From the earliest times, philosophers and others have thought deeply about ethical questions. But it was Aristotle who founded ethics as a discipline with clear principles and well-defined boundaries. Ethics After Aristotle focuses on the reception of Aristotelian ethical thought in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, underscoring the thinker's enduring influence on the philosophers who followed in his footsteps from 300 BCE to 200 CE.

Beginning with Aristotle's student and collaborator Theophrastus, Brad Inwood traces the development of Aristotelian ethics up to the third-century Athenian philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias. He shows that there was no monolithic tradition in the school, but a rich variety of moral theory. The philosophers of the Peripatetic school produced surprisingly varied theories in dialogue with other philosophical traditions, generating rich insight into human virtue and happiness. What unifies the different strands of thought-what makes them distinctively Aristotelian-is a form of ethical naturalism: that our knowledge of the good and virtuous life depends first on understanding our place in the natural world, and second on the exercise of our natural dispositions in distinctively human activities. What is now referred to as "virtue ethics," Inwood argues, is a less important part of Aristotle's legacy than the naturalistic approach Aristotle articulated and his philosophical descendants developed further.

Offering a wide range of ways of thinking about ethics from an ancient perspective, Ethics After Aristotle is a penetrating study of how philosophy evolves in the wake of an unusually powerful and original thinker.

About the Author
Brad Inwood is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Yale University.

Reviews
Ethics After Aristotle is an important examination of the principal themes of philosophical ethics in the Peripatetic tradition from Theophrastus to Alexander. Inwood's approach brings the collective significance of an often fragmentary-and, until recently, rather inaccessible-set of texts to the fore, both as an independent strand in Hellenistic philosophy deserving of study in its own right and as telling contributions to the central debates of the time. -- Charles Brittain, Cornell University
Brad Inwood does an admirable job of introducing Peripatetic ethical thought to non-expert readers. His stimulating study is an important addition to the lively field of Hellenistic and Roman philosophy. -- A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley


Awards
Nominated for Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit 2015.



Book Information
ISBN 9780674731257
Author Brad Inwood
Format Hardback
Page Count 176
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press