A Note on George Amiroutzes (c. 1400-c. 1469) and His Moral Argument against the Transmigration of Souls

Abstract

In a recently discovered set of philosophical fragments, the late Byzantine Aristotelian George Amiroutze argues against the transmigration of souls because of necessity metempsychosis would be grounded in moral evil. If souls were of the same nature (homoeideis), then metempsychosis entails like exploiting and killing like. If one attempts to escape the moral dilemma through vegetarianism, then one falls into another moral dilemma, namely, the view that nature and the author of nature are evil since the order of nature requires that organisms exploit and devour other organisms. Amiroutzes bases much of his argument on the criterion of “common notions”; he is clearly seeking in this fragment to rebut Plotinus.