- [UNTITLED]
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- Homeric Ethics
- Plato's Ethics
- Aristotle's Ethics
- Epicurus: Freedom, Death, and Hedonism
- Cynicism and Stoicism
- Ancient Scepticism
- Platonic Ethics in Later Antiquity
- Thomism
- The Franciscans
- Later Christian Ethics
- Nature, Law, and Natural Law
- Seventeenth-Century Moral Philosophy: Self-Help, Self-Knowledge, and the Devil's Mountain
- Rousseau and Ethics
- Utilitarianism: Bentham and Rashdall
- Rationalism
- Rational Intuitionism
- Moral Sense and Sentimentalism
- Butler's Ethics
- Hume's Place in the History of Ethics
- Adam Smith
- Kant's Moral Philosophy
- Kantian Ethics
- Post-Kantianism
- Hegel and Marx
- J. S. Mill
- Sidgwick
- British Idealist Ethics
- Ethics in the Analytic Tradition
- Free Will
- Emotion and the Emotions
- Happiness, Suffering, and Death
- Autonomy
- Egoism, Partiality, and Impartiality
- Conscience, Guilt, and Shame
- Moral Psychology and Virtue
- Justice, Equality, and Rights
- Styles of Moral Relativism: a Critical Family Tree
- Moral Metaphysics
- Constructing Practical Ethics
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter begins with an Epicurean account of freedom of choice, which illustrates some of the larger contours of Plato's ethical aims in the context of his materialism. It also serves as a salient point of departure for gauging the overall plausibility of his general project of ‘naturalizing reason’, to use a contemporary slogan Epicurus might well have endorsed. The discussions then turn to Epicurus's claims about death and pleasure.
Keywords: Epicurus, freedom of choice, ethics, materialism, death, pleasure
Phillip Mitsis is A. S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization at New York University and Academic Director of the American Institute of Verdi Studies. He has published papers on Greek epic and tragedy, and on the history of ancient and early modern philosophy. His writings on Epicurus include The Pleasures of Invulnerability: Epicurus’ Ethical Theory (1988).
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- [UNTITLED]
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- Homeric Ethics
- Plato's Ethics
- Aristotle's Ethics
- Epicurus: Freedom, Death, and Hedonism
- Cynicism and Stoicism
- Ancient Scepticism
- Platonic Ethics in Later Antiquity
- Thomism
- The Franciscans
- Later Christian Ethics
- Nature, Law, and Natural Law
- Seventeenth-Century Moral Philosophy: Self-Help, Self-Knowledge, and the Devil's Mountain
- Rousseau and Ethics
- Utilitarianism: Bentham and Rashdall
- Rationalism
- Rational Intuitionism
- Moral Sense and Sentimentalism
- Butler's Ethics
- Hume's Place in the History of Ethics
- Adam Smith
- Kant's Moral Philosophy
- Kantian Ethics
- Post-Kantianism
- Hegel and Marx
- J. S. Mill
- Sidgwick
- British Idealist Ethics
- Ethics in the Analytic Tradition
- Free Will
- Emotion and the Emotions
- Happiness, Suffering, and Death
- Autonomy
- Egoism, Partiality, and Impartiality
- Conscience, Guilt, and Shame
- Moral Psychology and Virtue
- Justice, Equality, and Rights
- Styles of Moral Relativism: a Critical Family Tree
- Moral Metaphysics
- Constructing Practical Ethics
- Index
