leopold schmidt -- the unity of the ethics of ancient greece

8/20/2019 Leopold Schmidt -- The Unity of the Ethics of Ancient Greece

1/11

The Unity of the Ethics of Ancient GreeceAuthor(s): Leopold SchmidtSource: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Oct., 1891), pp. 1-10Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375804 .

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2/11

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNALF

ETHICS.

OCTOBER, 1891.

THE

UNITY OF

THE

ETHICS

OF

ANCIENT

GREECE.

NINE

years ago,

when

I

published my

work,

The

Ethics

of the Ancient

Greeks"

("

Die

Ethik der

alten

Griechen"),

introduced t with the followingwords:

"The

presentation

f the

ethics

of the ancient

Greeks,

hat s

attempted

n

the

sequel, presupposes, f

course,

hat

throughout

he

centuries f

their

xist-

ence the

Greeks

were

governed

y

a number f

similar

moral

ideas; for,with-

out such

a

presupposition,

t

would

be

unjustifiable

o

speak

either

of a

Greek

nationor

of a

Greek civilization.

Undoubtedly,

heir

views

on

particular

mat-

terswere subject

to

many

variation n

the

course

of

time; undoubtedly,he

changeswhich

their

eligious

conceptions

ere

undergoing,

he

progressive

e-

velopment

f the functions

f the

state,

he

gradual

humanizing

f

customs,

he

increasing oints f contact etween hethoughtf thepeople and theproblems

openedby philosophy,

ad

also had

a

mighty

nfluence n the

ideas

relating

o

what

a

man

ought

o

do;

but he

would

no

longer

have been

a

Greek,who,

n

the midst

f his

pondering

nd

strivingthe moment

t

rose

above

the

common-

place),

had

not felt

himself

tanding

nder he

spell

of the

Homeric

songs,who

had not ooked

at a maximof

Theogenes

as addressed to

him. It is

just this

powerful

nfluence f the

poets,

nd the

world

of

myth

f

which

they reated,

n

the moral deals of the

people,

that

gave

these ideals

a

stability hich,

n

con-

crete

nstances,

ould

otherwise e

surprising

nd

inexplicable.

Indeed,

on

this

influenceests,n nosmalldegree, he ruth fthe aying fAristotle,o strikingly

characteristicf the

Greeks,

hat

poetry

s

more

philosophical

nd

more

erious

than

history.'

In the

review

of

mybook,

in

vol.

i. pp.

256,

257

of

this

our-

nal

(January,89i),

Mr.

Davidson

has

combated the funda-

mental

thought xpressed

in the

foregoing

paragraph. Ac-

VOL.

II.-NO.

I

I


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3/11

2

International

ournal

of

Ethics.

cording

to

him,

t

is as

impossible

to set up a unified

thicsof

Greece

as

it would be

to

delineate one of

England

or

of

France. The great differencesf time and the greatdiffer-

ence

between ndividualprovinces,

he thinks, revent

his.

But

this

objection

leaves out

of

sight

the immense

mpor-

tance

which

the difference

f nationalitieshad

for the

lifeof

antiquity,

whose development

followedin this respect

quite

other aws

than those

of modern

times.

Not

only religions,

customs,

nd

tastes,

but

also moral

ideas,

divided

individual

nations;

while,

within

the nations

themselves,

they

were

a

common bond, uniting togethertheir comrades who lived

away

from

hem,

nd also their

ncestors

and

posterity.

And

for

his

reason

I like to

look

upon my

work

as

an

introduc-

tion

to

comparative

ethics,

s

defined

by

Professor

H6ffding

in

his

"

Ethik."

*

To

carry

on

this preliminary

ask,

it

would

be necessary

to

do for

he

Egyptians,

the Persians,

the

Jews,

nd

the

Romans,

what

I have

attempted

to do for the

Greeks; for hough hering's" Geistdes r6mischenRechtes"

offers

much that

s

valuable

with regard

to the Romans,

there

is yet

need

of a

comprehensive

summary

of their

ethical

ideal.

