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LECTURE 2: ANCIENT VS. MODERN ETHICS

LECTURE 2
BEING Good AND BEING TRADITIONAL

The best way to understand something that is bewildering, is to find a
point of reference. We have so many modern philosophies today, it is
very pluralistic. Yet, we can relate them all to a common point of
reference: the single ethical philosophy universally believed until
recent times: the classical greco-roman culture plus the judeo
christian, and the medieval synthesis of the two. Also useful because
the disputes today are between the old and the new views! So, a
summary of the old premodern:

This traditional morality is still alive and more popular than the
alternatives outside university classrooms! We even tribute it by
saying 'ancient wisdom' but not modern wisdom, even though we know so
much more knowledge!  We say modern knowledge... as if we know that we
are less wise, though more knowledgeable. If so, we may still be able
to learn something from these ancients.

12 DIFFERENCES

Assumption I for the ancients is that ethics comes first. absolutely
first, not second. its the single most important ingredient to a Good
life for the ancient teachers. and the whole point of life was not
life per se, but moral virtue, which equalled the Good. there was
disagreement on if material success was necessary for a Good life too,
Aristotle said yes, Plato said no, but moral virtue was the main
ingredient in the Good life for both. Moderns question if it is moral
virtue that is even necessary (but material success sure is!). Our
priorities have changed. Ethics was central to the ancient leaders:
greek, roman, jewish and christian, but is more of an afterthought to
our modern intellectuals... have the masses changed? Probably not,
there are still moral heroes and villians, but the intellectuals and
teachers have changed. In ancient times, the teachers were more
moralistic than the students. In our culture, the students are usually
more idealistic! A stark difference.
Assumption II of the ancients: Ethics is FIRST not second, is by
remembering that morality is not a means to an end, but it is the end.
The point of living is to live well, not just to live. Not just to be
but to be Good. It would be wise to sacrifice to be Good. The ancients
did not feel surprised or resentful when the need for sacrifice arose.
Not because they were primitive, but because of their philosophy.
Sacrifice could be part of blessedness, and happiness. Also, respect
for tradition, and authority and obedience. The word conformity has a
negative connotation today, but not for the ancients. Wait a min, both
agree that morally Good people do not just 'conform' to what
everyone's doing, but the ancients DID want to conform to higher
authorities- to abstractions like moral values, and great sages and
saints and great minds and books, which stored this tradition. That
conformity is no longer popular, because the basic consensus is no
longer in place. Not for the last 500 years and esp. the last 50.
Because of this newness and variety and diversity, we tend to believe
that different cultures create different values. But the ancients were
NOT cultural relativists, except the Sophists, they were the only
exception. The ancients knew that one cannot just create or invent a
new morality, than a new universe. WHY don't we like conformity?
Because when we speak of conformity to authority it means the
arbitrary authorities of changing social fashions or political powers.
The ancients did think highly of conformity to authority because they
thought not of power but of Goodness. Not might but right. "Authority"
meant moral power, not political power. The Chinese word Te means
'that moral force which does not need or use physical force.' The
power of moral Goodness in a saint of sage that appeals to our
conscience. Not the power of rulers and propagandists. This is one of
the sharpest differences between ancients and modern moral attitudes.
The ancients respected conformity and humility and looking up to your
moral superiors. Hey assumed something we DON'T: hierarchy as a
concrete thing, superiority and inferiority, inequality. Example:
students who read "everything you wanted to know about heaven" always
argued about one single point: "Will we all be the same in heaven"
answer: no. shocking! Heaven is not a democracy? One said that 'if
heaven is not an equality, i don't want to go there.' Even equality
with God. Would you really want equality with God?
Assumption of the ancients about ethics was that you do it by Reason,
not Emotion. If Moses or Socrates or Aquinas were transplanted here,
the most shocking thing would be the reverence we have for feeling,
and not for reason. That explains why we have change one kind of
morality, sexual morality, the most. This being based on Freud. To
live according to reason is the most accepted of ancient moral
principles. Socrates: if only you were wise enough to know that you
cannot be happy without being moral virtue... you would be virtuous.
Live according to REASON! Solomon: keep your mind with all diligence
for out of it are all the issues of life. Why did they give such power
to reason? They had a broader concept of it: not just calculation and
logic and scientific method, but something wisdom. Understanding.
Something intuitive as well, not just logical. The rational animal is
not just an ape with a computer.
Assumption of the ancients is that ethics is open to religion. Modern
ethics separates itself from religion totally, sometimes even
