title: Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece: A Sociology of Greek Ethics From Homer to the Epicureans and Stoics (SUNY series in the Sociology of Culture)
author:  Joseph M. Bryant 
description: This is a challenging reappraisal of major developments in Greek society between the Dark Ages and the flowering of Hellenistic culture. Historians of Greek political life and of Greek philosophy will need to think again about the relationships between social structures and philosophical ethics, between brute economic or material facts and moral ideology. Bryant makes a strong case for the pertinence of historical sociology of a broadly Weberian kind to the understanding of ancient Greek civilization. Anyone inclined to take the historical dimension of ethics seriously will welcome this detailed case study of the interactions between politics, sociology, and moral theory in classical Greek culture.Brad Inwood, University of Toronto<br /><br />This is as sociologically and culturally deep and thorough a work on ancient Greek life and thought, up through the Hellenistic period, as one can find in the literature. I found it an enjoyable, at times fascinating, work to read.  Randall Collins, University of California, Riverside
zlib_text: Published by Icon Books Ltd., Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road,
  London N7 9DP
  email: info@iconbooks.com
  www.introducingbooks.com
  ISBN: 978-184831-008-7
  Text copyright and illustrations copyright © 2013 Icon Books Ltd
  The author and artist have asserted their moral rights.
  Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi
  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means,
  without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
  
  Contents
  Cover
  Title Page
  Copyright
  Moral Questions
  Social Beings
  Communitarians or Individualists?
  Setting the Stage Ten Central Questions
  The Social Origins of Belief Systems
  Morality and Religion
  Morality and Human Nature
  Genetics
  Do We Have Any Choice?
  Is Society to Blame?
  Moral Relativism
  Ethical Absolutism
  Relativism versus Absolutism
  Another Absolutist Reply
  Are They Both Wrong?
  The Problem of Moral Knowledge
  A Brief History of Ethics The Greek City State
  Democracy
  Greeks and Philosophy
  Slavery
  The Socratic Method
  Socratic Ethics: Know Thy