TIL Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King Scholars London and the LMU in Munich, online at History of Philosophy.net. Today's episode, Difficult to be Good, Humanist Ethics.

If you think philosophers should devote themselves to discovering how to live the good life,

you'll probably be disappointed by any encounter

with today's professional philosophers.

Actually, you might well be disappointed in any case, but especially if you have such high expectations.

Many philosophers specialize in topics like epistemology or metaphysics

and would be more likely to associate the phrase meaning of life

with a Monte Python film than with their day job.

True, most philosophy departments do have at least one expert on moral philosophy,

but I once knew a philosopher who said he offered courses on ethics because those who can't do teach.

And I'm skeptical as to whether the study of moral philosophy will turn you into a moral

person.

It might just make you realize how challenging the demands of morality really are.

As Pojo Bracholini remarked in a letter he wrote in 1425,

according to the ancient Greeks, it is difficult to be good.

Yet he and his fellow humanists held out hope that those same ancient Greeks could help them do just that.

On these grounds, the humanists often saw ethics as superior to other philosophical disciplines.

Leonard Do Bruni said that those who ignore it in favor of natural philosophy are

minding somebody else's business and neglecting their own.

Bruni made this remark in an introduction he wrote to moral philosophy. It takes the form of a dialogue Bruni supposedly had with a friend.

The work is meant to encourage its reader to take up philosophy as a means of self-improvement, a way of dispelling the fog

that conceals from us the true good we all naturally desire. But what is this true good?

...