Plato''s Moral Realism

Plato's moral realism rests on the Idea of the Good, the unhypothetical first principle of all. It is this, as Plato says, that makes just things useful and beneficial. That Plato makes the first principle of all the Idea of the Good sets his approach apart from that of virtually every other philosopher. This fact has been occluded by later Christian Platonists who tried to identify the Good with the God of scripture. But for Plato, theology, though important, is subordinate to metaphysics. For this reason, ethics is independent of theology and attached to metaphysics. This book challenges many contemporary accounts of Plato's ethics that start with the so-called Socratic paradoxes and attempt to construct a psychology of action or moral psychology that makes these paradoxes defensible. Rather, Lloyd Gerson argues that Plato at least never thought that moral realism was defensible outside of a metaphysical framework.

List of contents

1. Introduction: Platonism and moral realism; 2. The idea of the good; 3. Virtue, knowledge and the good; 4. Socratic vs. platonic ethics; 5. Moral responsibility; 6. Philebus and Statesman; 7. Morality, religion, and politics; 8. Concluding remarks.

About the author

LLOYD P. GERSON is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author and co-author of twenty-five books on ancient philosophy, including monographs, edited volumes, and translations, and has published around two-hundred and fifty articles and reviews.

Product details

• Authors: Lloyd P Gerson, Lloyd P. Gerson, Lloyd P. (University of Toronto) Gerson
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.05.2023
• EAN: 9781009329989
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0932998-9
• No. of pages: 266
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, Ancient Greece, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, Ethics & moral philosophy, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Ethics and moral philosophy, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500, BCE to c 500 CE, c 500 BCE to c 1BCE