In a

study

of

the ethicsof

the Greeks

only

those

concep-

tions,

of

course,

can be taken account

of

which

have been

formed

within he

great

current

f their national civilization,

and have governed the mindsof thepeople. The imperfec-

tion

of our

knowledge

of facts

has,

along

with

its

disadvan-

tages,

certain

dvantages,

enabling

us better o fixour atten-

tion

on the

mportant

nd

characteristic

eatures

f the

national

spirit.

In the

fifth nd

fourth enturies before

Christ

there

were

some

provinces,

perhaps,

n

the

highly

divided

Greece,

where

homage

was still

paid

to

a

crude

religious

fetichism,

where

men were not

averse

to human

sacrifices,

nd

where

wholesale

robbery

nd

theft

were

regarded

as

harmless;

but

*

Professor

i5ffding

rites

page 7

of

the German

ranslation):

"

Historic

r

comparative

thics eeksto

present ositive

morality

s it

appears

n a

given

time

and

among

a

given

people;

it seeks

to

prove

what

development ositive

moral-

ity

undergoes

nder

differing

ondit

ons,

nd to

compare

he

several

formst

may

assume

at

different

imes mong

different

eoples."




4/11

The

Unity f theEthics of AncientGreece. 3

the thought

of

such

a

possible

state

of

things

must not divert

our attention

rom

he

ideals

of ifeprevalent

n

those regions

withinwhich the historicmissionofGreecefulfilledtself. In

giving an account of

the moral ideas of Christian Europe

in

the nineteenth

entury, t would not be necessaryto modify

essentially

the ideas held in

respect

to

property nd state

supremacy,merelybecause the

population

of

Calabria,

for

a

long period, aw

nothingwrong

n

the encouragement f rob-

bery,

or

because a

great part

of

Sicily

allowed

itself

to

be

in-

fluenced ythe Mafiarather hanbythe lawful uthorityfthe

state. Moreover,

t

must not be

forgotten

hat

morality

as

to

do,notwith he actual

conduct

f

men,

ut

with

he

tandards c-

cording to which

one

estimates he

desires and deeds of

others

and

of one's

self,

f

the

latter

s made the

subjectQf

conscious

reflection.

And

in

most parts

of

Greece the

moral

standards

were undoubtedly

more

uniform

han

the

habits

of

life.

Mr.

Davidson maintains,

though hardly

with

justice,

that

the

morality fCorinth nd that ofSybariswas altogetherdiffer-

ent from hat of

Athens or

Sparta.

In

all

probability n in-

telligent ybarite

estimated

virtues,

which

he

did

not

practise

and

rarely aw,

as

well as

faults he himself

committed nd

frequently met

with,

not otherwise than the

Athenian,

whose

surroundings

were

quite

different rom his

own; for

nothing

is

truer

than

the

saying

of Plato

(Laws, 12,

950b.):

Oefrdmapaoy obfaea; dperijz, aereoa4~lgoc tv~rxdovYofa

ooC

oooi`3voV

xal

rob

xp'ety -zobs

6%A'ov;

f

7roryipoc

al

a`Zp-ftroc.

Ieiow

i

Te xal

e?voro-

Zov

iYecr

xal

rooc

xaxoiq.

cWTre

cA47roA)oc

al riovy

po6pa

xaxcy

eo

rofs

Aorocs

al

raZs

l0$aef lcatpobyrae

robq

dfarl'youq

iov

c9,poWcrwY

ale

ToO,

Zeepoyax.*

Differences f

time are

undeniably

of

far

greater impor-

tance

in

moral considerations han

those

of

locality.

It is

quite

in

place

here

to ask whether

treatment,omprising

he

moral deas of all periods, ughtnotto be replaced by one ar-

*

"

For the

many

re not so far

wrong

n

their

udgment

f

who

are

bad and

who

are

good,

as

they

are

removedfrom

he

nature of

virtue n

themselves.

