A. Greek and Graeco-Roman Ethics.—The ethical speculation of Greece, and therefore of Europe, had no abrupt and absolute beginning. The naive and fragmentary precepts of conduct, which are everywhere the earliest manifestation of nascent moral reflection, are a noteworthy element in the gnomic poetry of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. Their importance is shown by the traditional enumeration of the Seven Sages of the 6th century, and their influence on ethical thought is attested by the references of Plato and Aristotle. But from these unscientific utterances to a philosophy of morals was a long process. In the practical wisdom of Thales (q.v.), one of the seven, we cannot discern any systematic theory of morality. In the case of Pythagoras, conspicuous among pre-Socratic philosophers as the founder not merely of a school, but of a sect or order bound by a common rule of life, there is a closer connexion between moral and metaphysical speculation. The doctrine of the Pythagoreans that the essence of justice (conceived as equal retribution) was a square number, indicates a serious attempt to extend to the region of conduct their mathematical view of the universe; and the same may be said of their classification of good with unity, straightness and the like, and of evil with the opposite qualities. Still, the enunciation of the moral precepts of Pythagoras appears to have been dogmatic, or even prophetic, rather than philosophic, and to have been accepted by his disciples with an unphilosophic reverence as the ipse dixit[1] of the master. Hence, whatever influence the Pythagorean blending of ethical and mathematical notions may have had on Plato, and, through him, on later thought, we cannot regard the school as having really forestalled the Socratic inquiry after a completely reasoned theory of conduct. The ethical element in the “dark” philosophizing of Heraclitus (c. 530-470 B.C.), though it anticipates Stoicism in its conceptions of a law of the universe, to which the wise man will carefully conform, and a divine harmony, in the recognition of which he will find his truest satisfaction, is more profound, but even less systematic. It is only when we come to Democritus, a contemporary of Socrates, the last of the original thinkers whom we distinguish as pre-Socratic, that we find anything which we can call an ethical system. The fragments that remain of the moral treatises of Democritus are sufficient, perhaps, to convince us that the turn of Greek philosophy in the direction of conduct, which was actually due to Socrates, would have taken place without him, though in a less decided manner; but when we compare the Democritean ethics with the post-Socratic system to which it has most affinity, Epicureanism, we find that it exhibits a very rudimentary apprehension of the formal conditions which moral teaching must fulfil before it can lay claim to be treated as scientific.
The truth is that no system of ethics could be constructed until attention had been directed to the vagueness and inconsistency of the common moral opinions of mankind. For this purpose was needed the concentration of a philosophic intellect of the first order on the problems of practice. In Socrates first we find the required combination of a paramount interest in conduct and an ardent desire for knowledge. The pre-Socratic thinkers were all primarily devoted to ontological research; but by the middle of the 5th century B.C. the conflict of their dogmatic systems had led some of the keenest minds to doubt the possibility of penetrating the secret of the physical universe. This doubt found expression in the reasoned scepticism of Gorgias, and produced the famous proposition of Protagoras, that human apprehension is the only standard of existence. The same feeling led Socrates to abandon the old physico-metaphysical inquiries. In his ease, moreover, it was strengthened by a naive piety that forbade him to search into things of which the gods seemed to have reserved the knowledge to themselves. The regulation of human action, on the other hand (except on occasions of special difficulty, for which omens and oracles might be vouchsafed), they had left to human reason. On this accordingly Socrates concentrated his efforts.
Though, however, Socrates was the first to arrive at a proper conception of the problems of conduct, the general idea did not originate with him. The natural reaction against the metaphysical and ethical dogmatism of the early The Sophists. thinkers had reached its climax in the Sophists (q.v.). Gorgias and Protagoras are only representatives of what was really a universal tendency to abandon dogmatic theory and take refuge in practical matters, and especially, as was natural in the Greek city-state, in the civic relations of the citizen. The education given by the Sophists aimed at no general theory of life, but professed to expound the art of getting on in the world and of managing public affairs. In their eulogy of the virtues of the citizen, they pointed out the prudential character of justice and the like as a means of obtaining pleasure and avoiding pain. The Greek conception of society was such that the life of the free-born citizen consisted mainly of his public function, and, therefore, the pseudo-ethical disquisitions of the Sophists satisfied the requirements of the age. None thought of ἀρετή (virtue or excellence) as a unique quality possessed of an intrinsic value, but as the virtue of the citizen, just as good flute-playing was the virtue of the flute-player. We see here, as in other activities of the age, a determination to acquire technical knowledge, and to apply it directly to the practical issue; just as music was being enriched by new technical knowledge, architecture by modern theories of plans and T-squares (sc. Hippodamus), the handling of soldiers by the new technique of “tactics” and “hoplitics,” so citizenship must be analysed afresh, systematized and adapted in relation to modern requirements. The Sophists had studied these matters superficially indeed but with thoroughness as far as they went, and it is not remarkable that they should have taken the methods which were successful in rhetoric, and applied them to the “science and art” of civic virtues. Plato’s Protagoras claims, not unjustly, that in teaching virtue they simply did systematically what every one else was doing at haphazard. But in the true sense of the word, they had no ethical system at all, nor did they contribute save by contrast to ethical speculation. They merely analysed conventional formulae, much in the manner of certain modern so-called “scientific” moralists. Into this arena of hazy popular common Socrates. sense Socrates brought a new critical spirit, showing that these popular lecturers, in spite of their fertile eloquence, could not defend their fundamental assumptions, nor even give rational definitions of what they professed to explain. Not only were they thus “ignorant,” but they were also perpetually inconsistent with themselves in dealing with particular instances. Thus, by the aid of his famous “dialectic,” Socrates arrived first at the negative result that the professed teachers of the people were as ignorant as he himself claimed to be, and in a measure justified the eulogy of Aristotle that he rendered to philosophy the service of “introducing induction and definitions.” This description of his work is, however, both too technical and too positive, if we may judge from those earlier dialogues of Plato in which the real Socrates is found least modified. The pre-eminent wisdom which the Delphic oracle attributed to him was held by himself to consist in a unique consciousness of ignorance. Yet it is equally clear from Plato that there was a most important positive element in the teaching of Socrates in virtue of which it is just to say with Alexander Bain, “the first important name in ancient ethical philosophy is Socrates.” The union of the negative and the positive elements in his work has caused historians no little perplexity, and we cannot quite save the philosopher’s consistency unless we regard some of the doctrines attributed to him by Xenophon as merely tentative and provisional. Still the positions of Socrates that are most important in the history of ethical thought not only are easy to harmonize with his conviction of ignorance, but even render it easier to understand his unwearied cross-examination of common opinion. While he showed clearly the difficulty of acquiring knowledge, he was convinced that knowledge alone could be the source of a coherent system of virtue, as error of evil. Socrates, therefore, first in the history of thought, propounds a positive scientific law of conduct. Virtue is knowledge. This principle involved the paradox that no man, knowing good, would do evil. But it was a paradox derived from his unanswerable truisms, “Every one wishes for his own good, and would get it if he could,” and “No one would deny that justice and virtue generally are goods, and of all goods the best.” All virtues are, therefore, summed up in knowledge of the good. But this good is not, for Socrates, duty as distinct from interest. The force of the paradox depends upon a blending of duty and interest in the single notion of good, a blending which was dominant in the common thought of the age. This it is which forms the kernel of the positive thought of Socrates according to Xenophon. He could give no satisfactory account of Good in the abstract, and evaded all questions on this point by saying that he knew “no good that was not good for something in particular,” but that good is consistent with itself. For himself he prized above all things the wisdom that is virtue, and in the task of producing it he endured the hardest penury, maintaining that such life was richer in enjoyment than a life of luxury. This many-sidedness of view is illustrated by the curious blending of noble and merely utilitarian sentiment in his account of friendship: a friend who can be of no service is valueless; yet the highest service that a friend can render is moral improvement.
The historically important characteristics of his moral philosophy, if we take (as we must) his teaching and character together, may be summarized as follows:—(1) an ardent inquiry for knowledge nowhere to be found, but which, if found, would perfect human conduct; (2) a demand meanwhile that men should act as far as possible on some consistent theory; (3) a provisional adhesion to the commonly received view of good, in all its incoherent complexity, and a perpetual readiness to maintain the harmony of its different elements, and demonstrate the superiority of virtue by an appeal to the standard of self-interest; (4) personal firmness, as apparently easy as it was actually invincible, in carrying out consistently such practical convictions as he had attained. It is only when we keep all these points in view that we can understand how from the spring of Socratic conversation flowed the divergent streams of Greek ethical thought.
Four distinct philosophical schools trace their immediate origin to the circle that gathered round Socrates—the Megarian, the Platonic, the Cynic and the Cyrenaic. The impress of the master is manifest on all, in spite of the The Socratic Schools. wide differences that divide them; they all agree in holding the most important possession of man to be wisdom or knowledge, and the most important knowledge to be knowledge of Good. Here, however, the agreement ends. The more philosophic part of the circle, forming a group in which Euclid of Megara (see [Megarian School]) seems at first to have taken the lead, regarded this Good as the object of a still unfulfilled quest, and were led to identify it with the hidden secret of the universe, and thus to pass from ethics to metaphysics. Others again, whose demand for knowledge was more easily satisfied, and who were more impressed with the positive and practical side of the master’s teaching, made the quest a much simpler affair. They took the Good as already known, and held philosophy to consist in the steady application of this knowledge to conduct. Among these were Antisthenes the Cynic and Aristippus of Cyrene. It is by their recognition of the duty of living consistently by theory instead of mere impulse or custom, their sense of the new value given to life through this rationalization, and their effort to maintain the easy, calm, unwavering firmness of the Socratic temper, that we recognize both Antisthenes and Aristippus as “Socratic men,” in spite of the completeness with which they divided their master’s positive doctrine into systems diametrically opposed. Of their contrasted principles we may perhaps say that, while Aristippus took the most obvious logical step for reducing the teaching of Socrates to clear dogmatic unity, Antisthenes certainly drew the most natural inference from the Socratic life.
