
Rachel Barney is a Professor at the University of Toronto.
Abstract:Does ancient philosophy recognise any distinctively moral motivation, comparable to Kantian and modern ideas of duty? The closest counterpart is the ancient Socratic (Platonic, Stoic, etc.) idea of virtue as consisting in an ethical technê: that is, a kind of teleological practical reason directed at an impersonal good. Reliance on the technê-model gives a distinctive shape to ancient thinking about the normativity of moral reasons.