Abstract

BRAVO, Francisco. Pluralism and Ethics of the Good Life: from Plato’s Philebus to Aristotles’ Nicomachean Ethics. arete [online]. 2009, vol.21, n.2, pp.239-258. ISSN 1016-913X.

In this paper I seek to answer the question of whether the Good Life Ethics are -or could be- pluralistic. By Good Life Ethics we understand teleological ethics focused on the ultimate end or supreme good of the human individual. Could they be, in spite of their apparent individualism, pluralistic ethics? To answer this question, I limit myself to Plato’s Philebus, in which the author, overcoming the views that identify human good with the life of pleasure or knowledge, identifies it with a mixed life, which is a mixture of both. He develops, thus, as I see it, an structurally pluralistic ethics: 1) by the eminently dialogical attitude of their interlocutors, 2) by the division method employed, which goes from undefined plurality to unity, and from here to a defined plurality; (3) by the ontological principle of the One-Multiple in which it is founded; (4) by the content assigned to the good of human existence. Mainly due to this content -essentially inclusive- the Philebus’ ethics has exercise a decisive influence in the equally pluralistic moral philosophy of the Nicomachean Ehics.

Keywords : pluralism; ethics; good life; pleasure; science.

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