anti-religion. At the least, it does not base itself on religion. This
is because there is no longer a religious consensus. We live in a
pluralistic society in which out memories are scarred by the memories
of religious wars. This secularization disestablished religion from a
political force to a purely spiritual force. Modern ethics shies away
from asking the greatest of all question: what is the meaning of life?
This question sounds too religious, divisive, offensive and therefore
dangerous. Well, a moral and ethic code is part of every religion...
atheists also have a moral code. All can agree a little on ethics, if
not on theology. So, in America, we have grounded law in this certain
agreed upon ethics (natural laws), instead of a particular religion.
Of course, moral controversies have divided America: women's vote,
minority votes, prohibition, civil rights, abortion, etc. But NONE of
them were religious controversies: like in Europe: 30 years war,
religous wars, french revolution... and though religion informs
people's attitudes like in abortion, or in civil rights... but those
controversies are not about religion itself, but morality.
Historically though, religion was the most powerful source, motivator
and informer of people's morality. Dostoyevsky: If God does not exist,
everything is permissible. He meant that if you believe in a moral
God, and that morality goes all the way up into eternity, and merges
with ultimate reality, you will take it much more seriously. That is
why the Founding Fathers encouraged religion as the strongest support
for morality, which therefore is the strongest support for a just and
peaceful and happy polity. That connection is very much in question
today... most of our ancestors did not believe that an atheist could
be ethical. Today, most do.
Ancients had a deeper concept of happiness- as objective perfection of
life, fulfillment of life- not just subjective contentment... And a
deeper concept of ethics which is not just a set of rules, and so did
not contrast ethics and happiness. "If you want to be happy, you have
to be Good." They believed ethics was not just a set of rules that
interferes with what you WANT to do, but one in the same with what we
do want. Ethics is the roadmap to the country of our happiness. The
ancients based their ethics on human nature.
All the ancients based their ethics on human nature. That is what it
mans "natural law". Those who used human animal nature (happiness of
the flesh) to find happiness, like Epicurius and Lucretius, deduced
from this anthropolgy that the greatest happiness was comfort,
pleasure and peace. Those who thought human nature was the same or
like that of the gods, that is to say spiritual, deduced, like Plato
and Plotinus, that the real happiness was spiritual, and that material
Goods did not count nearly as much as spiritual. Some joined the two,
like Aristotle. For him, human nature was neither fully animal nor
angel, and both spiritual Goods like wisdom and virtue, and also
material Goods like pleasure and wealth counted too. Spiritual Goods
just counted more. Moderns are more skeptical- they do not base their
ethics on anthropology at all, but on desire and satisfaction
(calculating the consequences of an act in terms of the greatest
satisfaction for the greatest number of people, which is called
utilitarianism), or else on pure reason abstracted from human nature,
like Kant's purely logical Categorial Imperative: do un to others as
you would have them do un to you. Instead of any specific arguement
based on human nature, such as 1. do not steal because humans need
private property or 2. do not commit adultery because human sex is for
families not just for individuals or 3. keep a sabbath because humans
need leisure for their highest capacities to flourish... instead of
this, we have a kind of "do whatever to others whatever you want to
them to do to you" idea - meaning something abstract, not specific
content which could be right or wrong. Instead of 7+5=12, we have
something like a=a. We have mere equality between the people in the
equation as a given, and that's the criteria for moral Goodness,
something you can have a consensus on, divorced from anthropological
human nature. Now, Early Modern philosophies did base ethics on
anthropology: Hobbes and Machiavelli found human natures to be evil
and selfish and competitive animals: their ethics consisted on power
and insititutions to check this nasty human nature. Contrast this then
with Rousseau, who believed anthropoligcal human nature was
essentially Good, he had a relaxed and permissive ethics. The Founding
Fathers denied both Hobbesian pessimism and Rousseauian optimism: they
gave us a republic that presupposes the ability of everyone to make
Good choices, yet with checks and balances just to make sure. "If men
were angels, laws would be unnecessary". When a lady asked Ben
Franklin what kind of government the Continnental Congress had come up
with in Philadelphia, he said, "A democracy, madam, if you can keep
it."
For the ancients, the most important question was not "What is a Good
person" or "what are Good virtues" or "how to treat other people" or
"how to have a just society"! These are all important, but the MOST
important question was "What is the summum bonum? What is the meaning
of life, the greatest Good"? If, like moderns, you think the
scientific method is the only way to come up with real answers, than
you cannot have hope that this question can ever be answered. You
cannot put the value of virtue, money, pleasure etc. into a test tube
and see which is the most basic, as you can put chemicals in to see
