Interest And Self Interest In Ancient Athens

Interest and self-interest are concepts that have attracted the attention of multiple disciplines in the last decades. In this monograph, the author relies on previous debates as well as new theories in order to examine how these behaviors function in ancient Greece. This survey deals with major issues related to the Greek citizen and the polis as a whole: the gnoseology of self-interest, the manipulation of conflicting interests, the balance between expediency and justice, the vigor of competitive spirit among the Greeks, and the conciliation of private and common good. The sympheron cannot be perceived beyond the context and framework of the much-discussed topics of individualism and utilitarian trends in ancient Greek thought and civic "ideology." Exploring these aspects of his subject-matter, the author provides a number of clues as to how one may better comprehend the polis' stratagems to "invent" those devices needed to aggregate the one into the many.

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This 2006 study examines how the ancient Greeks decided questions of justice as a key to understanding the intersection of our moral and political lives. Combining contemporary political philosophy with historical, literary and philosophical texts, it examines a series of remarkable individuals who performed 'scripts' of justice in early Iron Age, archaic and classical Greece. From the earlier periods, these include Homer's Achilles and Odysseus as heroic individuals who are also prototypical citizens, and Solon the lawgiver, writing the scripts of statute law and the jury trial. In democratic Athens, the focus turns to dialogues between a citizen's moral autonomy and political obligation in Aeschyleon tragedy, Pericles' citizenship paradigm, Antiphon's sophistic thought and forensic oratory, the political leadership of Alcibiades and Socrates' moral individualism.

In The Political Economy of Classical Athens – a Naval Perspective, Barry O’Halloran offers an account of the economic history of classical Athens in which its strategy of naval conquest provided the foundations for a period of unprecedented economic efflorescence.

This is a book about the social and economic history of ancient Greece and has as its core a detailed study of credit relations in Athens during the fourth century BC. It looks at ancient economy and society in their own terms and demonstrates that the very different system of credit in Athens had its own complexity and sophistication.

In this original and rewarding combination of intellectual and political history, Ryan Balot offers a thorough historical and sociological interpretation of classical Athens centered on the notion of greed. Integrating ancient philosophy, poetry, and history, and drawing on modern political thought, the author demonstrates that the Athenian discourse on greed was an essential component of Greek social development and political history. Over time, the Athenians developed sophisticated psychological and political accounts of acquisitiveness and a correspondingly rich vocabulary to describe and condemn it. Greed figures repeatedly as an object of criticism in authors as diverse as Solon, Thucydides, and Plato--all of whom addressed the social disruptions caused by it, as well as the inadequacy of lives focused on it. Because of its ethical significance, greed surfaced frequently in theoretical debates about democracy and oligarchy. Ultimately, critiques of greed--particularly the charge that it is unjust--were built into the robust accounts of justice formulated by many philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle. Such critiques of greed both reflected and were inextricably knitted into economic history and political events, including the coups of 411 and 404 B.C. Balot contrasts ancient Greek thought on distributive justice with later Western traditions, with implications for political and economic history well beyond the classical period. Because the belief that greed is good holds a dominant position in modern justifications of capitalism, this study provides a deep historical context within which such justifications can be reexamined and, perhaps, found wanting.

Ancient Athenians resemble modern Americans in their moral discomfort with empire. Athenians had power and used it ruthlessly, but the infliction of suffering did not mesh well with their civic-self-image. Embracing the concepts of democracy and freedom, they proudly pitted themselves against tyranny and oppression, but in practice they were capable of being tyrannical. Pity and Power in Ancient Athens argues that the exercise of power in democratic Athens, especially during its brief fifth-century empire, raised troubling questions about the alleviation and infliction of suffering, and pity emerged as a topic in Atheninan culture at this time.

This volume discusses the presidential foreign policies of the post–Cold War era, beginning with George H. W. Bush and ending with the first 17 months of Donald Trump’s presidency. During this period, the United States emerged from the Cold War as the world’s most powerful nation. Nevertheless, the presidents of this era faced a host of problems that tested their ability to successfully blend realism and idealism. Some were more successful than others.