Stanford Humanities Center
Rupert Sparling is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Stanford University. His work specializes in Ancient Greek Philosophy, with a focus on Plato’s ethical and metaethical theory. His research puts contemporary work in metaethics into dialogue with Plato’s thought to ask new questions of ancient philosophy as well as answer some of the oldest.
SHC Project
The Varieties of Normativity in Plato
Rupert Sparling’s project maps the normative landscape in the work of Plato. The project seeks to examine the variety of normative concepts in Plato, like happiness, beauty, and goodness, and work out the best description of their relationships. It then uses this analysis to argue that Plato’s thought contains elements we would recognize as deontic in contemporary moral philosophy in so far as it includes absolute constraints against certain actions even when those actions produce the best consequences.