which is hotter, heavier etc. Of course, its a kind of contradiction:
the scientific method cannot prove that it is the only way to find
truth. So its a paradox: its your choice to use that method always,
sometimes or never, and your values prepare the way for it to be used
as a tool. A materialist who believes that   only material things are
real, would use it always. A spiritualist, like a hindu or buddhist
mystics, who believe matter is only an illusion, would use it never. A
dualist who believes in both spiritual and material, would use it
sometimes. He would use it on material things, but not spiritual
things. Ancient Western culture was dualist. There were champions of
the material, like Epicurus and Democritus and Lucretius, or the
spiritual, like Plotinus. Modern Western culture is much more
materialistic (at least its philosophers are).
Ancients believed that politics WAS social ethics. No totally
different ethics for individuals and their societies. The ends, the
aim, of society, is virtue, just as the end of individual life is
virtue! No modern believes this. Except Peter Morin, who said, "A Good
society is one that helps you to be Good." The ancients would have
said "Duh!" But today NO ONE believes this. The aim of society for
moderns is totally in question, sometimes the question is off the
table. The philosopher who effected this huge change in philosophy
was... Machiavelli, 400 years ago! Most modern systems of political
philosophy are watering downs of Machiavelli's trashing of the idea
that the aim of society is moral virtue.
Ancients believed that human nature had both Good and evil in it. Some
moderns believe this too... but now many also believe these: 1. we
have no essence at all. its whatever is put on the 'tabula rasa',
total environmentalism, total nurture. The master philosopher of this
is Marx. Human nature is just the word, put there by others, and is
malleable. "There is nothing in common between feudal man, capitalist
man and communist man." 2. pessimism. man is innately bad, not Good,
and it takes Hobbsian force to keep him acting Good. So ethics is like
the bit in a horses mouth, so the man-horse can be driven in the right
direction. 3. the most popular in America today: optimism. man is
innately Good, not bad. he is innately Good, so blame social
structures, blame society, but don't blame him. Don't blame the man,
the victim. Man was born Good.
 Many people want ethics to be scientific- its a popular belief that
"the rise of science  kicks out religion, but not ethics". For
example, as in Greece when Socrates and philosophy gradually kicked
out mythological paganism, so in Western Europe since 1600 science has
done that to the Christian religion. So, we SHOULD base ethics on
science. A scientific ethic. But, this history is a little too simple:
religion is still around first of all, and science has not disproved a
single religious dogma: it was not DOGMA that the earth is only 6000
years old, or that hell is at the center of the earth. These were just
popular opinion. The decline of religion was not caused by science
itself, but by something else. Yes, science has succeeded, as has its
practical product: technology. And that is our great Western modern
project. It separates us from all the ancients, and from all other
civilizations. So, can ethics be scientific? The Enlightenment project
tried to make it so, but, "If the scientific method is the ONLY way to
get to objective truth, then ethics must be either scientific or
subjective." And this leads us again to the HUGE difference between
ancient and modern morality: the ancients believe morals to come from
nature, human nature and was objective. Because, nature is not only
what science can SEE. The moderns do not. To them. morals are
subjective, and culturally relative, and manmade.
 In all ancient philosophies, ethics was dependent on metaphysics.
Ethics is your 'life-view' and metaphysics is your 'world-view'.
Moderns do not base ethics on your metaphysical world-view, because
they are skeptical of the existence of metaphysics. Kant had the
greatest attempt at proving this.
 Ancients say that what makes a society prosper, is ethics. Today we
say it is economics. Plato in the Republic had one paragraph on
economics, and ten whole books on ethics. Moderns say that economics
is what makes a society prosper. Candidates for public office argue
about economics all the time, but not about ethics (unless there is
some scandal). Huge difference: if you were to write to the bishop or
king of any ancient society, asking an ethical question like "what is
the meaning of life, what is Good and evil, what is the nature of
reality?" You would get answers! An official answer! If you asked this
today of a government, they would not only think you were a nut, but
tell you, if you press them, "We don't tell you that, its up to you."
So, our society gives us more knowledge, power, wealth, freedom and
distraction than any ancient society, but it gives us less meaning.
Less moral meaning. That means we have to find moral meaning for
ourselves. Most people like that, they don't want the government
telling them what is Good. But it gives us an obligation to find out
for ourselves. We Western people today have both the ancient and the
modern in our minds. The two sides have to learn how to talk to the
self. We have to do our own thinking. But can the 'mind' make you a
better person? Can philosophy help you to actually live a Good life???
Well, Socrates thought it could. He was convinced the key to a moral
life was wisdom.

