The Norms of Nature
Studies in Hellenistic Ethics

This volume is devoted to the ethics of the Hellenistic schools of philosophy.

Malcolm Schofield (Edited by), Gisela Striker (Edited by)

9780521039888, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 August 2007

300 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.447 kg

Can moral philosophy alter our moral beliefs or our emotions? Does moral scepticism mean making up our own values, or does it leave us without moral commitments at all? Is it possible to find a basis for ethics in human nature? These are some of the main questions explored in this volume, which is devoted to the ethics of the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. Some of the leading scholars in the field have here taken a look at the bases of the Stoics' and Epicureans' thinking about what the Greeks took to be the central questions of philosophy. Their essays, which originated in a conference held at Bad Homburg in 1983, the third in a series of conferences on Hellenistic philosophy, propose important interpretations of the texts, and pose some fascinating problems about the different roles of argument and reason in ancient and modern moral philosophy. This book will be of interest to moral philosophers and to scholars of Greek philosophy too.

Acknowledgements
Preface Günther Patzig
Part I. Argument, Belief and Emotion: 1. Doing without objective values: ancient and modern strategies Julia Annas
2. Therapeutic arguments: Epicurus and Aristotle Martha Nussbaum
3. Nothing to us? David Furley
4. The Stoic doctrine of the affections of the soul Michael Frede
Part II. Ethical Foundations and the summum bonum: 5. The cradle argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism Jacques Brunschwig
6. Discovering the good: oikei?sis and kath?konta in Stoic ethics Troels Engberg-Pedersen
7. Antipater, or the art of living Gisela Striker
8. Stoic and Aristotelian conceptions of happiness T. H. Irwin
9. Epicurus - hedonist malgré lui Malte Hossenfelder
Bibliography
Index of passages
Glossary of Greek and Latin terms
General index.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA]