The Eudaimonist Ethics of Al-Farabi and Avicenna

Al-Fārābī and Avicenna are the two most influential authors of the classical period of Arabic philosophy, yet their ethical thought has been largely overlooked by scholars. In this book, Janne Mattila provides the first comprehensive account of the ethics of these important philosophers. The book argues that even if neither of them wrote a major ethical work, their ethical writings form a coherent ethical system, especially when understood in the context of philosophical psychology, cosmology, and metaphysics. The resulting ethical theory is, moreover, not derivative of their classical predecessors in any simple way. The book will appeal to those with interest in Arabic/Islamic philosophy, Islamic intellectual history, classical philosophy, and the history of moral philosophy.

Table of Contents

Part 1. Happiness

Chapter 1. Final End

Chapter 2. Function Argument

Chapter 3. Pleasure

Chapter 4. Theoretical Perfection

Chapter 5. Ascent

Chapter 6. Afterlife

Part 2. Virtue

Chapter 7. Virtue and Happiness

Chapter 8. Theory of Virtue

Chapter 9. Virtue and Rationality

Chapter 10. Moral Progression

About the Author

Janne Mattila, Ph.D. (2011, University of Helsinki), is a researcher of the history of Arabic philosophy. He is currently working in the ERC project “The Origin and Early Development of Philosophy in Tenth-Century al-Andalus” at the Université catholique de Louvain.