Does ethics have a metaphysical foundation? This question, which has been extensively explored by Western philosophers since the time of Plato, is the focal point of Lloyd Gerson’s latest book, Plato’s Moral Realism. In this extremely ambitious and thought-provoking project, Gerson challenges a predominant view among contemporary Plato scholars, according to which at least in the so-called early Socratic dialogues, ethics does not have to depend on substantive metaphysical theses. By bringing together passages throughout the entire Platonic corpus and drawing insights from his previous works, he contends that for Plato, ethics necessarily rests on a set of metaphysical principles, among which the Good is both the first principle and the goal. Axiology and ontology coincide at their apex (14).
To substantiate his contention, Gerson begins with a bold and dense discussion about that Plato’s account of the Good in chapter 2. Drawing on the writings of Aristotle and...
