The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics

Description

The field of ancient Greek ethics is increasingly emerging as a major branch of philosophical enquiry, and students and scholars of ancient philosophy will find this Companion to be a rich and invaluable guide to the themes and movements which characterised the discipline from the Pre-Socratics to the Neo-Platonists. Several chapters are dedicated to the central figures of Plato and Aristotle, and others explore the ethical thought of the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics, and Plotinus. Further chapters examine important themes that cut across these schools, including virtue and happiness, friendship, elitism, impartiality, and the relationship between ancient eudaimonism and modern morality. Written by leading scholars and drawing on cutting-edge research to illuminate the questions of ancient ethics, the book will provide students and specialists with an indispensable critical overview of the full range of ancient Greek ethics.

Christopher Bobonich is C. I. Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, California, and has published extensively on Plato and Aristotle. He is the author of Plato's Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics (2002), co-editor of Akrasia in Greek Philosophy: From Socrates to Plotinus (2007), and editor of Plato's 'Laws': A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2010).

'This is a rich and stimulating collection covering many central aspects of ancient ethics and, at its best, connecting ancient themes with modern preoccupations in a thought-provoking, non-dogmatic way. It widens the usual range of figures and topics covered, admirably well for a book of this size. Specialists and novices alike are in good hands with this Companion.' Brad Inwood, Notre Dame Philosophical Review