Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 5

The PHILEBUS has a decidedly ethical character. It propounds for enquiry the _Good_, the Summum Bonum. This is denied to be mere pleasure, and the denial is enforced by Sokrates challenging his opponent to choose the lot of an ecstatic oyster. As usual, good must be related to Intelligence; and the Dialogue gives a long disquisition upon the One and the Many, the Theory of Ideas, the Determinate and the Indeterminate. Good is a compound of Pleasure and Intelligence, the last predominating. Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring the Determinate (Knowledge) to regulate it. This is merely another expression for the doctrine of Measure, and for the common saying, that the Pa.s.sions must be controlled by Reason. There is, also, in the dialogue, a good deal on the Psychology of Pleasure and Pain. Pleasure is the fundamental harmony of the system; Pain its disturbance. Bodily Pleasure pre-supposes pain [true only of some pleasures]. Mental pleasures may be without previous pain, and are therefore pure pleasures. A life of Intelligence is conceivable without either pain or pleasure; this is the choice of the Wise man, and is the nature of the G.o.ds. Desire is a mixed state, and comprehends body and mind. Much stress is laid on the moderate and tranquil pleasures; the intense pleasures, coveted by mankind, belong to a distempered rather than a healthy state; they are false and delusive. Pleasure is, by its nature, a change or transition, and cannot be a supreme end. The mixture of Pleasure and Intelligence is to be adjusted by the all-important principle of Measure or Proportion, which connects the Good with the Beautiful.

A decided asceticism is the ethical tendency of this dialogue. It is markedly opposed to the view of the Protagoras. Still greater is the opposition between it and the two Erotic dialogues, Phaedrus and Symposium, where _Bonum_ and _Pulchrum_ are attained in the pursuit of an ecstatic and overwhelming personal affection.

The REPUBLIC starts with the question--what is JUSTICE? and, in answering it, provides the scheme of a model Republic. Book I. is a Sokratic colloquy, where one speaker, on being interrogated, defines Justice as 'rendering to every man his due,' and afterwards amends it to 'doing good to friends, evil to enemies.' Another gives 'the right of the strongest.' A third maintains that Injustice by itself is profitable to the doer; but, as it is an evil to society in general, men make laws against it and punish it; in consequence of which, Justice is the more profitable. Sokrates, in opposition, undertakes to prove that Justice is good in itself, ensuring the happiness of the doer by its intrinsic effect on his mind; and irrespective of exemption from the penalties of injustice. He reaches this result by a.s.similating an individual to a state. Justice is shown to be good in the entire city, and by a.n.a.logy it is also good in the individual. He accordingly proceeds to construct his ideal commonwealth. In the course of this construction many ethical views crop out.

The state must prescribe the religious belief, and allow no compositions at variance with it. The G.o.ds must always be set forth as the causes of good; they must never be represented as the authors of evil, nor as practising deceit. Neither is it to be allowed to represent men as unjust, yet happy; or just, and yet miserable. The poetic representation of bad characters is also forbidden. The musical training is to be adapted for disposing the mind to the perception of Beauty, whence it becomes qualified to recognize the other virtues.

Useful fictions are to be diffused, without regard to truth. This pious fraud is openly recommended by Plato.

The division of the human mind into (1) REASON or Intelligence; (2) ENERGY, Courage, Spirit, or the Military Virtue; and (3) Many-headed APPEt.i.tE, all in mutual counter-play--is transferred to the State, each of the three parts being represented by one of the political orders or divisions of the community. The happiness of the man and the happiness of the commonwealth are attained in the same way, namely, by realizing the four virtues--Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice; with this condition, that Wisdom, or Reason, is sought only in the Ruling caste, the Elders; Courage, or Energy, only in the second caste, the Soldiers or Guardians; while Temperance and Justice (meaning almost the same thing) must inhere alike in all the three cla.s.ses, and be the only thing expected in the third, the Working Mult.i.tude.

