As its title suggests, this course can have variable content, focusing on different philosophers or traditions in the history of ethics.  This term the course will be a survey of some main issues and texts in ancient Greek ethics, focusing on Socrates (470-399), Plato (427-347), and Aristotle (384-322), with some attention, if time permits, to the Hellenistic schools, especially Epicurean and Stoic ethical thought.  The Greek tradition in the history of ethics is especially interesting not just because it is dominated by three philosophical giants, but also because of its amazing continuity.  Later figures directly influenced earlier ones.  Socrates was Plato's teacher, Plato was Aristotle's teacher, and the Hellenistic philosophical schools developed their views in self-conscious response to their predecessors and contemporaries.  In this way, the Greek tradition represents a more or less continuous dialogue about a set of recurrent issues about the nature of virtue, the relation between virtue and happiness, and the relation between virtue and politics.

The course will begin with and be structured by Socratic themes.  Socrates was the first systematic philosopher in the Western philosophical tradition, and he focused on ethical issues.  Though his dialectical inquiries begin from the moral beliefs of his interlocutors and he professes his own ignorance, he defends revisionary and paradoxical claims.  He thinks that moral virtues must benefit the person who is virtuous, but he recognizes familiar other-regarding virtues (e.g. justice) as genuine virtues.  So he concludes that the virtuous person is necessarily happy and cannot be harmed.  He denies that the virtues (e.g. courage, temperance, piety, and justice) are distinct.  Not only must a virtuous person have the other virtues in order to have any one of them, allegedly distinct virtues are really one single trait.  Moreover, he thinks that virtue is a purely cognitive state, which implies, among other things, that weakness of the will (akrasia) is not really possible.  You can't know what virtue requires and yet fail to act on that knowledge.  Though his dialectical methods are democratic in character and he admires various aspects of Athenian democracy, he is also a critic of democracy and suggests that moral knowledge, like other forms of craft knowledge, would be possessed by specialists or experts.

Socrates's views are important not only in their own right but because they structured subsequent work in Greek ethics in important ways.  Later philosophers in the tradition, including Plato and Aristotle, take each of these claims very seriously, and no one rejects all of Socrates's claims entirely.  Indeed, it is quite common for subsequent philosophers to claim that they are preserving the most important part of Socrates's view.

We will focus on issues that Socrates raises that are recurrent themes in Greek ethics, and to which Plato and Aristotle, in particular, respond.  We will examine the eudaimonist assumption that virtues must benefit the agent who has them, and see how this assumption structures views about the relationship between virtue and happiness (eudaimonia).  How, if at all, does virtue contribute to happiness?  Is it a reliable instrumental means to happiness, or is it a part of happiness?  If a part of happiness, is it a proper part or is it the whole?  How are the implications and plausibility of eudaimonism affected by different conceptions of happiness?  What role does pleasure play in eudaimonia, and what attitude do various philosophers in the Greek tradition take toward hedonism?  What role, if any, do "external goods" (e.g. wealth, health, loved ones) play in eudaimonia?  If they have a role, how does this affect the role of virtue within eudaimonia?  As eudaimonists, the Greeks must explain how familiar other-regarding virtues, such as justice, contribute to the agent's own happiness.  The Epicureans understand and justify the requirements of justice in terms of mutual advantage.  However, Plato and Aristotle both reject this instrumental understanding of the value of justice.  Do either of them provide a more adequate eudaimonist defense of justice?  How might Plato's account of love and Aristotle's account of friendship contribute to a eudaimonist defense of justice?  We will also examine different assumptions about the role of cognitive and affective factors in the specification of the virtues and what these assumptions imply about the relationship among the virtues and the phenomenon of akrasia.  Is virtue a cognitive state, or is it (also) a matter of having noncognitive appetites appropriately trained?  How do different conceptions of virtue affect whether and, if so, how it can be taught, and what do they imply about the inseparability and unity of the virtues?  Is it really possible to know what virtue requires and act otherwise, or is putative akratic action really due to ignorance of what is best?  Time permitting, I would also like to discuss some connections between Greek ethical and political theory, especially between assumptions about virtue and happiness and attitudes toward democracy and democratic participation.  What is the value of political community and activity, and how are the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and political rule best distributed?

FORMAT
My plan is to present material (lecture) in ways that impose structure on the readings and raise interpretive issues for us to discuss.  Sometimes it will be helpful to discuss interpretive and systematic issues raised in the secondary literature.  I expect students to initiate discussion (e.g. ask for clarification, express skepticism, and suggest alternative interpretations).  As a result, our meetings should be liberally seasoned with discussion.

Philosophy graduate students may take this course for credit and toward satisfaction of either the history or ethics requirement.  They should get my approval and register for the course as a Directed Study (PHIL 290).  Separate assignments and a separate discussion section will be arranged for them.

REQUIREMENTS
Undergraduates are required to write two papers: a short paper (approximately 2-3 pages) and a longer paper (approximately 6-7 pages).  The first paper is due Friday, October 15; the second paper is due Monday, November 22 (these dates are tentative and subject to revision).  Paper topics will be distributed at least one week before the due date.  Students are encouraged to discuss their topics and plans for the paper with me in advance.  If anyone requires an extension on a paper, he or she must get the extension approved in advance.  Late papers (for which an extension was not approved in advance) will lose one fraction of a grade for every day late (e.g. a paper that would have received a B+ if handed in on time will receive a B- if handed in two days late).  In addition, there will be a comprehensive final exam. Study questions for the final exam will be distributed before the end of term (details later).  All requirements must be completed to receive a passing grade.  The requirements are weighted as follows: the first paper is worth 20%, the second paper is worth 35%, and the final exam is worth 45%.  Students are not graded on a curve (that is, there is no quota for particular grades; there could in principle be a disproportionate share of As or Cs).  Students can help their grades at the margins if their grades display linear progress or they are regular and constructive contributors in class.

Graduate students are required to attend an additional weekly one hour discussion section, to be scheduled during the first week of class.  They will be expected to prepare for these discussion sections.  They are required to write a short paper (approximately 5-6 pages) and a longer paper in two drafts (with the revision being approximately 12-14 pages).  The first paper will be due Wednesday, October 20; the first draft of the second paper will be due Friday, November 19; and the revision will be due Monday, December 6 (these dates are tentative and subject to revision).  The two papers will be worth 25% and 50% of the overall grade respectively.  In addition, 25% of the overall grade will be based on preparation for and performance in the discussion section.

BOOKS
 I have ordered the following required and recommended books, which should be available at the university bookstore.

Required:

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trs. T. Irwin, 2d ed. (Hackett).
• Cicero, On Moral Ends [De Finibus], ed. J. Annas (Cambridge).
• Long, A. and Sedley, D. The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1 (Cambridge).
• Plato, Plato's Complete Works, ed. J. Cooper (Hackett).

Recommended:

• Aristotle, The Politics, trs. C. Reeve (Hackett).
• Annas, J. The Morality of Happiness (Oxford).
• Irwin, T. Plato's Ethics (Oxford).