Even

bad

men have a divine instinct

which

guesses rightly,

nd

very many

who

are

utterly epraved

form

orrect

otions

nd

judgments

bout

the

differ-

ence of

good

and

bad."-Yowett's

translation.




5/11

4

International

_7ournal

f

Ethics.

ranged ccordingto

periodswhichwould separate

he Homeric

age from he centuries

hat elapsed between Solon

and

Aris-

totle, nd that, gain,from he post-Aristotelian eriod. But,

in attempting o

carry out such a task,

greater difficulties

would arise than one

at

the first

lance

would

expect; for,

n

spite of the differences

n their conditionsof

life

nd

in their

ideals, there s yet much upon which their

minds are united,

from he time of

Homer down to the rise

of the Roman em-

perors.

Homer

stands on the thresholdof a social

develop-

mentwhich goes on

uninterruptedlyill the

time of Plutarch,

who was the last personof whom we have any knowledge,

who felt

like a

genuine

Greek.

The

expressions

of this

de-

velopment

re

by

no means

confined o

practical

views

of

life

and

to

literary

aste.

For the first race of that

ense of

sym-

metrical rrangement nd plastic art,

which culminated

n

the

master-work

f the

Acropolis

of

Athens,

may already

be rec-

ognized

n the

description

f

the shield ofAchilles in the

liad.*

The peculiar national ypeofGreece s stampedon everything,

and in the

realm

of moral

ideas

it

is

more important o keep

in view this type than

to

lay

stress

on

the changes of different

periods.

Even

the

philosophers,

t

least until

Aristotle's ime,

were

subject

to

this

common

type,

lthough they opposed

in

many

details

the

popular ideas. Plato

especially offers, n

this

respect,

distinct

roof

f the

German

proverb, Niemand

kann aus seinerHaut springen."

First

of

all,

we

must

take into

consideration he fact

that

the

moral

ideas

are

indissolubly

bound

up with the most

primitive

nd

most

strikingproduction

f the

national spirit,

viz.,

with

anguage.

The

meaning

and

motivesof moral

udg-

mentscan often

be

recognized only by

reference o the words

chosen

to

express

them. No

language,perhaps,

s

so rich

as

the

Greek

in

finely

haded

means

of

expressing praise and

blame, and,

although

in the

course of time

these

words have

not

remained

unchanged

n

their

meaning

or in the

frequency

*

This has

been

justly

pointed

out

by

ProfessorBrunn in his

treatise, Die

Kunst

bei

Homer

und ihr

Verhqltniss

u

den

Anflngen

der

griechischen unst-

geschichte."




6/11

The Unity f

the

Ethics

of

AncientGreece. 5

of their use,-indeed,

though they partlyowe

their finer nd

more perfect ignification

o the people of

Attica,-they are

yet, as a whole, common national property f the first ank,

and all judgments

of the Greeks are influenced

y the world

of

thought xpressed

by them. The variety

fprincipleswhich

are

authoritative or

pproval or disapproval re unmistakably

reflectedn them. At one time the attention

s directedmore

towards

man

as a whole, at another more towards individual

action.

Right

conduct

appears

now as

that

which conforms o

thewill of the gods,and now as that which s obedientto the

civil order, nd now again as that which

rejoices and inspires

the human

heart.

It

is

also frequently reated

as being the

outcome

of

a normal

mental

constitution, f

moral delicacy,

of

inheriteddisposition,

r of thorough education.

The blame

for

wrong conduct,

on the other hand,

is

generallybased

on

opposite suppositions,

nd

not seldom

implies pitiful

ondi-

tions or

expresses

various

degrees

of

condemnation.

Yet

language by no means establishes fixed limits between the

different oints

of view referred

o above. It rather

favors

their

flowing

nto

each other.

