Plato's Moral Realism - Hardcover

Gerson, Lloyd P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1009329987 ISBN 13: 9781009329989

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2023

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009329987
• ISBN 13: 9781009329989
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 274