ABSTRACT
According to Aristotle, Socrates invented moral philosophy. Aristotle is hardly fair; for if the moral views associated with the earlier Presocratics are scanty and somewhat unstimulating, the men of the fifth century were much given to ethical speculations. The fragments of the Sophists and of Democritus, and the plays of Euripides, testify to a widespread and excited interest in moral matters; and that interest extended beyond the desire to preach or to enrage, and exhibited an admirable tendency to tunnel and to probe. The testimony is rich and my treatment in this chapter will be partial and selective. I choose two main topics, moral nihilism and systematic ethics—the former associated with the Sophists, the latter with Democritus. And I divide my first topic into three parts: moral anarchism; moral relativism; and moral irresponsibility.
