A Peripatetic Argument for the Intrinsic Goodness of Human Life: Alexander of Aphrodisias' Ethical Problems I
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Javier Echeñique
Abstract
In this article I argue for the thesis that Alexander's main argument, in Ethical Problems I, is an attempt to block the implication drawn by the Stoics and other ancient philosophers from the double potential of use exhibited by human life, a life that can be either well or badly lived. Alexander wants to resist the thought that this double potential of use allows the Stoics to infer that human life, in itself, or by its own nature, is neither good nor bad (what I call the Indifference Implication). Furthermore, I shall argue that Alexander's main argument establishes that human life, despite exhibiting a double potential of use, is by its own nature or intrinsically good. Finally, given that this is not a conclusion that the Stoics are likely to accept, I shall also contend that the argument should be regarded as conducted for the most part in foro interno, as a way of persuading the Peripatetics themselves of the falsity of the Indifference Implication, precisely because of the risk that such an implication be derived from their own theoretical framework.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Xenocrates and the Two-Category Scheme
- Plato’s Medicalisation of Ethics
- Replenishment and Maintenance of the Human Body (Timaeus 77a–81e)
- Plato’s Master Argument for a Two-Kind Ontology in the Sophist: A New Reading of the Final Argument of the Gigantomachia Passage (249b5–249c9)
- A Peripatetic Argument for the Intrinsic Goodness of Human Life: Alexander of Aphrodisias' Ethical Problems I
- Keeping the Friend in Epicurean Friendship
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Xenocrates and the Two-Category Scheme
- Plato’s Medicalisation of Ethics
- Replenishment and Maintenance of the Human Body (Timaeus 77a–81e)
- Plato’s Master Argument for a Two-Kind Ontology in the Sophist: A New Reading of the Final Argument of the Gigantomachia Passage (249b5–249c9)
- A Peripatetic Argument for the Intrinsic Goodness of Human Life: Alexander of Aphrodisias' Ethical Problems I
- Keeping the Friend in Epicurean Friendship
