Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

by Alexander Bain

The ALKIBIADES I. is a good specimen of the Sokratic manner. It brings out the loose discordant notions of Just and Unjust prevailing in the community; sets forth that the Just is also honourable, good, and expedient—the cause of happiness to the just man; urges the importance of Self-knowledge; and maintains that the conditions of happiness are not wealth and power, but Justice and Temperance.

ALKIBIADES II. brings out a Platonic position as to the Good. There are a number of things that are good, as health, money, family, but there is farther required the skill to apply these in proper measure to the supreme end of life. All knowledge is not valuable; there may be cases where ignorance is better. What we are principally interested in knowing is the Good, the Best, the Profitable. The man of much learning, without this, is like a vessel tossed on the sea without a pilot.[6]

In HIPPIAS MINOR, appears an extreme statement of the doctrine, common to Sokrates and Plato, identifying virtue with knowledge, or giving exclusive attention to the intellectual element of conduct. It is urged that a mendacious person, able to tell the truth if he chooses, is better than one unable to tell it, although wishing to do so; the knowledge is of greater worth than the good disposition.

In MINOS (or the Definition of Law) he refuses to accept the decree of the state as a law, but postulates the decision of some Ideal wise man. This is a following out of the Sokratic analogy of the professions, to a purely ideal demand; the wise man is never producible. In many dialogues (Kriton, Laches, &c.) the decision of some Expert is sought, as a physician is consulted in disease; but the Moral expert is unknown to any actual community.

In LACHES, the question 'what is Virtue?' is put; it is argued under the special virtue of Courage. In a truly Sokratic dialogue, Sokrates is in search of a definition of Courage; as happens in the search dialogues, there is no definite result, but the drift of the discussion is to make courage a mode of intelligence, and to resolve it into the grand desideratum of the knowledge of good and evil—belonging to the One Wise Man.

CHARMIDES discusses Temperance. As usual with Plato in discussing the virtues, with a view to their Logical definition, he presupposes that this is something beneficial and good. Various definitions are given of Temperance; and all are rejected; but the dialogue falls into the same track as the Laches, in putting forward the supreme science of good and evil. It is a happy example of the Sokratic manner and purpose, of exposing the conceit of knowledge, the fancy that people understand the meaning of the general terms habitually employed.

LYSIS on Friendship, or Love, might be expected to furnish some ethical openings, but it is rather a piece of dialectic, without result, farther than to impart the consciousness of ignorance. If it suggests anything positive, it is the Idea of Good, as the ultimate end of affection. The subject is one of special interest in ancient Ethics, as being one of the aspects of Benevolent sentiment in the Pagan world. In Aristotle we first find a definite handling of it.

MENON may be considered as pre-eminently ethical in its design. It is expressly devoted to the question—Is Virtue teachable? Sokrates as usual confesses that he does not know what virtue is. He will not accept a catalogue of the admitted virtues as a definition of virtue, and presses for some common, or defining attribute. He advances on his own side his usual doctrine that virtue is Knowledge, or a mode of Knowledge, and that it is good and profitable; which is merely an iteration of the Science of good and evil. He distinguishes virtue from Right Opinion, a sort of quasi-knowledge, the knowledge of esteemed and useful citizens, which cannot be the highest knowledge, since these citizens fail to impart it even to their own sons.

In this dialogue, we have Plato's view of Immortality, which comprises both pre-existence and post-existence. The pre-existence is used to explain the derivation of general notions, or Ideas, which are antecedent to the perceptions of sense.

In PROTAGORAS, we find one of the most important of the ethical discussions of Plato. It proceeds from the same question—Is virtue teachable?—Sokrates as usual expressing his doubts on the point. Protagoras then delivers a splendid harangue, showing how virtue is taught—namely, by the practice of society in approving, condemning, rewarding, punishing the actions of individuals. From childhood upward, every human being in society is a witness to the moral procedure of society, and by degrees both knows, and conforms to, the maxims of virtue of the society. Protagoras himself as a professed teacher, or sophist, can improve but little upon, this habitual inculcation. Sokrates, at the end of the harangue, puts in his usual questions tending to bring out the essence or definition of virtue, and soon drives Protagoras into a corner, bringing him to admit a view nowhere else developed in Plato, that Pleasure is the only good, Pain the only evil, and that the science of Good and Evil consists in Measuring, and in choosing between conflicting pleasures and pains—preferring the greater pleasure to the less, the less pain to the greater. For example, courage is a wise estimate of things terrible and things not terrible. In consistency with the doctrine that Knowledge is virtue, it is maintained here as elsewhere, that a man knowing good and evil must act upon that knowledge. Plato often repeats his theory of Measurement, but never again specifically intimates that the things to be measured are pleasures and pains. And neither here nor elsewhere, does he suppose the virtuous man taking directly into his calculation the pleasures and pains of other persons.