Thus,

the

facts show

clearly

that

the

popular

mind

of

Greece

held

up,

as the

basis

of valua-

tion,

moral

ideal

which was

approved

by

the

gods,

corre-

sponded with the

social

order,made a

deep impressionupon

the

people,

and

recognized personal worth;

although

contem-

plation dwelt now more on one aspect and now more on

another.

Few

things mark more clearly

the dependence

of

posterity

n

the heritage

of

their

ancestors

than

the

way

in

which

the

philosophers

use a

word

to

designate

virtue

which

the older

poets

use to

embrace

everything

hat

gives

a

person

or a

thing special

value

(&per?). Consequently

the

idea

of

moral

worth

mplied

that of value. It

is

perhaps

the greatest

defect f mybook that I did not considerthe technical lan-

guage

of

good

and evil at the beginning

f

the whole work,

instead

of

in the

concluding chapterof

the first

olume,

n

order

to make

clear from

the

beginning

the

meaning

of

the

Greek

expressions

of

valuation,

and

their connection with

the national

cast

of

mind.

If

we

turn

away

from this

important

nd essential

aspect




7/11

6

International

7ournal

f

Ethics.

of

ethical development, o the

psychological, ocial, and reli-

gious conditionsof life, nd to the

details of moral demands,

it will be readily noticed that there s more resemblance han

difference etweenthe poetryof Homer

and the Attic period.

No

doubt

a man of

the Homeric age

is

not conditioned n all

his

relations,

ike the man of the Attic

period,by

the

civil com-

munity o which he belongs,but he

is

always conscious that

civilization and the legal order of the

state

are

inseparable

and

almost synonymous terms. No

doubt

the

Greek

of

the'

Homeric age does not share the convictions f the contem-

poraries

of

Solon

and

Plato about

combining

nto a

unit

all

the

generations

f a

family y connecting

he

living

descend-

ants

and the

ancestors

who

abide

in

Hades;

but

he, too,

thinks

it

necessary

to

pay special

honor to the dead. The

views prevailing

in

Homer's time

are

almost

wholly

iden-

tical in numerous other points with

those

of the

historic

period.

In both

periods

the

belief

in a

recompensing

and

avenging justice of the gods formsthe basis of religion.

One

of the

main-springs

f moral action at both

times,

was the

judgment

of

their

fellow-men,

onnectedwiththe

memory

f

those

who had filled

prominent ositions

n

the

past. Indeed,

even

that

finedistinction

which

Attic authors

make

between

the

two

related but not

identicalemotionsof

ciac6s

and

active

is

not

foreign

o

the Homeric

poems.

The tendency o choose a term to express conscience that

implied

a

judging

self

accompanying

the

acting

self as

spec-

tator,

nd

to

regard

its

verdict

with

similar

respect

as

the

opinions

of

others,

s

common both to

the

language

of

Homer

and

of Attica.

According

to

the Homeric

usage,

conscious-

ness

(ealyac)

is

identical

with

conscience,

nd to

say that one

knows what

s

equitable

or

unjust expresses

a

national

mode of

thoughtwhich appears in various forms,nd in its last theo-

retical conclusion

n

the ethical rationalism f

Sokrates.

It

is

a

truth

ecognized

n

the

Odyssey

as

well as

in

the

philosophy

of Attica that the

ability

to

distinguishgood

from vil is

the

characteristic

f

manlymaturity.

The

conception

of

evil in

the Attic

period

was

largely

underthe

nfluence

fthe

Homeric

conception

of Ate and

is

brought

out

most

fully

n

/Eschylus.




8/11

The

Unity

f thze thicsof AncientGreece.

