This identification by the Greeks of goodness with beauty is one of the most important matters in Greek ethics. For the conception was not with them an inert thing. Greek civilization in all its phases was in a great measure the expression of this conviction. The Greeks filled the world with beautiful things because to create beauty was with them an ethical as well as an æsthetic impulse and necessity. They felt the holiness of beauty.
Live according to nature sums up all moral requirements
All the particular requirements of Greek morality, some of the most important of which we have now briefly commented upon, are summed up in the formula, Live conformably to nature. The idea here embodied of what constitutes man’s full duty springs naturally from the doctrine that man’s nature is essentially good. If that nature be good, then virtuousness will consist in the well-rounded symmetrical development of all the capacities of body and mind. Pindar’s profound injunction, “Be what you are,” embodies the essence of the teachings of the Greek moralists. They taught that man fulfills his destiny by becoming what he is in his innermost being—by complete self-realization.[445]
III. Limitations and Defects of the Ideal
Its aristocratic character
A chief defect of Greek ethics was its aristocratic spirit. So many were the classes excluded in whole or in part from the moral field that Greek morality was almost as much a class morality as that of Brahmanic India. Entire races and classes were as completely outside the moral pale as is the Indian pariah. It was only the higher cultured classes of citizens who, the moral philosophers taught, were capable of attaining the noblest virtues and living the truly moral life. All others were regarded as living on a semimoral or nonmoral animal plane of existence.
The exclusion of non-Greek races from the moral sphere
Thus throughout a great part of the historic period the Greeks virtually excluded all non-Greek peoples from the moral domain.[446] They regarded these non-Hellenic folk about as we regard animals, or as many a few generations ago looked upon the black race. They thought it right for them to make unprovoked war upon such people and to make slaves of those they might capture. Aristotle taught that to hunt barbarians for the purpose of getting slaves was just as right and proper as to hunt animals for food or sacrifice.[447] In a word, non-Greeks were regarded as being practically outside the pale of humanity.
The exclusion of slaves
The moral status of the slave in ancient Greece was determined by the fact that slaves were usually barbarians.[448] Since as non-Greeks they were already outside the moral pale, it followed naturally that as slaves they had no standing in the court of morals. Their status was almost the same as that of domestic animals. The Greek master never felt that he owed any moral duties to his slaves, though kind and merciful treatment of them was enjoined by the philosophers and moralists. According to Aristotle, the relation of slave and master is a purely natural one, like that of body and soul. He calls slaves “living instruments.”