Socratic Moral Psychology

Arguing against Socratic intellectualism, this book explains why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can lead to error.

Thomas C. Brickhouse (Author), Nicholas D. Smith (Author)

9781107403925, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 January 2012

286 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

"....The primary audience for this book is, consequently, scholars and students invested in Socratic philosophy.... One feature of the present book that scholars will thus eagerly welcome is its deliberate defense of Socratic studies as a viable research program.... SMP includes an appendix by way of supplementing the text-based defense of their decision. The book also offers a sustained discussion of what is perhaps the least developed element of intellectualist interpretations, namely, how it is that, for Socrates, harming another necessarily harms oneself.... thorough explanations of how, given their re-interpretation of Socratic intellectualism, Socrates’ moral psychology is to be distinguished from the moral psychologies of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics.... The volume includes a thorough bibliography, general index, and an index locorum."
--Patrick Mooney, John Carroll University, Philosophy in Review

Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed.

Introduction
Acknowledgements
1. Apology of Socratic studies
2. Motivational intellectualism
3. The 'prudential paradox'
4. Wrongdoing and damage to the soul
5. Educating the appetites and passions
6. Virtue intellectualism
7. Socrates and his intellectual heirs: Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics
Appendix. Is Plato's Gorgias consistent with the other early or Socratic dialogues?
Bibliography of works cited
Index of passages
General index.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA]