Maximino Robles, “Would Pyrrhonian Skeptics want Nothing to do with Aristotle’s Eudaimonia?“
In Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus describes Pyrrhonian skepticism (implying ‘Pyrrhonian’ hereafter) as a skill that results in being purged of all beliefs and obtaining tranquility. In “How Ethical Can an Ancient Skeptic Be?,” Richard Bett argues that skeptics cannot be ethical because being ethical requires possessing evaluative beliefs and eventually undergoing distress. Other scholars have pushed back against Bett by citing findings in moral psychology and offering different readings of Sextus. My paper will join the defense of skeptics by drawing resemblances between the skeptic and Aristotle’s conception of the ethically virtuous person. I argue that Bett’s argument can be attacked on such grounds, challenging Bett’s mention of Aristotle as someone skeptics would want nothing to do with.