Why There Are Ends of Both Goods and Evils in Ancient Ethical Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID23170852
AuthorsJames Allen (0000-0002-3084-7785)
Year2014
Pages231-254
Publication date2014-03-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueStrategies of Argument (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890477.003.0010
OpenAlexW2977827938
ISBN9780199890477
LanguageEN
Citations received11

This chapter adds a new twist to the ancient Greek question about what the ultimate human end is: it asks why Cicero presents ancient ethical theories (e.g., those of Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans) in answer to the question 'What are the ends of goods and evils?' For if an end (telos) is something for the sake of which we should do things, then bad and evil things should not have ends at all. The chapter argues that 'end' here has the earlier senses of (i) a result, and (ii) a criterion. A theory of the ends of goods and evils will thus allow one to judge which things are ends by means of a criterion, namely, by the ends in the sense of results that typically follow for things of that kind.

Art · Cicero · Epicureanism · Epistemology · Ethical theory · Literature · Telos · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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