Ethics and the Nature of Action - Ph.D. Thesis 2011

Rhizai. A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science, 2009

2015

Let me begin with a bit of autobiography. I am, by profession, a teacher of philosophy. Year in and year out, for the last fifteen or twenty years, I have taught a large undergraduate course on contemporary moral issues issues like abortion, euthanasia, reverse discrimination, genetic engineering, and animal rights. Over the years, I have written a handful of papers on some of these topics. However, most of my research and writing has been in a very different domain. It has been concerned with problems in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology. During the last decade, much of my work has been on the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, and I have spent a great deal of time thinking and writing about the nature of mental representation.

Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development,, 2020

The centre of Plato's ethical system is located in his attempt to find objective answers to some moral fundamental questions like why it is necessary for anyone to be morally virtuous, the reliable knowledge on which moral virtue should be based, the merits of a just life as against unjust life, the real meaning of justice and how man can be morally just and live a happy life. He used various moral dialogues to inquire and determine the nature of virtues and their roles in the attainment of a just and happy. He discovered that a genuine just and happy man is an enlightened and rational moral agent that has the absolute degree of harmony in his soul through constant practice of virtuous activities. The skills that such a man attained from the practice of virtues disposed him to have ardent desire for universal and immutable form of order and justice. A man or woman that has this requisite characteristics is identified by Plato as philosopher king that has a stable system of justice and balanced moral principles as foundations for his or her moral conduct. Anyone with such personality becomes a moral agent and pacesetter that can successfully govern the affairs of his life and that of the society.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 2015

Interchange: A Quarterly Review of Education , 2019

While the reality of human existence may appear to be an unfair and unreasonable arena, we humans are nevertheless called on to live fairly, justly, and morally. If a just and moral action and life includes elements of self-restraint, of waiving of what would seem to be in one’s interests, a question may very reasonably be asked regarding the motivation (not in terms of the general social realm, i.e. fear of social punishment or interest in gaining a social advantage) for acting and living justly and morally in such an unfair and unreasonable reality. From a moral education point of view, it may seem that, as teachers and parents, we have every reason, and even a duty and responsibility, to advise our students and children (face-to-face and behind closed doors—far from the general social realm) that, if they have an option to increase their relative advantage without risk to themselves or of being caught (let alone risking themselves for a big moral idea), they should do so without hesitation. Would you advise your children, students or yourself otherwise? If so, why? What is the rationale for moral education in our prima facie unfair and unreasonable world? After showing the limitations of another recently proposed answer to the question, one based on Meillassoux’s ethic of immortality, I suggest an alternative based on a reading of Plato’s Republic. In my reading I focus on Plato’s idea of the soul and suggest an interpretation of the allegory of the cave.

The Classical Review, 2013

Moral Education in the 21st Century, ed. Douglas W. Yacek, Mark E. Jonas, and Kevin H. Gary, 2023

In this essay, I offer some of the reasons to think that Plato has a substantial contribution to make to contemporary thinking about moral education. To allow a sense of how wide the range of reasons is, I start by listing ten miscellaneous reasons that one can compellingly offer and some of which scholars *have* offered. Then I present my preferred reason, which involves a way of approaching Plato that is new and unorthodox. When you approach Plato this way, you don't try to interpret him correctly. Instead, you use his writings simply as a tool for theorizing, and what you theorize about is how best to carry out the Socratic project of leading other people to self-examination.

Platonic moral philosophy is fundamentally established on virtue-eudaemonistic idea of Ethics in which happiness is identified as the ultimate moral desire and objective end of human life. This onerous end is attainable through the cultivation of cardinal virtues for honourable characters that are inherent and conceivable in human nature. Plato demonstrated that every creature, including man, is naturally endowed with the teleological principles already established in the natural law to obediently navigate accordingly toward harmonious and objective end. He articulated arguments to justify that human beings have the capacity to know to ethical principles and cardinal virtues to cultivate habitual characters inherent in human nature for the attainment of moral happiness and sustenance of the harmony in the universe, as well as with the divine. The aim of this paper is to examine the basic terms that Plato used to demonstrate how human beings can attain a moral happiness by which their characters can sustain the internal harmony that characterised their human nature and external harmony evident in the universe. A thorough evaluation of Plato's moral philosophy shows that his moral foundation is too rationalistic and demonised human emotions. Therefore, his moral principles is more acceptable among the angels or spirits than human beings that is composed of rational and emotional elements and none is subservient to the other in the attainment of moral end of human life.

This is a study of Plato's moral psychology in the Republic as a response to Thrasymachus. I begin (§ 1) by interpreting the contest between Socrates and Thrasymachus as a capsule of the major points of contention between Plato and the sophists, regarding not only moral language but also regarding mind and soul. Then, I explore the Republic's arguments for the inherent normative dimensions of both rule (§ 2) and speech (§ 3), with an eye to connecting these arguments to the initial challenge of Thrasymachus. Finally (§ 4), I offer a brief Platonic rejoinder to two axioms of modern moral philosophy: (a) the strict contrast between reason and desire, and (b) the incompatibility of stance-dependence and normative realism.