Field Statement: Jurisprudence (1988)

This essay examines connections between two related clusters of issues. The first concerns fundamental matters of moral psychology and moral epistemology as treated by Aristotle and Maimonides. It explicates crucial differences in their conceptions of self-determination, virtue, the plasticity of character, and moral knowledge. The second cluster of issues concerns natural law. Are there grounds for regarding Maimonides' understanding of Judaism as involving elements of natural law? How are we to understand the relationship between natural law and reasons for the commandments? What would be the merits of Judaism's having a natural law dimension, and how should that dimension be characterized? I suggest respects in which Maimonidean moral thought (and Jewish moral thought more generally) indicates an approach to underwriting the objective validity and universal applicability of moral thought without involving natural law elements. This reconnects the question of natural law with issues of moral psychology and epistemology in the earlier portions of the essay.

History of European Ideas, 2010

researchgate.net

Russian Studies in Philosophy

The 'sophists' were viewed with considerable suspicion and hostility by more conservative members of society, who feared that the verbal techniques and logical pyrotechnics they taught undermined traditional ethical values, and thus 'corrupted' the youth. 5 Among his contemporaries, Socrates was generally perceived to be just another sophist. In fact, he was eventually charged with corrupting the youth, tried and convicted by an Athenian jury, then executed. Plato goes to great lengths in his dialogues to defend Socrates against the charge of corruption, and to distinguish Socrates' brand of inquiry and argumentation, which he labels 'philosophy', from those of the other so-called sophists. 6 Indeed it is largely due to Plato's success in this endeavour that the term 'sophist' came to have pejorative connotations, reflected in the English word, 'sophistical'. 7 The sophists, Socrates, and the poetic tradition thus provide the background and context for Plato's ethical writings. However, even if we begin our study of ancient ethics with Plato, we will not be neglecting that context, because the context is itself preserved and set up for examination in Plato's dialogues. The poets are regularly quoted and discussed, the major sophists and teachers of rhetoric, along with their devotees, appear as characters, and Socrates is the dominant speaker in all but a few of the dialogues. Plato portrays his teacher as interrogating sophists and orators, along with well-known Athenian public figures from the fifth century. 8 These dialogues are not accurate reports of conversations between Socrates and the characters depicted. Rather, they are dramatic creations in which Plato uses the figure of Socrates to work through the ethical issues of the day. Indeed, in certain cases it is historically impossible or highly improbable for such conversations to have taken place. 9 The extent to which the views articulated by Plato's Socrates are faithful to the philosophy of the historical Socrates is another matter, and a disputed one. There is little in the way of corroborating evidence, since Socrates himself wrote nothing, and what little remains of the 'Socratic dialogues' written by others shows considerable variation in the doctrines and personality attributed to Socrates. 11 The Socratic dialogues of Plato, Aeschines, and Antisthenes and the teachings of the Socratic Aristippus inspired such different ethical traditions that, in later Greek philosophy, Socrates is revered as a figurehead by schools that espouse rival doctrines. 12 Regardless of their historical accuracy, however, Plato's dialogues were influential in shaping much of that later conception of Socrates, so we have good reason and no better alternative than to begin our study with Plato.

Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics_ A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century (1997, Routledge)

Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2013

We are inundated with Companions, Handbooks, and Encyclopedias of every shape, format, and range of content, but not, alas, of every size. Perhaps because of the nature of the beast, none is less than massive, and this volume is no exception, at 850 pages long. There is, of course, much worth reading in this new addition to the growing corpus. There are many excellent and illuminating pieces by experts in their field. It is no criticism of their work to ask, however, what the purpose of such books, as well as of this particular book, is. The general question is raised by the accessibility ofso much useful material on the internet; in particular, the comprehensive and frequently updated Stanford Encyclopedia. Why pay good money for a bulky volume that will take up rather a lot of shelf space when you can surf the Internet for free? Maybe such books are intended primarily to be purchased by libraries. To what purpose? Are professors going to trek to the library to consult it? Are they going to tell their students to do so? No doubt for any given ethics course there will be one or two individual articles that might be relevant, but is it likely that students will make the effort to use the library in this way when so much, and of such high quality, is available online? Things would be considerably improved if Routledge were to make this volume available as an e-book, or online, as they have with their truly comprehensive online Encyclopedia. (Though 1 notice that Amazon offer a Kindle version at less than the paperback price-quite a bargain.) The more specific question is raised by its scope. The editor describes it, quite correctly, as 'comprehensive'. It contains 68 chapters, divided into six sections: history; meta-ethics, impact of social sciences on ethics; ethical theories; moral concepts; applied ethics. Comprehensiveness brings in its train, however, some risks and disadvantages. Chapters have to be kept reasonably short, and though many writers do an excellent Job in clearly conveying a lot of information in a short space, sometimes material is too brief or perfunctory to be helpful, or even comprehensible. This is especially true of chapters that attempt to cover whole movements, or periods of thought. Take, for example, the two pieces on Natural Law Theory, in its early modem and contemporary garbs. Both authors are immensely knowledgeable in their fields, but both felt constrained to cover too much territory in their small compass. The eleven page entry on early modern versions of Natural Law theory discussed Grotius, Hobbes, Spinoza, Cumberland, Locke, Pufendorf, Leibniz, Wolff, and a number of enlightenment thinkers. In cases like this, the only person who can really understand the summary article is one who is already expert in the area. But she is unlikely to have much use for so skeletal an oudine of her area of expertise. For wider audiences, such as the students of philosophy for whom this collection is primarily intended, less comprehensiveness and more depth would have been preferable. The intelligibility of these chapters is not helped by the fact that there is no entry on Aquinas. To discuss natural law theory without discussion of Aquinas is like staging Hamlet without the prince. (Skorupski

2018

This essay examines connections between two related clusters of issues. The first concerns fundamental matters of moral psychology and moral epistemology as treated by Aristotle and Maimonides. It explicates crucial differences in their conceptions of self-determination, virtue, the plasticity of character, and moral knowledge. The sec-ond cluster of issues concerns natural law. Are there grounds for regarding Maimonides' understanding of Judaism as involving elements of natural law? How are we to under-stand the relationship between natural law and reasons for the commandments? What would be the merits of Judaism's having a natural law dimension, and how should that dimension be characterized? I suggest respects in which Maimonidean moral thought (and Jewish moral thought more generally) indicates an approach to underwriting the objective validity and universal applicability of moral thought without involving natural law elements. This reconnects the question of natural law...