ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the imperial-period ethical thinking as it relates to this nexus of ideas, concerning notions of an ideal state of the self, human moral development and mis-development. It also examines the role of philosophical instruction and exercise in heading off the one and promoting the other. The chapter focuses on shared patterns of analysis, and on the polarizing issues that distinguished one hairesis, or set of haireseis, from the rest. It begins with ideas about the goal – the perfect human state towards which the individual ought to be advancing – and analysis the nature and the practicalities of moral progress. The conviction enshrined in the Tablet, that the ideal state for any human being was one of inner calm and stability and one of security, was widely accepted in Imperial-period ethics, as it had been already for centuries.
