The American Ethnological Society Monograph 55. Foreword by Wilson Duff. Illustrated with photos & tables.

What makes an agent subject to moral expectations and evaluations, and what makes such an agent subject to moral evaluation for particular things he or she does? In this book, Sauve Meyer sets out to illuminate Aristotle's response to these central questions of ethics. Contrary to those who think moral responsibility is a peculiarly modern notion, Sauve Meyer shows that Aristotle's discussions of voluntariness are concerned with the central questions addressed by a theory of moral responsibility. In his view, Aristotle's conception of moral responsibility is a sophisticated philosophical theory capable of solving most of the problems that a theory of moral responsibility must address. Sauve Meyer then explains how the theory of moral responsibility Aristotle develops differs from modern accounts. While Aristotle does not require responsibility for character, or require that moral agency be an exception to the type of causation at work in the rest of the natural world, his view is not vulnerable to familiar anti-naturalist and incompatibilist criticisms. In his view, the causal notions to which Aristotle appeals allow him to articulate and defend the special causal status we assign to the moral agent, without locating such agency outside the natural world.

Product Description: Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes...read more