Plato's Moral Realism

Demonstrates that Plato's ethics rests upon a metaphysical foundation, the Idea of the Good, the first principle of all.

Lloyd P. Gerson (Author)

9781009329989, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 August 2023

266 pages
28 x 19 x 2.2 cm, 0.62 kg

Plato's moral realism rests on the Idea of the Good, the unhypothetical first principle of all. It is this, as Plato says, that makes just things useful and beneficial. That Plato makes the first principle of all the Idea of the Good sets his approach apart from that of virtually every other philosopher. This fact has been occluded by later Christian Platonists who tried to identify the Good with the God of scripture. But for Plato, theology, though important, is subordinate to metaphysics. For this reason, ethics is independent of theology and attached to metaphysics. This book challenges many contemporary accounts of Plato's ethics that start with the so-called Socratic paradoxes and attempt to construct a psychology of action or moral psychology that makes these paradoxes defensible. Rather, Lloyd Gerson argues that Plato at least never thought that moral realism was defensible outside of a metaphysical framework.

1. Introduction: Platonism and moral realism
2. The idea of the good
3. Virtue, knowledge and the good
4. Socratic vs. platonic ethics
5. Moral responsibility
6. Philebus and Statesman
7. Morality, religion, and politics
8. Concluding remarks.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]