If it be now asked, what and where is Justice? the answer is--'every man to attend to his own business.' Injustice occurs when any one abandons his post, or meddles with what does not belong to him; and more especially when any one of a lower division aspires to the function of a higher. Such is Justice for the city, and such is it in the individual; the higher faculty--Reason, must control the two lower--Courage and Appet.i.te. Justice is thus a sort of harmony or balance of the mental powers; it is to the mind what health is to the body. Health is the greatest good, sickness the greatest evil, of the body; so is Justice of the mind.

It is an essential of the Platonic Republic that, among the guardians at least, the s.e.xual arrangements should be under public regulation, and the monopoly of one woman by one man forbidden: a regard to the breed of the higher caste of citizens requires the magistrate to see that the best couples are brought together, and to refuse to rear the inferior offspring of ill-a.s.sorted connexions. The number of births is also to be regulated.

In carrying on war, special maxims of clemency are to be observed towards h.e.l.lenic enemies.

The education of the Guardians must be philosophical; it is for them to rise to the Idea of the good, to master the science of Good and Evil; they must be emanc.i.p.ated from the notion that Pleasure is the good. To indicate the route to this attainment Plato gives his theory of cognition generally--the theory of Ideas;--and indicates (darkly) how these sublime generalities are to be reached.

The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation and decay; pa.s.sing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness. The same varieties may be traced in the Individual; the 'despotized' mind is the acme of Injustice and consequent misery.

The comparative value of Pleasures is discussed. The pleasures of philosophy, or wisdom (those of Reason), are alone true and pure; the pleasures corresponding to the two other parts of the mind are inferior; Love of Honour (from Courage or Energy), and Love of Money (Appet.i.te). The well-ordered mind--Justice--is above all things the source of happiness. Apart from all consequences of Justice, this is true; the addition of the natural results only enhances the strength of the position.

In TIMAEUS, Plato repeats the doctrine that wickedness is to the mind what disease is to the body. The soul suffers from two distempers, madness and ignorance; the man under pa.s.sionate heat is not wicked voluntarily. No man is bad willingly; but only from some evil habit of body, the effect of bad bringing-up [very much the view of Robert Owen].

The long treatise called the LAWS, being a modified scheme of a Republic, goes over the same ground with more detail. We give the chief ethical points. It is the purpose of the lawgiver to bring about happiness, and to provide all good things divine and human. The divine things are the cardinal virtues--Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, Courage; the human are the leading personal advantages--Health, Beauty, Strength, Activity, Wealth. He requires the inculcation of self-command, and a training in endurance. The moral and religious feelings are to be guided in early youth, by the influence of Poetry and the other Fine Arts, in which, as before, a stringent censorship is to be exercised; the songs and dances are all to be publicly authorized. The ethical doctrine that the just man is happy and the unjust miserable, is to be preached; and every one prohibited from contradicting it. Of all the t.i.tles to command in society, Wisdom is the highest, although policy may require it to be conjoined with some of the others (Birth, Age, Strength, Accident, &c.). It is to be a part of the const.i.tution to provide public exhortations, or sermons, for inculcating virtue; Plato having now pa.s.sed into an opposite phase as to the value of Rhetoric, or continuous address. The family is to be allowed in its usual form, but with restraints on the age of marriage, on the choice of the parties, and on the increase of the number of the population. s.e.xual intercourse is to be as far as possible confined to persons legally married; those departing from this rule are, at all events, to observe secresy. The slaves are not to be of the same race as the masters. As regards punishment, there is a great complication, owing to the author's theory that wickedness is not properly voluntary. Much of the harm done by persons to others is unintentional or involuntary, and is to be made good by reparation.

For the loss of balance or self-control, making the essence of injustice, there must be a penal and educational discipline, suited to cure the moral distemper; not for the sake of the past, which cannot be recalled, but of the future. Under cover of this theory, the punishments are abundantly severe; and the crimes include Heresy, for which there is a gradation of penalties terminating in death.

