Recent Philosophical Views of Greek Ethics	55	(6)
IV. The Importance of Deliberative Conflict: Morality	61	(5)
V. The Importance of Deliberative Conflict: The Ethics of Virtue	66	(3)
VI. The Importance of Deliberative Conflict: Contingency	69	(4)
VII. Aims and Conflicts	73	(9)
3. Imperatives in Greek Ethics	82	(42)
I. The Rejection of Imperativity	82	(8)
II. The Ethics of Duty and the Ethics of Virtue	90	(4)
III. The Nostalgic Flight from Imperativity	94	(1)
IV. Imperatives, Attractives, and Repulsives	95	(5)
V. Uses of Imperativity in Greek Literature	100	(4)
VI. The Alleged 'Transition' to Roman Christianity: Imperativity in Greek Ethics after Aristotle	104	(4)
VII. Imperativity in Aristotle	108	(12)
VIII. Imperativity in Plato	120	(2)
IX. Imperatives in Ethics and their Philosophical Examination	122	(2)
4. The City-State in Greek Ethics	124	(31)
I. The Hegelian Conception of the Polis	124	(6)
II. Some Assumptions of the Hegelian Account	130	(4)
III. Norms Independent of the Polis	134	(9)
IV. The Golden Rule	143	(3)
V. On Some Sources of Confusion about Greek Norms	146	(2)
VI. The Kosmos	148	(7)
5. Individual Good and Deliberative Conflict through the Time of Plato	155	(60)
I. Homogeneity and Variety in Classical Greek Ethics	155	(1)
II. Before Plato's Time	156	(10)
III. Plato's Milieu: Thrasymachus	166	(7)
IV. Plato's Milieu: Socrates	173	(8)
V. Some Platonic Passages outside the Republic	181	(8)
VI. The Republic: Plato's Project	189	(9)
VII. The Republic: The Rulers' Choice	198	(17)
6. Individual Good and Deliberative Conflict in Aristotle	215	(75)
I. The Periods of Greek Ethics	215	(7)
II. Aristotle, the Harmonizing Eudaimonist	222	(4)
III. The Kantian and Hegelian Interpretations of Aristotle	226	(5)
IV. The Need for a Non-Harmonizing Interpretation	231	(7)
V. The Question of Conflict within Ethical Virtue	238	(6)
VI. Theoria	244	(20)
VII. Philia	264	(10)
VIII. Politics, Biology, and Cosmology	274	(6)
IX. Eudaimonism without Harmony	280	(10)
7. Conflict and Individual Good in Hellenistic Ethics	290	(37)
I. The Traditional Picture of Hellenistic Ethics	290	(4)
II. Systematic Monism in Hellenistic Ethics	294	(7)
III. Epicureanism	301	(10)
IV. The Stoics	311	(16)
8. Towards an Understanding of the History of Greek Ethics	327	(20)
I. On Some Ideas about Differences between Ancient and Modern Ethics	327	(3)
II. Greek Eudaimonism	330	(2)
III. Self-Referential, Partly Self-Referential, and Universal Aims	332	(8)
IV. Eudaimonism and Egoism	340	(1)
V. Eudaimonism and Harmony	341	(2)
VI. Greek Ethics: Development and Variety	343	(4)
Bibliography	347	(18)
Index	365