Abstract
This entry begins by outlining some of the main medieval views on the purview of ethics and how this discipline relates to the other branches of moral philosophy or other fields. These views, as well as the question of the compatibility between pagan and Christian ethics, were highly influential on later thinkers. The second section examines various features of Renaissance ethics, such as the sources on which it drew, the contexts in which it was debated, the approach taken to philosophical and religious boundaries, the forms through which ethics was discussed, and the themes that were examined. It also covers five different historiographical approaches to Renaissance ethics. Ethics emerges as a highly interesting subject, in part because it was claimed by both humanists and scholastics, allowing one to gain insights into both approaches. Although the rise of early modern philosophy questioned many of the assumptions of Renaissance ethics, various solutions accepted in the period continued to attract both professional philosophers and other cultured individuals before reemerging in the past few decades, thanks in part to virtue ethics.
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Lines, D.A. (2019). Ethics, Renaissance. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_193-1
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