ABSTRACT
The governing interest of this work has been to present a critical exposition of Maat, the moral ideal in ancient Egypt, with the parallel purpose of providing a view of ways in which this ancient moral tradition informed the dawn of human moral reflection and offers concepts and modes of thought useful for modem moral discourse and philosophic reflection. The preceding chapters have thus sought to examine the ancient ethical texts of Kemet from a contemporary Maatian perspective in order to reconstruct the Maatian tradition and demonstrate its value as a fruitful resource for alternative conceptual structures in the critical engagement with modem moral problems and issues. Pursuing the project, I have sought to delineate the rich and varied ethical meanings of the concept of Maat, using the Declarations of Innocence as the central point of departure, while showing conceptual precedent, parallel and reaffmnation in other ethical texts. Within this dual interpretive focus, Maat is posed as the philosophical ideal and the Declarations as an ideal conception of the moral practice within this framework. I have intentionally used the concept of "moral ideal" to serve the philosophic interest of the project, focusing on the paradigm and avoiding the problematic claims about actual practice which in existing literature pose problems of deficient evidence and cultural distortion.
