The Development of Ethics is a selective historical and critical
study of moral philosophy in the Socratic tradition, with special
attention to Aristotelian naturalism, its formation, elaboration,
criticism, and defence. It discusses the main topics of moral
philosophy as they have developed historically, including: the
human good, human nature, justice, friendship, and morality; the
methods of moral inquiry; the virtues and their connexions; will,
freedom, and responsibility; reason and emotion; relativism,
subjectivism, and realism; the theological aspect of morality. This
volume examines ancient and medieval philosophy up to the sixteenth
century; Volumes 2 and 3 will continue the story up to Rawls's
Theory of Justice.
The present volume begins with Socrates, the Cyrenaics and Cynics,
and Plato, and then offers a fuller account of Aristotle, stressing
the systematic naturalism of his position. The Stoic position is
compared with the Aristotelian at some length; Epicureans and
Sceptics are discussed more briefly. Chapters on early Christianity
and on Augustine introduce a fuller examination of Aquinas'
revision, elaboration, and defence of Aristotelian naturalism. The
volume closes with an account of some criticisms of the
Aristotelian outlook by Scotus, Ockham, Machiavelli, and some
sixteenth-century Reformers.
The emphasis of the book is not purely descriptive, narrative, or
exegetical, but also philosophical. Irwin discusses the comparative
merits of different views, the difficulties that they raise, and
how some of the difficulties might be resolved. The book tries to
present the leading moral philosophers of the past as participants
in a rational discussion that is still being carried on, and tries
to help the reader to participate in this discussion.
General
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