7

One

of the

peculiarities

f the intellectual

ife of

the Greeks is

the high

value which they ttached

to

emulationas an impor-

tantstimulus o activityn all spheres of life. That this view

was alreadypeculiar

to the Homeric

world,

s not

only

shown

bythe races held at Scheria

and Ithaca, and in

the camp of the

Achaians

before

Troy,

but

also

by

the

advice

with which,

n

the Iliad, Hippolochos parts from

his

son, namely,

that he

should always tryto

be the first nd to surpass his rival. In

Homer,

as

later,

the monogamic marriagedistinguishes

he

customs of the Greeks from those of the barbarians. In

both

periods

the defence

f

the native

country

recommended

in a typical way by

a

saying

of

Hector

in

the Iliad), the

sacredness of

the oath,

the considerate

protection

of guests,

were regarded

to

be

primary

duties. In

both

periods it was

held obligatory

hat

the

suppliant

who uttered his

petitions

in the

solemn form

of

Exedta

should not

be injured without

penalty, nd that the common meal was a sacred religious

bond. Similarly

he

truly

Greek

conception

hat the

veritable

ideal of

friendship

an

only

be realized

by

two friends s

at

the

basis of

Homer's

description

of

the

relation between

Achilles and

Patroklus,

as

well

as of

the

utterances of the

philosophersrelating

o this

subject.

But

perhaps

it

may

be

objected,

that

although the

cen-

turies

fromHomer

to Aristotle are connected

by

an

abun-

dance of similarviews,thevictory fthe Macedonian military

monarchy

marks

the

beginning

of a new

epoch.

It

weakened

the feeling

f

membership

n the

civil

community,

hich

was

organized

on a

religious

basis and

bound

together

like

a

family,

nd

which

had hitherto

ccupied

the

central

place

in

the

moral

consciousness.

This

objection

would

be

perfectly

valid, if,

oon afterAlexander

the

Great,

ll

Greeks

had

be-

come Stoic or Epicurean philosophers. But howevermuch,

in

course of

time,

the influence

of

the schools had

grown,

they by

no means

exclusively

or even

predominantly

eter-

mined

the

total

characterof the

age.

Generally,

t

is

in

the

nature

of ethical

development

that an

epoch

is

never exclu-

sively

under

the dominion of

a

single

moral

tendency;

its

main

current

s

opposed

in

some way by

a

counter-current;




9/11

8 International

Yournal of Ethics.

or

it may be that views destined

to prevail later on are

now

in their initiatory tages, or that the currentswhich

have

been wholly checked have left theirafter-effects.t will be

readily noticed that

in

this ideal of life, after which

the

Homeric Greek fashioned

the image of his gods, the

slow

beginnings

of

the later Epicurean

conception are portrayed,

as

well

as

a

certain undervaluation f the power of impulse,

which

is

apparent

n

the

judgments

of

the Attic

writers nd

contains

a

germ of the Stoic

mode of thought; also, thatthe

individual-eudemonistichilosophy

of life s already foreshad-

owed in the systemsof mucholder philosophers. But more

important

s

the fact hat the

ideas prevalent n the prime of

Greece continued o exist

and to have an influence hrough

series of centuries. They

were no longer so closely and

in-

timately onnected as

in the

classical period, and their

effi-

ciency

was

therefore

eakened and

unequal

in

intensity,

ut

they

were

by

no means

immediatelydisplaced by

a

differ-

entview of the universe. The polls, t is true,ceased to be

the

centre

of

all human

existence;

but its

forms

ontinued o

live,

and it

still

remained

n

object

of

attachment,nd,

n

some

cases,

of devotion.

Religious worship

was no

longer

so much

as before elt o be interwoven

with

political ife;

the number f

those

increased

who

turned

side

from

t,

but

for

he

majority

it still remainedthe medium

of a

blissful ntercourse

with the

gods, and the repugnant nstances of the deification f men

-the

worst

effectsof

vanishing republicanism-remained

isolated.

The duties

and

cares

of family ifecommanded the

same

respect

s

formerly.

They received growing attention

with

the decrease of

public

interest.

Although

the numberof

non-philosophicworks,preserved

from hose

centuries,

which might supply

us

with the

neces-

sary information,

s

not considerable, they

still suffice

to

confirm he above statement

nd enable

us

to

see

that the

destructive

feature

f their

average

mode of

thought

lies in

the

way

in

which the

moral ideas

prevalent

n

the

preceding

period

still

continue

to have

influence

n

a

weakened

form.

