Eleven Videos on Cicero's On The Ends

On The Ends (also translated as On Moral Ends) is one of my favorite works by the great Roman orator, politician, and philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cicero.  In its five books, through interlocutors representing several great philosophical schools of antiquity, he presents their key moral doctrines in systematic detail, and in the case of the Epicureans and Stoics, levies tough criticisms of those positions as well.

I taught books 1 and 3 to the students in two of my classes this semester (Foundations in Philosophy at Marquette University and Philosophies of Human Nature at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design).  These are the parts of the work in which Torquatus sets out the Epicurean position and Cato sets out the Stoic position.  I also created some new core concept videos as resources for my students in those classes.

They may be of interest or of use to the broader public, so I've compiled them here:

Book 1 - Epicurean ethics

• Epicureans on Pleasure as the Basis
• Pleasure, Pain, and Moral Virtue
• Pleasure and Removal of Pain 
• Mental and Bodily Pleasures
• Epicurean Friendship

Book 3 - Stoic Ethics

• Primary Impulses of Human Nature
• What Is In Accordance With Nature
• Virtue as the Good
• Virtue and Preferred Indifferents
• Indifferents Preferred, Rejected, and Neutral
• Appropriate Acts or Duties (Officia)

Down the line, I'll likely shoot many more videos on these two books.  Then I'll go on to key concepts from the other three books.