{"title":"Nietzsche","authors":"T. Irwin","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0019","url":null,"abstract":"Nietzsche questions the claim—accepted by sentimentalists, rationalists, and Kant—that we have good reasons for accepting moral principles and acting on them. We can see why this claim is open to question if we consider the origins of our moral beliefs and attitudes. They arise from the resentment of inferior people who feel humiliated by the achievements of others. The effect of general observance of moral principles can be seen in the modern democratic spirit, which restrains and penalizes the development of any capacities and talents that tend to make some people superior to others. Belief in the equal moral value of everyone is a consolation for inferior people. When we recognize this psychological basis for our moral outlook, we will be less inclined to suppose that it has any special authority.","PeriodicalId":331128,"journal":{"name":"Ethics Through History","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130567952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Plato","authors":"T. Irwin","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Plato rejects Socrates’ belief that knowledge of the good is sufficient for being virtuous; he argues that human souls have a non-rational part (emotions, impulses), and that the virtues require not only knowledge, but also the correct training of the non-rational part. He rejects Socrates’ belief that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Instead he argues that the virtuous person is always happier than anyone else. He defends this view in the most difficult case, the other-regarding virtue of justice. Plato recognizes that one may plausibly argue that my justice is good for other people, but harmful to me. None the less he rejects this argument. The appropriate relation between the rational and the non-rational parts of the soul promotes both the agent’s good and the good of others; that is why the just person is happier than anyone else. Those who suppose that the just person may be worse off by being just do not understand the character of the human good.","PeriodicalId":331128,"journal":{"name":"Ethics Through History","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126596021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aquinas","authors":"T. Irwin","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Aquinas develops Aristotelian themes as a foundation for his account of the Christian virtues. The will is both rational, being directed towards the ultimate good, and free, being determined by practical reason about what contributes to the ultimate good. Virtue is the good use of free will; it requires both the appropriate training of the passions (the non-rational part of the soul) and the correct practical reason. Practical reason finds the first principles of the natural law (the rational principles that are suitable for human nature), and the action-guiding rules that specify the implications of the natural law for human beings with a social nature, and for human society. The virtues, embodying the natural law, guide us towards the good that is proper to human beings. They do not guide us all the way, because we are subject to the influence of the sins that turn us away from God. Divine grace moves our free will to overcome the effects of these sins, and to form the Christian virtues that lead us towards the complete good.","PeriodicalId":331128,"journal":{"name":"Ethics Through History","volume":"16 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113956968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Stoics","authors":"T. Irwin","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"The Stoics argue for two apparently conflicting claims: (1) Virtue is sufficient for happiness, because it is the whole of happiness. Hence Plato and Aristotle are wrong. (2) Goods apart from virtue (as Plato and Aristotle conceive them)—health, wealth, good fortune—are preferred indifferents; they deserve rational concern even though they are not goods and contribute nothing to happiness. Hence the Cynics are wrong. The human soul has no non-rational desires; passions are not non-rational conditions, but are simply false beliefs that different sorts of preferred and non-preferred indifferents are really good and evil. Reason controls not only human life, but the providential ordering of the cosmos as a whole. This providential ordering does not undermine human freedom and responsibility. Contrary to Epicurus’ views, predetermination of our actions still allows us to act freely and to be responsible for our actions.","PeriodicalId":331128,"journal":{"name":"Ethics Through History","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115005183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scepticism","authors":"Terence Irwin","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Sceptics maintain that they cannot find any rational resolution of the apparent conflicts among different people’s views on ethics (among other things), and that their inability causes them to suspend judgment. In the face of variation among ethical beliefs between different people and different societies they recognize no rational grounds for forming any ethical beliefs. In drawing this conclusion from ethical variation the Sceptics disagree with Aristotle’s argument to show that variation does not undermine ethical beliefs. They claim to live without ethical beliefs, and indeed claim to achieve happiness this way, identifying happiness with the tranquillity that results from freedom from the anxiety that disturbs anyone who tries to form rational beliefs. Opponents of the Sceptics argue that life without beliefs leaves the Sceptics incapable of the sort of action that constitutes a tolerable human life.","PeriodicalId":331128,"journal":{"name":"Ethics Through History","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123911635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aristotle","authors":"T. Irwin","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199603701.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Aristotle agrees with Plato that virtue requires the cooperation of the rational and the non-rational parts of the soul, and that the virtuous person is always better off than the non-virtuous, even though virtue alone is not sufficient for happiness. To strengthen Plato’s argument for this claim, he offers a more detailed account of the nature of happiness, and of the relation between virtue and happiness. Since happiness is the supreme human good, it should be identified with rational activity in accordance with virtue in a complete life, in which external circumstances are favourable. A virtue of character is the appropriate agreement between the rational and the non-rational parts of the soul, aiming at fine action (i.e., action that promotes the common good). This requirement of appropriate agreement distinguishes virtue from continence (mere control of the rational over the non-rational part). To show that a life of virtue, so defined, promotes the agent’s happiness, Aristotle argues that one’s own happiness requires the right kind of friendship with others, in which one aims at the good of others for their own sake.","PeriodicalId":331128,"journal":{"name":"Ethics Through History","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131174626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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