Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics

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Like its ancient rivals, Stoic ethics was a form of virtue ethics, yet while the concept of virtue was clearly central to Stoic ethics, the concept of Stoic virtue has not yet been fully explored. Instead, the existing literature tends to impose on the Stoic material philosophically quite alien non-Aristotelian interpretations of virtue. According to Christoph Jedan, however, a thorough examination of the Stoic concept of virtue leads to a reassessment of our understanding of Stoic ethics.
This book emphasises in particular the theological underpinning of Stoic ethics, which Jedan contends has been underestimated in current accounts of Stoic ethics. Jedan argues that the theological motifs in Stoic ethics are in fact pivotal to a complete understanding of Stoic ethics. The book focuses on Chrysippus, the most important of the early Stoic thinkers, suggesting that his contribution, and in particular its religious aspect, remained a key point of reference for later Stoics. This fascinating book makes a crucial contribution to the field of ancient ethics.

Reviews

"Christoph Jedan here demonstrates both the originality of the Stoic conception of virtue and its theoretical importance within the broader ambit of the school's philosophy. Prominent among the merits of this meticulously argued monograph is its insistence on giving the well-attested religious aspects of Stoic ethics their due weight." - David Sedley, University of Cambridge, UK
A generous survey of the context is provided [and] Jedan's [Greek] quotes are impeccable -- The Anglo-Hellenic Review

Author Bio

Christoph Jedan is Lecturer in Ethics at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He has previously taught at the University of Mnster, Germany.