PHIL 4450 Ancient Moral Philosophy

This course focuses on ancient moral philosophy, centered on questions about ethics and the good life that occupied Greek-speaking philosophers in the ancient Mediterranean. We will focus primarily on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and the major Hellenistic schools. Occasionally, we will compare their views with ethical theories from other traditions around the world. Possible topics and questions include: whether virtue is some kind of knowledge, akrasia, what the nature of the good is, the unity or separability of virtues, moral luck, what it means to be a good person, the relationship between virtue and happiness, and the nature of particular virtues.