A critical history of Greek philosophy

by W. T. Stace

A note of warning is necessary before we enter upon the details of this problem. Plato frequently speaks of all moral activity aiming at, and ending in, happiness. With modern phrases ringing in our ears, we might easily suppose this to mean that Plato is a utilitarian. The utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill is distinguished by the fact that it places the end of morality in happiness. Yet Plato was not a utilitarian, and would unhesitatingly have condemned the theory of Mill. He [{221}] would have found it identical in principle with the Sophistic doctrine that pleasure is the end of virtue. The only difference is that, whereas the Sophists identified virtue with the pleasure of the individual, Mill makes it the pleasure of the community. That act is right which leads to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." In practice, of course, this makes a tremendous difference. But the principle is equally objectionable because, like the Sophistic theory, it founds morality upon mere feeling, instead of upon reason, and because it places the end of morality outside morality itself. Yet the formula of Mill, that the end of morals is happiness, seems the same as Plato's formula. What is the difference?

The fact is that what Mill calls happiness Plato would have called pleasure. Pleasure is the satisfaction of one's desires, whether they are noble or ignoble. Then what is happiness? It can only be defined as the general harmonious well-being of life. Only that man is happy whose soul is in the state it ought to be in, only in fact the just, the good, and the moral man. Happiness has nothing to do with pleasure. If you could conceive an absolutely just and upright man, who was yet weighed down with every possible misery and disaster, in whose life pleasure had no part, such a man would still be absolutely happy. Happiness is, therefore, in Plato, merely another name for the summum bonum. In saying that the summum bonum is happiness, Plato is not telling us anything about it. He is merely giving it a new name. And we are still left to enquire: what is the summum bonum? what is happiness?

Plato's answer, as indeed his whole ethics, is but [{222}] an application of the theory of Ideas. But here we can distinguish two different and, to some extent, inconsistent strains of thought, which exist side by side in Plato, and perpetually struggle for the mastery. Both views depend upon the theory of Ideas. In the first place, the Idea, in Plato's philosophy, is the sole reality. The object of sense is unreal, and merely clogs and dims the soul's vision of the Ideas. Matter is that which obstructs the free activity of the Idea. Sense-objects hide the Idea from our view. Therefore the world of sense is wholly evil. True virtue must consist in flying from the world of sense, in retiring from the affairs of the world, and even from the beauty of the senses, into the calm of philosophic contemplation. And if this were all, philosophy, the knowledge of the Ideas, would be the sole constituent of the summum bonum. But it is possible to regard sense-objects in another light. They are, after all, copies of the Ideas. They are therefore a manifestation and revelation of the ideal world. Hence Plato is compelled by this thought to allow a certain value to the world of sense, its affairs, and its beauty.

The result of this inconsistency is, at any rate, that Plato remains broad and human. He does not, on the one hand, preach a purely selfish retirement into philosophy, or a narrow ascetic ideal. He does not, on the other hand, adopt a low utilitarian view of life, allowing value only to that which is "practical." He remains true to the Greek ideal of life as a harmonious play of all the faculties, in which no one part of man is over-developed at the expense of the others.

The result is that Plato's summum bonum is not a single [{223}] end. It is a compound consisting of four parts. First, and chief of all, is the knowledge of the Ideas as they are in themselves, philosophy. Secondly, the contemplation of the Ideas as they reveal themselves in the world of sense, the love and appreciation of all that is beautiful, ordered, and harmonious. Thirdly, the cultivation of the special sciences and arts. And fourthly, indulgence in pure, refined, and innocent pleasures of the senses, excluding, of course, whatever is base and evil.

Plato had also a specific doctrine of virtue. As already stated, he distinguished between philosophic and customary virtue, and attached absolute value only to the former. He does not, however, deny a relative value to customary virtue, inasmuch as it is a means towards true virtue. Plato saw that man cannot rise at one bound to the pinnacles of rational virtue. He must needs pass through the preparatory stage of customary virtue. In the man in whom reason is not yet awakened, good habits and customs must be implanted, in order that, when reason comes, it may find the ground ready prepared.

Socrates had taught that virtue is one. And Plato in his earlier writings adopted this view. But later on he came to see that every faculty of man has its place and its function, and the due performance of its function is a virtue. He did not, however, surrender the unity of virtue altogether, but believed that its unity is compatible with its plurality. There are four cardinal virtues. Three of these correspond to the three parts of the soul, and the fourth is the unity of the others. The virtue of reason is wisdom, of the noble half of [{224}] the mortal soul courage, of the ignoble appetites, temperance or self-control, in which the passions allow themselves to be governed by reason. The fourth virtue, justice, arises from the others. Justice means proportion and harmony, and accrues to the soul when all three parts perform their functions and co-operate with each other.

Following Zeller, we may add to this account of the virtues some of Plato's views upon the details of life. And first, his opinion of women and marriage. Here Plato does not rise above the level of ordinary Greek morals. He has nothing specially original to say, but reflects the opinions of his age. Women he regards as essentially inferior to men. Moreover, the modern view of woman as the complement of man, as possessing those special virtues of womanliness, which a man lacks, is quite alien to Plato. The difference between men and women is, in his view, not one of kind but only of degree. The only specific difference between the sexes is the physical difference. Spiritually they are quite the same, except that woman is inferior. Hence Plato would not exclude women from the same education which man receives. He would educate them in exactly the same way, but this involves the imposition upon them of the same burdens. Even military duties are not outside the sphere of women.

His views of marriage flow from the same principle. Since woman is not the complement of man, she is in no special sense fitted to be his companion. Hence the ideal of spiritual companionship is absent from Plato's view of marriage, the sole object of which, in his opinion, is the propagation of children. The natural companion [{225}] of a man is not a woman, but another man. The ideal of friendship, therefore, takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in Plato and, indeed, among the ancients generally.

Slavery is not denounced by Plato. He takes no trouble to justify it, because he thinks it so obviously right that it needs no justification. All that can be said to his credit is that he demands humane and just, though firm and unsentimental, treatment of slaves.