LECTURE 3
BEING Good AND BEING WISE: CAN VIRTUE BE TAUGHT?

Its about the role of reason in ethics. Its about Socrates. Born in
5th C, died in 399 BC at 70, condemned to death by a jury of 501
citizens. No one man in history, except Jesus, has made more of a
difference in history. All philosophy after him (and science which is
a spin off from philosophy) stems from Socrates. Half of Western
culture depends on Socrates! Every single philosophical school in
antiquity except materialistic Epicurianism claims lineage from
Socrates: much like all Christian denominations claim lineage from
Jesus.

The difference between Socrates and pre-socratics is much more than
the difference between Socrates and his successors. THAT is his power.
What made him different was his whole new way of thinking, he invented
a skeleton key for thinking, a power tool: he invented the logical
argument. When a point was really proved to be true. He questioned as
a lawyer questions someone in court, this is the Socratic method. In
doing it in a logical way, he could show you that if you accept a
certain number of premises as true, you HAVE to accept certain
conclusions to be true, too. If all A is B, and all B is C, then it
absolutely must be true that all A is C. This seems simple and innate,
but Socrates first discovered and practiced this art. It awoke from
its sleep in Socrates. In Socrates, reason became aware of itself. It
became differentiated in the mind for the first time. Why did science
arise in the West and not in Oriental Civilization? Oriental Man is no
less brilliant and wise than Western man! So why did he remain
intuitive and mystical, not rational and scientific? Barrett's book
Irrational Man tries to figure that out. He says its because Socrates
and his successors. Socrates applied the new rationality only to
ethics. He was not interested in politics, the arts etc. Just the
connection between reason and ethics. He said, "Virtue IS knowledge,
and vice is ignorance. If you really know the Good, what is Good for
you, then you will do it. Thus, all evildoing is rooted in ignorance.
Not ignorance of facts, but ignorance of values. This sounds stupid:
we know of brilliant villains and dullard 'Good' people: Marquis d'
Sade and Forrest Gump, for example. So, intellectuals are no more
virtuous than other people, it seems. Well, what does he mean by
saying that virtue is knowledge and vice is ignorance? We all have the
experience of knowing what is Good and evil, and yet choosing evil.
Socrates is not ignorant of this, and his answer is found in one of
the greatest speeches ever made: the Apology before the court. Apology
is not an admission of guilt, but defense of beliefs. More like, I'm
not sorry at all, in fact, Ill prove I'm right.

He tells the story about how he became a philosopher. He is on trial
for atheism, and this story answers that charge by telling how pious
he really is: At the oracle of apollo at delphi, there lived the
delphic oracle, a prophetess who gave guaranteed true answers in the
form of riddles, inspired by apollo. Even Greeks who were skeptical of
the gods (and there were many) believed in the oracle because it
always came out right. So, Socrates friend Cairophon asked "is there
anyone in this world wiser than my friend Socrates?" And the oracle
answered "no." When he told Socrates later, he was shocked. He had no
wisdom! Well, now comes the part that proves his piety: instead of
dismissing the oracle as a fraud, he assumed that apollo's oracle did
not lie, and wanted to understand the meaning of this riddle. So, he
wanted to seek out a wiser person and take them to the oracle to have
it explain the riddle. But he never got to go to the oracle with this
wise man, because he never found one. What he found instead was that
everybody thought they had wisdom, but upon cross-examination, they
didn't. So, the self-fulfilling prophecy of the oracle was born: the
oracle's answer made Socrates go out and invent the Socratic Method,
the art of cross examination, and become a philosopher. The oracle's
riddle was the catalyst that originated Western Philosophy's method of
understanding!

