Ancient ethics and the notion of moral conscience
In one of the suggestive essays collected in his posthumous book : Études de philosophie ancienne et de philosophie moderne, Victor Brochard wanted to establish between ancient and modern morality a decided and radical opposition, whose features he delineated as follows (1). The idea of duty and obl...
Guardado en:
| Autor principal: | |
|---|---|
| Formato: | Artículo revista |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
| Publicado: |
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
2022
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/REUNC/article/view/10903 |
| Aporte de: |
| Sumario: | In one of the suggestive essays collected in his posthumous book : Études de philosophie ancienne et de philosophie moderne, Victor Brochard wanted to establish between ancient and modern morality a decided and radical opposition, whose features he delineated as follows (1). The idea of duty and obligation (he said), which seems fundamental to the moderns in the definition of ethics, is completely absent in ancient ethics: neither the Greeks nor the Latins had a suitable word to express it. In their morals there was no ''imperative,'' but only an ''optative,'' for the end sought by all philosophical schools, or ''supreme good,'' was happiness, which can only be the object of desire, but not of command. Nor, therefore (Brochard added), could there be: an appeal to the moral conscience, or to an interior law : the gaze of the Greeks has never turned towards their interiority to seek the norm of their conduct, but towards the exterior, towards nature, to achieve conformity with it. |
|---|