We may now summarize the Ethics of Plato, under the general scheme as follows:--

I.--The Ethical Standard, or criterion of moral Right and Wrong. This we have seen is, ultimately, the Science of Good and Evil, as determined by a Scientific or Wise man; the Idea of the Good, which only a philosopher can ascend to. Plato gave no credit to the maxims of the existing society; these were wholly unscientific.

It is obvious that this vague and indeterminate standard would settle nothing practically; no one can tell what it is. It is only of value as belonging to a very exalted and poetic conception of virtue, something that raises the imagination above common life into a sphere of transcendental existence.

II.--The Psychology of Ethics.

1. As to the Faculty of discerning Right. This is implied in the foregoing statement of the criterion. It is the Cognitive or Intellectual power. In the definite position taken up in Protagoras, it is the faculty of Measuring pleasures against one another and against pains. In other dialogues, measure is still the important aspect of the process, although the things to be measured are not given.

2. As regards the Will. The theory that vice, if not the result of ignorance, is a form of madness, an uncontrollable fury, a mental distemper, gives a peculiar rendering of the nature of man's Will. It is a kind of Necessity, not exactly corresponding, however, with the modern doctrine of that name.

3. Disinterested Sentiment is not directly and plainly recognized by Plato. His highest virtue is self-regarding; a concern for the Health of the Soul.

III.--On the Bonum, or Summum Bonum, Plato is ascetic and self-denying. 1. We have seen that in Philebus, Pleasure is not good, unless united with Knowledge or Intelligence; and the greater the Intelligence, the higher the pleasure. That the highest happiness of man is the pursuit of truth or Philosophy, was common to Plato and to Aristotle.

2. Happiness is attainable only through Justice or Virtue. Justice is declared to be happiness, first, in itself, and secondly, in its consequences. Such is the importance attached to this maxim as a safeguard of Society, that, whether true or not, it is to be maintained by state authority.

3. The Psychology of Pleasure and Pain is given at length in the Philebus.

IV.--With regard to the scheme of Duty. In Plato, we find the first statement of the four Cardinal Virtues.

As to the Substance of the Moral Code, the references above made to the Republic and the Laws will show in what points his views differed from modern Ethics.

Benevolence was not one of the Cardinal Virtues.

His notions even of Reciprocity were rendered hazy and indistinct by his theory of Justice as an end in itself.

The inducements, means, and stimulants to virtue, in addition to penal discipline, are training, persuasion, or hortatory discourse, dialectic cognition of the Ideas, and, above all, that ideal aspiration towards the Just, the Good, around which he gathered all that was fascinating in poetry, and all the a.s.sociations of religion and divinity. Plato employed his powerful genius in working up a lofty spiritual reward, an ideal intoxication, for inciting men to the self-denying virtues. He was the first and one of the greatest of preachers. His theory of Justice is suited to preaching, and not to a scientific a.n.a.lysis of society.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics is intimate, and even inseparable. The Civil Magistrate, as in Hobbes, supplies the Ethical sanction. All virtue is an affair of the state, a political inst.i.tution. This, however, is qualified by the demand for an ideal state, and an ideal governor, by whom alone anything like perfect virtue can be ascertained.

VI.--The relationship with Theology is also close. That is to say, Plato was not satisfied to construct a science of good and evil, without conjoining the sentiments towards the G.o.ds. His Theology, however, was of his own invention, and adapted to his ethical theory.

It was necessary to suppose that the G.o.ds were the authors of good, in order to give countenance to virtue.

Plato was the ally of the Stoics, as against the Epicureans, and of such modern theorists as Butler, who make virtue, and not happiness, the highest end of man. With him, discipline was an end in itself, and not a means; and he endeavoured to soften its rigour by his poetical and elevated Idealism.

Although he did not preach the good of mankind, or direct beneficence, he undoubtedly prepared the way for it, by urging self-denial, which has no issue or relevance, except either by realizing greater happiness to Self (mere exalted Prudence, approved of by all sects), or by promoting the welfare of others.

THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS.

