Abstract

This book is the first extended attempt to explain Plato's ethics of natural law, to place it accurately in the history of moral theory, and to defend it against the objections that it is totalitarian. Wild provides a clarification of Plato's ethical doctrine and a defense of that doctrine based not only of his analysis of the dialogues but on the belief that Plato must acknowledged as the founder of the Western tradition of the philosophy of natural law. The book begins with a presentation of the major objections raised against Plato by modern authors, Toynbee, Karl Popper and others, who have condemned the so called totalitarianism of Plato's thought. Wild answers these objections point by point and with a wealth of evidence taken from Plato's own arguments. He then presents a historical study of the ethics of natural law, defining the theory and showing through an examination of relevant dialogues that Plato held such a theory. The work concludes with a systematic study of his realistic ethics and its bearing on contemporary problems. This is a reprint of the 1953 Chicago edition.