Classical Ethics

I don’t like arguing in terms that are primarily negative, but found myself doing just that in the course of recent work on Schneewind’s The Invention of Autonomy. There, a debate between voluntarism and anti-voluntarism occupies center stage. Unsurprisingly, I found myself identifying with the anti-voluntarists. But as I said, I don’t like arguing in terms that are primarily negative.

The solution to this is not hard to find. What I have in common with Schneewind’s anti-voluntarists can be described as a positive view of classical ethics. As I wrote in an early post here, “I think the introduction of rational ethics by Plato and Aristotle was the greatest single event in the history of talking animals on our planet, marking the threshold of a kind of historical cultural adulthood. Before that, there were traditional values; codifications of traditional values into law; and attempts by some people to impose their will on others; but there was no ethics as free and open inquiry into what is right.”