Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
Dorota M. Dutsch
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
Christian Woman

The Epilogue turns briefly to Byzantine reception of Pythagorean women in five short witty letters composed in the persona of Theano. Theophylact Simocatta’s Theano to Eurydice is compared to four anonymous notes “by Theano”: (yet another) To Eurydice, To Timonides, To Eucleides, and To Rhodope, preserved in a one manuscript only, along with explicitly Christian texts. All five notes present Theano as an exemplar of ancient ethics and debate whether or not ancient morals are compatible with Christian values. While Theophylact’s To Eurydice and the anonymous To Timonides endow Theano with virtues that mirror Christian ideals, others present her as a foil to the model of a Christian woman and offer a satirical response to the earlier paraenetic letters. These notes, which evoke the pagan woman philosopher playfully, at times maliciously, draw attention both to some ethical shortcomings of the paraenetic letters and to common pitfalls of Pythagorean interpretation.

“Wi, se kretyènn mwen ye” (Yes I am Christian)

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadège Mézié
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Christian Woman

During a field study of a year and a half in the Haitian mountains, I was forced to re-evaluate my research strategy, and consequently the object of my study, after a setback that denied me access to the American evangelical mission, which I had hoped to study from within. This failure to integrate as a non-Protestant researcher, led me to adopt a methodological falsehood to allow me to penetrate the Haitian evangelical mission. The researcher who chooses methodological falsehood has to fashion a passing and superficial redefinition of her appearance, beliefs and practices, and live her new religious identity according to the prevalent beliefs and norms. This paper will focus on the fieldworker’s daily performance in her role of “Christian woman,” and the strategies put in place to respond to the prescriptive criteria of the role being played.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Konstan
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
Other Regarding ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the tension in classical thought between reciprocity and altruism as the two fundamental grounds of interpersonal relations within the city and, to a lesser extent, between citizens and foreigners. It summarizes the chapters that follow, and examines in particular the ideas of altruism and egoism and defends their application to ancient ethics. Various attempts to reconcile the two, especially in respect to Aristotle’s conception of virtue as other-regarding, are considered, and with the relationship to modern concepts of “egoism” and “altruism” is explored. The introduction concludes by noting that one of the premises of the book is that, in classical antiquity, love was deemed to play a larger role in the way people accounted for motivation in a number of domains, including friendship, loyalty, gratitude, grief, and civic harmony.

Eudaimonism and Cosmopolitan Concern

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O. Brink
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Ethical Concern ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Variable Weight ◽  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
The Common

This essay explores the adequacy of Sidgwick’s contrast between the egocentrism of ancient ethics and the impartiality of modern ethics by evaluating the resources of eudaimonists, especially Aristotle and the Stoics, to defend a cosmopolitan conception of the common good. Adapting ideas from Broad, we might contrast the scope and weight of ethical concern, distinguishing ethical conceptions that are parochial with respect to both scope and weight, conceptions that are cosmopolitan with respect to both scope and weight, and mixed conceptions that combine universal scope and variable weight. Aristotle’s conception of the common good appears doubly parochial. By contrast, the Stoic conception of the common good is purely cosmopolitan. But the Stoics have trouble providing a eudaimonist defense of their cosmopolitanism. However, Aristotelian eudaimonism has resources to justify a mixed conception. Mixed cosmopolitanism may be cosmopolitanism enough.

scholarly journals A Crítica da razão prática e o estoicismo

DoisPontos ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valério Rohden
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Precise Determination ◽  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
The Subject

No presente trabalho será demonstrada a estreita, embora discreta, relação da filosofia moral de Kant com a ética antiga, especialmente com o estoicismo de Cícero. O tema será explicitado mediante uma aproximação entre as obras da Crítica da razão prática e Sobre os fins (De finibus), respectivamente de cada um desses autores. Será destacada a crítica de Kant à identificação entre virtude e felicidade e sua reformulação sintética no conceito de “sumo bem”. Na conclusão se torna claro que a realização moral da razão, reivindicada por Cícero, encontra na reformulação de Kant sua determinação mais precisa. The crises of practical reason and stoicism Abstract The present paper shows the close albeit subtle relation of Kant’s moral philosophy to ancient ethics, especially Cicero’s Stoicism. The subject is made explicit by means of a rapprochement between the Critique of practical reason and De finibus, so as to be highlight Kant’s criticism of the classical identifying of virtue and happiness and his synthetical recasting of the concept of the supreme good. The essay concludes by making clear that the moral actualization of reason, reclaimed by Cicero, finds in Kant’s reformulation its most precise determination.

Christian Belief and Moral Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-82
Author(s):  
Terence Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
City Of God ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Christian literature, from the New Testament onwards, pursues the main themes of ancient ethics, from the theological perspective derived from the Old Testament. Both Jewish and Christian writers defend their moral views by appeal to the natural law and natural reason that the Stoics acknowledge. The Christian Gospel does not reveal the moral law, but (1) makes us aware of how demanding it is, (2) shows us that we cannot fulfil its demands by our own unaided efforts, and (3) reveals that we can keep it through divine help that turns our free will in the right direction. These three claims underlie the Pauline and Augustinian doctrines of divine grace and human free will. Christian ethics looks forward to the ‘City of God’, which cannot be realized in human history. But it also engages with human societies in order to carry out the demands of the moral law.

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