- Reference: Epicurus, Hellenistic period (341-271 BCE), believed that by focusing on the natural things that are important for humans, we can achieve ataraxia - tranquillity.
The Ethics Toolkit
by Julian Baggini, Peter S. Fosl
Published date: 2007
Category: Philosophy
Index Topics & Notes
- Definition: Related to the highest good for humankind.
- Insight: The "highest good" according to Aristotle must be something valuable in it's own right, rather than a means to an end.
- Example: Enough as the virtue between deficiency and excess.
- Example: Vice: Greed, Virtue: Generosity, Vice: Wastefulness.
- Example: Vice: Cowardice, Virtue: Courage, Vice: Rashness.
- Reference: Aristotle developed the golden mean as a way to think about virtues as the balance between two extremes
- Bio: 333-264BCE.
- Insight: According to the stoic school there exists a fire or breath (pneutua) in the natural world that produces a rational and morally good order (kosnios). This natural law can be grasped through right reasoning, with a community of moral beings called a cosnropolis.