Moral intellectualism or ethical intellectualism is a view in

meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one o ...

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 Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

, 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 Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards: ...

is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...

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

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

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

Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that t ...

.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 Akrasia (; Greek , "lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment. The adjectival form is "akratic". Classical approa ...

(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, 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. 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. Typically, Stoic accounts of care for the self required specific

ascetic Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...

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 and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...

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 In rhetoric, parrhesia is a figure of speech described as "speak ngcandidly or ... ask ngforgiveness for so speaking". This Ancient Greek word has three different forms, as related by Michel Foucault. ''Parrhesia'' is a noun, meaning "free spee ...

: "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. A ...

obligation to speak the truth, even at personal risk.Gros, Frederic (ed.) (2005) ''Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subject'', Lectures at the College de France 1981–1982. Picador: New York This ancient, Socratic moral philosophic perspective contradicts the contemporary understanding of truth and knowledge as

rational Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abili ...

undertakings.

References

External links

Socrates' moral intellectualism

Two Interpretations of Socratic Intellectualism
{{Stoicism A priori Concepts in ancient Greek ethics Concepts in ethics Ethical theories Meta-ethics Rationalism Socrates Stoicism

Ancient moral intellectualism

See also

References

Further reading

External links