Human Value an Ethical Essay (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Human Value an Ethical Essay The following essay makes a return to the Greek tradition in its method of studying ethics, the tradition of considering ethical questions in very close connection with politics. The business of the moralist is to explain the nature of virtue and the conditions of the virtuous life. Now the social and political system within which a man lives has an immense influence upon him morally. Plato recognized that. The main lesson of the Republic is that a good personal life is possible only in a good state. We cannot say what a good life is unless we have made up our minds what sort of state is good. Englishmen, with their traditional individualism, have tended to overlook this fact. The present essay has been written, quite frankly, with certain political pre-judgments. The last essay of a similar character by a British thinker is Mill's Utilitarianism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.