Plato on Virtue and the Law

Description

Ancient philosophy is no longer an isolated discipline. Recent years have seen the development of a dialogue between ancient and contemporary philosophers writing on central issues in moral and political philosophy. The renewed interest in character and virtue as ethical concepts is one such issue, yet Plato's contribution has been largely neglected in contemporary virtue ethics. In Plato on Virtue and the Law, Sandrine Berges seeks to address this gap in the literature by exploring the contribution that virtue ethics make to the understanding of laws alongside the interesting and plausible insights into current philosophical concerns evident in Plato's dialogues. The book argues that a distinctive virtue theory of law is clearly presented in Plato's political dialogues. Through a new reading of the Crito, Menexenus, Gorgias, Republic, Statesman and Laws, Berges shows how Plato proposes several ways in which we can understand the law from the perspective of virtue ethics.

Sandrine Berges is Professor of Philosophy at Bilkent University, Turkey. She is the author of The Routledge Guidebook to Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (2013) and co-editor of The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft (2018), Women Philosophers on Autonomy (2018). She is the translator of Sophie de Grouchy's Letters on Sympathy (2019).

"Berges' project in this book is to develop a virtue theory of the law by way of a close examination of six of Plato's dialogues. This is an intriguing and fruitful line of inquiry, at the intersection of virtue ethics, ancient philosophy, and the philosophy of law ... No existing study covers the ground that she covers in this book, and her treatment is thorough, scholarly, and well-informed." - Tim Chappell, The Open University, UK "This is a marvelous book that undertakes the novel but vital project of examining Plato's dialogues for the insights they provide into virtue ethics and especially the implications of virtue ethics for political philosophy. Anyone interested in Plato, contemporary virtue ethics or contemporary political philosophy will benefit from reading it." - Professor Chris Bobonich, Stanford University, USA