A Note on George Amiroutzes (c. 1400 – c. 1469) and his Moral Argument against the Transmigration of Souls*

Given the sobriquet “the Philosopher” by contemporaries, the Aristotelian George Amiroutzes was one of the leading intellectuals of the Byzantine Empire in the death trobes of its very last days. Amiroutzes approached metempsychosis as a Christian Aristotelian bent on demolishing the Platonic position. Amiroutzes’ moral argument against metempsychosis revolved especially about three interconnected lines of argument. The first was that if souls are the same in species, then metempsychosis entails a profound moral evil since if would require one rational soul exploiting and even devouring the body of another rational soul. Since the neo-Platonists from Plotinus to Proclus were vegetarians, refusing to eat the flesh of living things,34 even the later neo-Platonists remained susceptible to Amiroutzes’ second line of argument. A third related line of argument, stated is that “Men are, however by nature free”.