These opposing sects sprang from Sokrates, and pa.s.sed, with little modification, the one into the Stoics, the other into the Epicureans.

Both ANTISTHENES, the founder of the Cynics, and ARISTIPPUS, the founder of the Cyrenaics, were disciples of Sokrates.

Their doctrines chiefly referred to the Summum Bonum--the Art of Living, or of Happiness.

The CYNICS were most closely allied to Sokrates; they, in fact, carried out to the full his chosen mode of life. His favourite maxim--that the G.o.ds had no wants, and that the most G.o.dlike man was he that approached to the same state--was the Cynic Ideal. To subsist upon the narrowest means; to acquire indifference to pain, by a discipline of endurance; to despise all the ordinary pursuits of wealth and pleasure,--were Sokratic peculiarities, and were the _beau ideal_ of Cynicism.

The Cynic succession of philosophers were, (1) ANTISTHENES, one of the most constant friends and companions of Sokrates; (2) DIOGENES of Sinope, the pupil of Antisthenes, and the best known type of the sect.

(His disciple Krates, a Theban, was the master of Zeno, the first Stoic.) (3) STILPON of Megara, (4) MENEDEMUS of Eretria, (5) MONIMUS of Syracuse, (6) KRATES.

The two first heads of the Ethical scheme, so meagrely filled up by the ancient systems generally, are almost a total blank as regards both Cynics and Cyrenaics.

I.--As regards a Standard of right and wrong, moral good or evil, they recognized nothing but obedience to the laws and customs of society.

II.--They had no Psychology of a moral faculty, of the will, or of benevolent sentiment. The Cyrenaic Aristippus had a Psychology of Pleasure and Pain.

The Cynics, instead of discussing Will, exercised it, in one of its most prominent forms,--self-control and endurance.

Disinterested conduct was no part of their scheme, although the ascetic discipline necessarily promotes abstinence from sins against property, and from all the vices of public ambition.

III.--The proper description of both systems comes under the Summum Bonum, or the Art of Living.

The Cynic Ideal was the minimum of wants, the habituation to pain, together with indifference to the common enjoyments. The compensating reward was exemption from fear, anxiety, and disappointment; also, the pride of superiority to fellow-beings and of approximation to the G.o.ds. Looking at the great predominance of misery in human life, they believed the problem of living to consist in a mastery over all the forms of pain; until this was first secured, there was to be a total sacrifice of pleasure.

The Cynics were mostly, like Sokrates, men of robust health, and if they put their physical const.i.tution to a severe test by poor living and exposure to wind and weather, they also saved it from the wear and tear of steady industry and toil. Exercise of body and of mind, with a view to strength and endurance, was enjoined; but it was the drill of the soldier rather than the drudgery of the artisan.

In the eyes of the public, the prominent feature of the Cynic was his contemptuous jeering, and sarcastic abuse of everybody around. The name (Cynic, dog-like) denotes this peculiarity. The anecdotes relating to Diogenes ill.u.s.trate his coa.r.s.e denunciation of men in general and their luxurious ways. He set at defiance all the conventions of courtesy and of decency; spoke his mind on everything without fear or remorse; and delighted in his antagonism to public opinion. He followed the public and obtrusive life of Sokrates, but instead of dialectic skill, his force lay in vituperation, sarcasm, and repartee. 'To Sokrates,' says Epiktetus, 'Zeus a.s.signed the cross-examining function; to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function; to Zeno (the Stoic), the didactic and dogmatical.'

The Cynics had thus in full measure one of the rewards of asceticism, the pride of superiority and power. They did not profess an end apart from their own happiness; they believed and maintained that theirs was the only safe road to happiness. They agreed with the Cyrenaics as to the end; they differed as to the means.

The founders of the sect, being men of culture, set great store by education, from which, however, they excluded (as it would appear) both the Artistic and the Intellectual elements of the superior instruction of the time, namely, Music, and the Sciences of Geometry, Astronomy, &c. Plato's writings and teachings were held in low esteem.