The Morality of Happiness by Julia Annas

Abstract

The Morality of Happiness is a marvelous book, one that I read with excitement and admiration for the author's command over her subject and the philosophical richness of her ideas. It is an examination of some of the leading themes of ancient ethics: happiness, virtue, nature, and the proper relation between self and others. Annas does not try to present a comprehensive treatment of the whole of classical moral philosophy, since Socrates, Plato, and Plotinus are left aside. It is Aristotle and the Stoics who receive most emphasis, although the Epicureans and the Skeptics also play an important role her discussion. In spite of these self-imposed limitations, this is a work of extremely wide scope; I don't know of any other from which a reader can learn so much about ancient moral theory. And it is also an important contribution its own right to moral philosophy, because it always discusses ancient material with a view to its implications for the ways which ethics has been transformed the modern period and is practiced today. Annas is at pains to deny that ancient ethics suffers comparison with modern moral philosophy; on the contrary, she (like many others) finds contemporary ethical thought to be barren and out of touch with what people care about. The ancient ethical theories-particularly those of Aristotle and the Stoics-are ones she thinks we can profitably use to remedy this situation. More specifically, Annas defends the following claims: (1) It is misleading to think that the ancients lacked the concept of morality, for their discussion of virtue is best understood as expressing their concern with morality. This is particularly evident the Stoics, who are the first to advocate an impartial and equal concern for all human beings. (2) Although ancient moral philosophy is eudaimonistic-it assumes that one's final end is and should be happiness-it is not egoistic in any sense (p. 128); this is because happiness (eudaimonia) is an unspecific goal, and when it is made more determinate, it involves a significant degree of concern for the good of others for their sake. Ancient ethical theories (e.g., those of the Cyrenaics) that could not build concern for others into their conceptions of happiness were widely