Antisthenes’ Ethics

Abstract

“Antisthenes’ Ethics” focuses on the treatment of virtue we can recover from the remains of Antisthenes’ own writings, in contrast to doxographic reports. Antisthenes locates virtue in the minds of individual sages, such as fictional characters created by Homer and of his own devising. He appears to associate particular characters with particular virtues, rather than considering them perfect instantiations of simple virtue, and this is consistent with his realism. He requires knowledge or intelligence as both the fabric of virtue and the instrument of its acquisition and exercise. He promotes freedom of individual humans from the constraint of others as both an ethical goal and as a precondition for pursuit of proper virtue.