In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

BOOK REVIEWS 465 Malcolm Schofield and Gisela Striker, eds. The Norms of Nature. Studies in Hellenistic Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Pp. 287. NP. This collection of essays presents some of the best recent work on Hellenistic ethics and amply demonstrates the historical and philosophical significance of the debates that dominated Greek ethics following the death of Aristotle. The quality of individual essays is extremely high, but more unusually, the volume as a whole displays an admirable sense of collaboration and unity of philosophical purpose. It thus provides not only a challenging introduction to central features of Epicurean and Stoic ethics, but also an illuminating perspective on such issues as ethical naturalism, moral realism, and the respective roles played by reason and emotion in moral argument. The volume begins with Julia Annas's brisk discussion of some sceptical challenges to an objective conception of morality. She makes the intriguing suggestion that there are radical differences in the assumptions guiding ancient and modern moral sceptics. Whereas the ultimate aim of ancient scepticism is the rejection of all beliefs, modern moral scepticism, she argues, "is essentially local, a part of a globally unsceptical world view which is likely to be scientifically based" 07). In her view, at the root of modern moral scepticism lies a suspicion that moral values are unreal in comparison with entities subject to scientific analysis. As it stands, however, her contrast between ancient and modern scepticism is a bit too neat. To be sure, many contemporary moral sceptics, like Mackie, have denied moral values any objective status because they think morality lacks the credentials favored by natural scientists. Notletheless, even if Annas is right about the prevalence of this contemporary form of moral scepticism, it is unclear why this is the only path open to the modern sceptic. Surely, one's scepticism about morality need not vary directly with one's confidence about science, i.e., one's scepticism about moral values may be arrived at independently of any supposed contrast between morality and the natural sciences. Similarly, for those who doubt that science can offer an objective, neutral standpoint from which to view reality, the global scepticism practiced in antiquity still remains a lively option. Papers by Engberg-Pedersen, Striker, and Irwin examine the Stoics' account of the supreme good and attempt to assess the relation of consequentialist and deontological elements in their theory. For the Stoics, the ultimate goal of life is happiness which, in turn, consists wholly of virtue. One fairly common complaint against them, however, has been that they fail to defend this doctrine with sufficient care. For example, what is one to make of their claim that neither our virtue nor our happiness is in any way tied to the successful achievement of our objectives? Even if one grants that in the case of virtue, we may fail to achieve our objectives and yet remain virtuous, the Stoics' espousal of a similar claim about happiness seems far less plausible. Here as elsewhere, Stoic attempts to identify virtue with happiness may seem misguided. One great merit of these papers, however, is that they take the Stoics' project seriously and show how the tensions in their moral theory are of historical and philosophical interest. The volume's discussion of the Stoics is nicely rounded off by Michael Frede, who gives a sympathetic and persuasive account of their claim that affections of the soul (pathe) are nothing but mistaken judgments. 466 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:3 JULY a989 Epicurus receives similarly generous treatment, with Hossenfelder and Brunschwig taking up problems in his account of pleasure. Epicurean hedonism is sometimes viewed as a fairly straightforward Benthamite theory, with the maximization of pleasure as its chief goal. However, such a view fails to explain why, for instance, Epicurus would insist that ataraxia, or tranquility, is the highest pleasure. No doubt, only someone with a competing theory of pleasure or happiness could view tranquility as the ultimate pleasure . Hossenfelder argues that Epicurus' account must be viewed in the wider context of Greek eudaimonism. Only when we recognize that Epicurus thinks pleasure must satisfy certain formal conditions (e.g., it must be complete, self-sufficient, and...

pdf

Share