It

is

not the

positive predominance

of

a

new

kind

of senti-

ment

or

judgment,

but the absence

of

a

specifically

ational




10/11

The Unity f theEthics of

Ancient

Greece.

9

shade of thought, that distinguishes the numerous moral

reflections f Polybius

from hose of Thukydides, Xenophon,

and Isokrates. Even the way in which this historian makes

Tyche interfere ith human destiny s mostly due to a weak-

ened adherence to

the ancient Greek conception of retribu-

tion. For only very

rarelydoes he make her the guardian

of

an

historical

teleology by tracing

the

growth

of the

Roman

power,

considered as benefitingmankind,

to

her

special contrivance. The epigrams of Greek anthology ead

us among menwhose love of family,whose reverencefor heir

dead, whose

gratitude towards the gods, are of the same

nature as those of

the Attic citizens of the fifth nd fourth

centuries; yet with

the latter t is not so perceptible s with

the

former, hat theirfamily ife and theirworship

was based

on a

political

community. Many peculiarities

n

the

fables of

Babrius indicatethe

continuing ffectsn the late centuries

f

the ethical ideals of

Greece duringher prime.

Even the different

orms f philosophic thought

of the

pe-

riod of

whichwe speak stood in nowise in so sharp

a contrast

with

the prevailing

modes of thought

of

the preceding

cen-

turies

as did the

philosophy of the Stoics

and

Epicureans.

That of the

Peripatetics pproaches it much closer.'

For not

only does the founder

f this school in his ethical considera-

tions

start rom he question as to what is actually pproved

of

by men,recognizing hus the voice of the people as the natural

and

proper udge, and

sees in the welfareof the state the

end

of

ife, ut also in the

successive development f the doctrines

of

his

school one notices a remarkable divergence from

he

Stoic

teaching t

a

pointon which both seemingly gree.

The

love of

the human race is laid down as a law by both schools,

but the

Stoics demand

it with absolute indifference

o

the

smaller communitiesto which a man belongs; the Peripa-

tetics,

on

the

contrary, emand it

on

the

basis

that

as the

household of

the

family

s

to expand into that

of

the state,

so

the

latter

is

to

expand into that of mankind. The Peri-

patetics consequently dhere to and build upon the view

of

the older

Greece,

according to which

the

family

nd

the

state

form

he

true values of

life.




11/11

IO

InternationalYournal of Ethics.

The individualistichedonism of the Stoic and Epicurean

systems is evidently he natural theoretical outcome of

the

intellectual onditionof an age in which the moral fellowship

of

the civil community ad ceased to supply the full meaning

to

human life,while

as

yet

no

other centregave

a

new

aim to

the

age. He, therefore,

ho

investigates

n

every age

those

elementsof mental developmentwhich contain the germs

of

futurepromise and

in

which an historical progress

is

going

on,

will

be

obliged,

in

considering

the

Hellenic

age,

to

place

those two schools into the foreground. But he who attempts

to unite into one

comprehensive picture

the

moral

ideas

that form

he

character

f

a

people,

must

also,

in

this

period,

seek to findwhat it has

in

common with early Greece. Just

as the

expounder

of ancient art

is

often nabled to

recognize

the

character f a statue

of

the prime

of

Greek art by follow-

ing its copies into the period of the Roman empire, o the

historian f ethics must also followethical ideas on beyond

the timewhen theyacted with undiminished igor and com-

pleteness. And

if,

s a

result, strictboundary ine to them

in

time becomes impossible, his would agree with the general

nature

of intellectual development. The peculiar stability f

the

Southern peoples,

in

connectionwith the traditional har-

acter of

Greek

literature, nabled

the older mode

of thought

and

sentiment o

extend over a long period.

LEOPOLD SCHMIDT.

UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG.

leopold schmidt -- the unity of the ethics of ancient greece

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