Moral intellectualism or ethical intellectualism is a view in

meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normativ ...

according to which genuine moral knowledge must take the form of arriving at discursive moral judgements about what one should do. One way of understanding this is that doing what is right is a reflection of what any being knows is right. However, it can also be interpreted as the understanding that a rationally consistent worldview and theoretical way of life, as exemplified by

Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...

, is superior to the life devoted to a moral (but merely practical) life.

Ancient moral intellectualism

For

(469–399 BC), intellectualism is the view that "one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best"; that

virtue A virtue () is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be morality, moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is Value (ethics), valued as an Telos, end purpos ...

is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and

knowledge Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...

are cerebral relatives, which a person accrues and improves with dedication to

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

. So defined, Socratic intellectualism became a key philosophic doctrine of

Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient ...

.Ancient Ethical Theory
/ref> The Stoics are well known for their teaching that the good is to be identified with virtue. The apparent, problematic consequences of this view are "Socratic paradoxes", such as the view that there is no weakness of will (that no one knowingly does, or knowingly seeks to do, what is morally wrong); that anyone who does, or seeks to do, moral wrong does so involuntarily; and that since virtue is knowledge, there cannot be many different virtues such as those defended by

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

, and instead, all virtues must be one. The following are among the so-called Socratic paradoxes: * No one desires evil. * No one errs or does wrong willingly or knowingly. * Virtueall virtueis knowledge. * Virtue is sufficient for happiness. However, it is clear in Meno that virtue is not knowledge, rather True Belief. Typically, Stoic accounts of care for the self required specific ascetic exercises meant to ensure that not only was knowledge of truth memorized, but learned, and then integrated to the self, in the course of transforming oneself into a

good In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil. The specific meaning and etymology of the term and its ...

person. Therefore, to understand truth meant "intellectual knowledge", requiring one's integration to the (universal) truth, and authentically living it in one's speech, heart, and conduct. Achieving that difficult task required continual care of the self, but also meant being someone who embodies truth, and so can readily practice the Classical-era rhetorical device of parrhesia: "to speak candidly, and to ask forgiveness for so speaking"; and, by extension, practice the

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

obligation to speak the truth, even at personal risk.

Contemporary views

Contemporary philosophers dispute that Socrates's conceptions of knowing truth, and of ethical conduct, can be equated with modern, post- Cartesian conceptions of knowledge and of rational intellectualism.

References

External links

Socrates' moral intellectualism

Two Interpretations of Socratic Intellectualism
{{Stoicism A priori Virtue ethics Metaethics Rationalism Socrates Stoicism

Ancient moral intellectualism

Contemporary views

See also

References

Further reading

External links