Aristippus (see [Cyrenaics]) argued that, if all that is beautiful or admirable in conduct has this quality as being useful, i.e. productive of some further good; if virtuous action is essentially action done with insight, or rational Aristippus. apprehension of the act as a means to this good, this good must be pleasure. Bodily pleasures and pains Aristippus held to be the keenest, though he does not seem to have maintained this on any materialistic theory, as he admitted the existence of purely mental pleasures, such as joy in the prosperity of one’s native land. He fully recognized that his good was capable of being realized only in successive parts, and gave even exaggerated emphasis to the rule of seeking the pleasure of the moment, and not troubling oneself about a dubious future. It was in the calm, resolute, skilful culling of such pleasures as circumstances afforded from moment to moment, undisturbed by passion, prejudices or superstition, that he conceived the quality of wisdom to be exhibited; and tradition represents him as realizing this ideal to an impressive degree. Among the prejudices from which the wise man was free he included all regard to customary morality beyond what was due to the actual penalties attached to its violation; though he held, with Socrates, that these penalties actually render conformity reasonable. Thus early in the history of ethical theory appeared the most thorough-going exposition of hedonism.
Far otherwise was the Socratic spirit understood by Antisthenes and the Cynics (q.v.). They equally held that no speculative research was needed for the discovery of good and virtue, and maintained that the Socratic wisdom was The Cynics. exhibited, not in the skilful pursuit, but in the rational disregard of pleasure,—in the clear apprehension of the intrinsic worthlessness of this and most other objects of men’s ordinary desires and aims. Pleasure, indeed, Antisthenes declared roundly to be an evil; “Better madness than a surrender to pleasure.” He did not overlook the need of supplementing merely intellectual insight by “Socratic force of soul”; but it seemed to him that, by insight and self-mastery combined, an absolute spiritual independence might be attained which left nothing wanting for perfect well-being (see also [Diogenes]). For as for poverty, painful toil, disrepute, and such evils as men dread most, these, he argued, were positively useful as means of progress in spiritual freedom and virtue. There is, however, in the Cynic notion of wisdom, no positive criterion beyond the mere negation of irrational desires and prejudices. We saw that Socrates, while not claiming to have found the abstract theory of good or wise conduct, practically understood by it the faithful performance of customary duties, maintaining always that his own happiness was therewith bound up. The Cynics more boldly discarded both pleasure and mere custom as alike irrational; but in so doing they left the freed reason with no definite aim but its own freedom. It is absurd, as Plato urged, to say that knowledge is the good, and then when asked “knowledge of what?” to have no positive reply but “of the good”; but the Cynics do not seem to have made any serious effort to escape from this absurdity.
The ultimate views of these two Socratic schools we shall have to notice presently when we come to the post-Aristotelian schools. We must now proceed to trace the fuller development of the Socratic theory in the hands of Plato and Aristotle.
The ethics of Plato cannot properly be treated as a finished result, but rather as a continual movement from the position of Socrates towards the more complete, articulate system of Aristotle; except that there are ascetic and Plato. mystical suggestions in some parts of Plato’s teaching which find no counterpart in Aristotle, and in fact disappear from Greek philosophy soon after Plato’s death until they are revived and fantastically developed in Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism. The first stage at which we can distinguish Plato’s ethical view from that of Socrates is presented in the Protagoras, where he makes a serious, though clearly tentative effort to define the object of that knowledge which he with his master regards as the essence of all virtue. Such knowledge, he here maintains, is really mensuration of pleasures and pains, whereby the wise man avoids those mistaken under-estimates of future feelings in comparison with present which we commonly call “yielding to fear or desire.” This hedonism has perplexed Plato’s readers needlessly (as we have said in speaking of the Cyrenaics), inasmuch as hedonism is the most obvious corollary of the Socratic doctrine that the different common notions of good—the beautiful, the pleasant and the useful—were to be somehow interpreted by each other. By Plato, however, this conclusion could have been held only before he had accomplished the movement of thought by which he carried the Socratic method beyond the range of human conduct and developed it into a metaphysical system.