Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Affecting and being affected
- Chapter 2 Backwards causation and continuing
- Chapter 3 From necessity to fate: An inevitable step?
- Chapter 4 Alternative world-histories
- Chapter 5 A contemporary look at Aristotle's changing Now
- Chapter 6 Nature and craft in Aristotelian teleology
- Chapter 7 Soul and body in Plato and Descartes
- Chapter 8 Aristotle and contemporary ethics
- Chapter 9 On the idea of the summum bonum
- Chapter 10 What should we mean by ‘the highest good’?
- Chapter 11 The good of practical beings: Aristotelian perspectives
- Chapter 12 Taking stock of leisure
- References
- Index of names
Chapter 10 - What should we mean by ‘the highest good’?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 June 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Affecting and being affected
- Chapter 2 Backwards causation and continuing
- Chapter 3 From necessity to fate: An inevitable step?
- Chapter 4 Alternative world-histories
- Chapter 5 A contemporary look at Aristotle's changing Now
- Chapter 6 Nature and craft in Aristotelian teleology
- Chapter 7 Soul and body in Plato and Descartes
- Chapter 8 Aristotle and contemporary ethics
- Chapter 9 On the idea of the summum bonum
- Chapter 10 What should we mean by ‘the highest good’?
- Chapter 11 The good of practical beings: Aristotelian perspectives
- Chapter 12 Taking stock of leisure
- References
- Index of names
Summary
PART I
That the highest good is a severely abstract notion will not be disputed by anyone. If we find it a difficult idea to get hold of we might first want to blame the abstractness for our fumbling. But there is a less obvious source of difficulty, which I believe has not been discussed very much. It is that thinkers have wanted very different things from the idea. It has served many different functions in ethical theory. Yet historic battles over the identity of the highest good have often failed to make clear what was at stake. In Plato's Philebus, for example, a competition for the title is staged between Knowledge and Pleasure, but it is never explained what, if any, the winner's essential commitments would be. It seems not a waste of time to look at different interpretations of the theoretical role of the highest good. My inspection will be conceptual more than historical.
Let me start, however, with an historical point, one which has already been indicated. The question of the highest good comes to us from ancient Greek philosophy, and we encounter it there in the context of rival identity claims. This fact, while utterly familiar, is something to pause over – for two reasons. First, this context, the context of rival claims as to what is to count as the highest good, definitely colours and might even be said partly to characterise the problematic of the highest good; and this may strike us as a bit remarkable if we make comparison with other problematics involving unique objects.
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- Information
- Aristotle and BeyondEssays on Metaphysics and Ethics, pp. 153 - 165Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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