This essay explores the views of Neoplatonic commentators (e.g. Proclus and the anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy) on the relation between Plato’s ethical philosophy and the literary format of the Platonic dialogue. It focuses in particular on the role of visualisation in the process of moral education. The Neoplatonists praise Plato’s dialogues for their 'vividness' (enargeia). They hold that the vivid depiction of good characters (e.g. Socrates) promotes imitation of similar manners, whereas the equally vivid depiction of bad characters (e.g. the ambitious Alcibiades) invites critical self-examination. The Neoplatonists develop their view in part in response to the Stoics, who had argued that moral education should be restricted to the teaching of bare moral rules. The difference between the Stoic and Platonic view on the importance of literature in moral education can be explained from their differing views on the constitution of the human soul. Whereas (most) Stoics hold that the entire soul is rational, the Platonic tradition acknowledges the non-rational aspect of the human soul and holds that moral education should address both the rational and non-rational. Modern psychological research corroborates the Platonic position on the human soul and the need for (literary) examples in moral education.

In this chapter, I show how the contemplative ethics of Neoplatonism repurposes classical and Hellenistic ethics, advancing a new distinction between practical and theoretical wisdom. The classical and Hellenistic contrast between the bios praktikos and its attendant virtue phronesis, and the bios theoretikos together with its attendant virtue sophia, informs a half millennium or more of ethical thinking. In the discourse surrounding the competing value of these ethical registers, the practical life and the contemplative life, both ancient philosophers and their modern exegetes approach the theoretical life with trepidation, as if a certain amount of apology is owed for the practical limits of contemplative ethics. But such anxiety as to how the life of theoria can be valorised from the point of view of ordinary virtue is out of place when it comes to understanding the ethics of Plotinus and of Porphyry, at least in the Enneads and in the Sententiae. There is an important place for the practical life, if by practical we understand the development of the capacity for contemplation. As such, the practical side of this ethics is a form of mind training ,or even an ethics of concentration. Its complement, wisdom, theoretical virtue, or sophia, consists in insight, or knowledge of the nature of the real, together with realisation of the true self of the practitioner.

This paper focuses on Porphyry’s account of the just treatment of non-human animals in his treatise On Abstinence from Killing Animals. In responding to the Stoic argument that justice extends only to rational beings and leaves out non-rational animals, Porphyry introduces a number of considerations to show that animals are not entirely deprived of reason. It is usually assumed that Porphyry thereby commits himself to the view that animals are rational, thus breaking from the tradition of treating rationality as distinctive of humans. This assumption has been recently challenged by G. Fay Edwards, who argues that Porphyry neither believes that animals are rational nor that justice extends only to rational beings, but that he is merely trying to trap the Stoics into admitting that animals are rational and for this reason recipients of justice. I will argue that Porphyry ascribes rationality to animals, although he does not think that this is the reason for treating them justly. Central to my interpretation is Porphyry’s claim that rationality admits of degrees, which allows him to ascribe to animals a certain level of rationality without compromising his Platonic ideals.

The Greek commentary tradition devoted to explicating Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was extensive; it began in antiquity with Aspasius’ commentaries on selected books of the EN and reached a stage of immense sophistication in the twelfth century with the works of Eustratius of Nicaea and Michael of Ephesus, which served primarily educational purposes. The use of Aristotle’s ethics in the classroom continued in the late Byzantine period as well, but until recently scholastic use of the EN was known mostly through George Pachymeres’ compendium of Book 11 of his Philosophia. I am currently editing the last surviving exegetical commentary on the EN in the strict sense of the term, also penned by George Pachymeres, which represents a new witness to the resurgence of Aristotelian studies in late Byzantium. It also improves our knowledge of Pachymeres’ role as a teacher in the context of higher education, and of the use of ethics as a practical discipline. The discussion also takes into account the religious underpinnings of Pachymeres’ moralism, pointing to the way pagan ethics in late Byzantium are rendered relevant to their Christian readership.

This chapter examines the extent to which Eustratius of Nicaea is indebted to the ancient commentary tradition and at the same time how he departed from the earlier model in order to answer contemporary questions about meaning, some of which had a bearing on morality and ethics. In doing so, the chapter considers in detail Eustratius’ hermeneutics and textual approach, its dependence upon the ancient model and the novelties in his approach to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It argues that Eustratius contributed fundamentally to the formation of a specifically Byzantine commentary tradition by sometimes criticising Aristotle or introducing some motifs that were unrelated to Aristotle’s moral philosophy. Finally, this chapter also investigates the historical circumstances of Eustratius’ career as a commentator and highlights how Eustratius’ literary and philosophical production reflects his patron Anna Comnena as a learned woman who devoted the second part of her life to moral philosophy.

This chapter focuses on ethical training in Byzantium by examining texts from the tenth to twelfth centuries, including Theophanes Continuatus and works by Peter of Argos, Theodore of Nicaea, John Tzetzes and Constantine Manasses, while briefly discussing connections to works on ethical practice by Plutarch and Athanasius of Alexandria. Studies of hymnography, elite rhetoric and gender have displayed the central role of imitating past models in the cultivation of ethical habits and construction of the self in Byzantium. People in the Byzantine period both refined and displayed their character by patterning their emotions and responses on ancient and biblical models. Numerous historical texts presented classical figures as ethical examples to a medieval audience primed to shun or imitate those behaviours. The elite rhetorical habit of likening subjects to great characters of classical antiquity is explored in this chapter as but one aspect of a larger set of cultural practices that aimed at learning ethical behaviour through the imitation of valorised models.

This chapter seeks to locate and elucidate the philosophical precedents and mechanisms in late-antique and Byzantine Christian thought that inform the tension between the rigorous affirmation of autonomous moral determination, on the one hand, and the self-effacing quality of ecclesiastical and monastic life, on the other. Though expressed with some variance and terminological inconsistency, the majority of Christian writers affirm some version of 'free will' and universally attribute the capacity for moral development to all humankind, developing and altering paradigms from the mélange of philosophical concepts present in Middle- and Neoplatonism. No less prominent, however, is the assertion—both tacitly and explicitly—that private moral judgment and individual conscience are unreliable. Each human being not only requires a pedagogical process for proper moral development but also depends upon the presence and guidance of a heteronomous 'other', whether human or divine. This chapter will accordingly seek to demonstrate that, while Christians of late antiquity and Byzantium considered free will and moral determination to be an inextricable aspect of moral psychology, they did not have the same understanding of autonomy that emerged so forcefully during the Enlightenment and in its wake.