Ethics and the Humanities: Some Lessons of Historical Experience

This essay discusses the difficulty of teaching ethics through literature based on the models for such instruction provided by the Hellenistic and late ancient periods. Some reasons are given for the contemporary lack of confidence in the teaching of ethics by means of the humanities, in particular, for the abandonment of historical disciplines in ethical debates. The educational method used in teaching ethics in the Graeco-Roman world is briefly outlined, after which a comparison is made between the attitude toward reading and ethics in Seneca and Augustine. The essay ends with reflections on the differences between ancient and modern instruction in ethics through reading: these include the lack of a secular contemplative tradition in literary studies and the implicit assumption that the reader is not ethically responsible for what is read.