[75] Aristotel. Metaphys. Δ. p. 1025, a. 8; compare Ethic. Nikomach. iv. p. 1127, b. 16.
Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct.
Both Sokrates and Plato (in many of his dialogues) commit the error of which the above is one particular manifestation — that of dwelling exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct,[76] and omitting to give proper attention to the emotional and volitional, as essentially co-operating or preponderating in the complex meaning of ethical attributes. The reasoning ascribed to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor exemplifies this one-sided view. What he says is true, but it is only a part of the truth. When he speaks of a person “who does wrong unwillingly,” he seems to have in view one who does wrong without knowing that he does so: one whose intelligence is so defective that he does not know when he speaks truth and when he speaks falsehood. Now a person thus unhappily circumstanced must be regarded as half-witted or imbecile, coming under the head which the Xenophontic Sokrates called madness:[77] unfit to perform any part in society, and requiring to be placed under tutelage. Compared with such a person, the opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be defended — that the mendacious person, who can tell truth when he chooses, is the better of the two in the sense of less mischievous or dangerous. But he is the object of a very different sentiment; moreover, this is not the comparison present to our minds when we call one man veracious, another man mendacious. We always assume, in every one, a measure of intelligence equal or superior to the admissible minimum; under such assumption, we compare two persons, one of whom speaks to the best of his knowledge and belief, the other, contrary to his knowledge and belief. We approve the former and disapprove the latter, according to the different intention and purpose of each (as Aristotle observes); that is, looking at them under the point of view of emotion and volition — which is logically distinguishable from the intelligence, though always acting in conjunction with it.
[76] Aristotle has very just observations on these views of Sokrates, and on the incompleteness of his views when he resolved all virtue into knowledge, all vice into ignorance. See, among other passages, Aristot. Ethica Magna, i. 1182, a. 16; 1183, b. 9; 1190, b. 28; Ethic. Eudem. i. 1216, b, 4. The remarks of Aristotle upon Sokrates and Plato evince a real progress in ethical theory.
[77] Xen. Mem. iii. 9, 7. τοὺς διημαρτηκότας, ὧν οἱ πολλοὶ γιγνώσκουσι, μαινομένους καλεῖν, &c.
They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts — They take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and blame.
Again, the analogy of the special arts, upon which the Platonic Sokrates dwells in the Hippias Minor, fails in sustaining his inference. By a good runner, wrestler, harper, singer, speaker, &c., we undoubtedly mean one who can, if he pleases, perform some one of these operations well; although he can also, if he pleases, perform them badly. But the epithets good or bad, in this case, consider exclusively that element which was left out, and leave out that element which was exclusively considered, in the former case. The good singer is declared to stand distinguished from the bad singer, or from the ἰδιώτης, who, if he sings at all, will certainly sing badly, by an attribute belonging to his intelligence and vocal organs. To sing well is a special accomplishment, which is possessed only by a few, and which no man is blamed for not possessing. The distinction between such special accomplishments, and justice or rectitude of behaviour, is well brought out in the speech which Plato puts into the mouth of the Sophist Protagoras.[78] “The special artists (he says) are few in number: one of them is sufficient for many private citizens. But every citizen, without exception, must possess justice and a sense of shame: if he does not, he must be put away as a nuisance — otherwise, society could not be maintained.” The special artist is a citizen also; and as such, must be subject to the obligations binding on all citizens universally. In predicating of him that he is good or bad as a citizen, we merely assume him to possess the average intelligence, of the community; and the epithet declares whether his emotional and volitional attributes exceed, or fall short of, the minimum required in the application of that intelligence to his social obligations. It is thus that the words good or bad when applied to him as a citizen, have a totally different bearing from that which the same words have when applied to him in his character of special artist.
[78] Plato, Protagoras, 322.
Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be suggestive, and that it shall bring before us different aspects of the question under review.
The value of these debates in the Platonic dialogues consists in their raising questions like the preceding, for the reflection of the reader — whether the Platonic Sokrates may or may not be represented as taking what we think the right view of the question. For a Dialogue of Search, the great merit is, that it should be suggestive; that it should bring before our attention the conditions requisite for a right and proper use of these common ethical epithets, and the state of circumstances which is tacitly implied whenever any one uses them. No man ever learns to reflect upon the meaning of such familiar epithets, which he has been using all his life — unless the process be forced upon his attention by some special conversation which brings home to him an uncomfortable sentiment of perplexity and contradiction. If a man intends to acquire any grasp of ethical or political theory, he must render himself master, not only of the sound arguments and the guiding analogies but also of the unsound arguments and the misleading analogies, which bear upon each portion of it.