Reason and emotion : essays on ancient moral psychology and ethical theory / John M. Cooper.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cooper, John M. (John Madison), 1939-2022, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato--Ethics.

Plato.

Aristotle--Ethics.

Aristotle.

Ethics, Ancient.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (608 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1999]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

This book brings together twenty-three distinctive and influential essays on ancient moral philosophy--including several published here for the first time--by the distinguished philosopher and classical scholar John Cooper. The volume gives a systematic account of many of the most important issues and texts in ancient moral psychology and ethical theory, providing a unified and illuminating way of reflecting on the fields as they developed from Socrates and Plato through Aristotle to Epicurus and the Stoic philosophers Chrysippus and Posidonius, and beyond. For the ancient philosophers, Cooper shows here, morality was "good character" and what that entailed: good judgment, sensitivity, openness, reflectiveness, and a secure and correct sense of who one was and how one stood in relation to others and the surrounding world. Ethical theory was about the best way to be rather than any principles for what to do in particular circumstances or in relation to recurrent temptations. Moral psychology was the study of the psychological conditions required for good character--the sorts of desires, the attitudes to self and others, the states of mind and feeling, the kinds of knowledge and insight. Together these papers illustrate brilliantly how, by studying the arguments of the Greek philosophers in their diverse theories about the best human life and its psychological underpinnings, we can expand our own moral understanding and imagination and enrich our own moral thought. The collection will be crucial reading for anyone interested in classical philosophy and what it can contribute to reflection on contemporary questions about ethics and human life.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Editorial Note

Part One. Socrates and Plato

1. Notes on Xenophon's Socrates

2. Socrates and Plato in Plato's Gorgias

3. The Unity of Virtue

4. Plato's Theory of Human Motivation

5. The Psychology of Justice in Plato

6. Plato's Theory of Human Good in the Philebus

7. Plato's Statesman and Politics

Part Two. Aristotle

8. The Magna Moralia and Aristotle's Moral Philosophy

9. Contemplation and Happiness: A Reconsideration

10. Some Remarks on Aristotle's Moral Psychology

11. Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value

12. Aristotle on the Authority of "Appearances5

13. Aristotle on the Goods of Fortune

14. Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship

15. Friendship and the Good in Aristotle

16. Political Animals and Civic Friendship

17. Justice and Rights in Aristotle's Politics

18. Ethical-Political Theory in Aristotle's Rhetoric

19. An Aristotelian Theory of the Emotions

Part Three. Hellenistic Philosophy

20. Eudaimonism, the Appeal to Nature, and "Moral Duty55 in Stoicism

21. Posidonius on Emotions

22. Pleasure and Desire in Epicurus

23. Greek Philosophers on Euthanasia and Suicide

Bibliography Of Works Cited

Index Of Passages

General Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [543]-552) and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691058757

069105875X

OCLC:

1350571113