An example of a Socratic conversation: he would find a politician and ask him,
oh great and wise politican, what are you wise about?
Justice, that's my thing, justice
Oh well, then can you answer me the simplest question about it
what is it?
what is justice, so i don't confuse it with injustice
oh socrates, everybody knows what justice is
so then you know too? please tell me so I know
it means paying back what you owe
thank you sir.
...wait... im not sure i understand your definition. do you mean that
if i had lent you my knife, and then i became a maniac, that it would
be just for you to give me back my knife in that state?
No! of course not.
well then justice is not always paying what is owed, because it would
be paying me back to give me back my property, but not just.
So, please tell me what justice is universally, by its essence.
Don't be a troublemaker!

THE SOCRATIC PARADOX
Socrates would go home, thinking that he learned not much about justice,
but what wisdom is. This man thought he was wise, but he was not. Socrates
knew he was not wise, and so he actually was.

After much of this, he came to the conclusion that he indeed was the
wisest one, because he at least knew that he had no wisdom, and that
is why he asked questions that no one else did. He found out that
people come in one of two kinds: fools who think they are wise, and
the wise who know they are fools. He therefore tried to help people
become wiser, by teaching them or getting them to understand that they
were actually fools and needed wisdom. To get it, they needed to ask
questions themselves!

This is cute, maybe even profound. Wisdom's lesson 1 is that. You
can't get to lesson 2 without lesson 1: virtue is knowledge, as in,
self-knowledge. The first step to virtue is to know yourself. And that
meant searching for the wisdom you know you don't have. And secondly,
this self-knowledge meant to know human nature, to know what you were.
Over the temple of apollo was the inscription, "Know Thyself." And
that is the key to ethics. Socrates followed this law better than
anyone in Greece! Ironically, the only man democratic Athens ever
executed for a religious crime was really the most religious man
Athens ever produced! The parallels with Jesus are remarkable. In the
Apology, Socrates taught a paradox: be sure of this: if you kill me
you are harming yourselves. For the eternal law makes it impossible
for a Good man to be harmed by a bad one. This is his swan song. But,
WHAT?!? He means: it is impossible for a Good man to suffer evil
either in this world or the next. Socrates answer to "why bad things
happen to Good people?" is that they never do! Huh? Socrates is giving
us a puzzle, and in solving it, we become wise. His meaning is that,
like in apollo's puzzle "Know thyself", which meant not "what personal
feelings and experiences have you had in your life?" but "what is a
human being? What is YOUR nature? What is the ESSENCE of man?" If you
find the answer to that question, you will find the answer to why a
Good man cannot suffer any evil.

What is the link? Evil cannot be done to a Good man? Why? Because of
the answer to 'know thyself'. Because of what a 'man' is. What his
basic essence is... when honor, freedom and even life is taken away,
what is left? What is the ESSENCE of a man? These guys take all from
Socrates, even his life. But, the ESSENCE of man is that which cannot
be taken away: His virtue and his wisdom. Where is that? Not in his
mind or body, but in his soul. The true self is the soul, the inner
self, the personality, the character. That is why bad people cannot
harm Good people, because they cannot attack your soul. Evil from
outside can attack your body, and can harm only your body. The only
evil that can harm you comes from you, from inside. Folly and vice. No
one else can make you foolish or vicious, wise or virtuous. No one but
you is in charge of your soul, your character, your personality. Not
society, but you are the master of your fate, and the captain of your
soul. This discovery was a radical discovery in the history of human
consciousness. Today we call the self a 'who' not a 'what', but this
is due to Socrates. The greek word for soul is psyche (see-shay).
Before Socrates, that word meant ghost. Today, as in psychology, it
means self.

And in movies today, they usually show the 'soul' coming out of the
body like a ghost, like the pre-socratic philosophers imagined it. But
for Socrates, its the body that is the ghost- the soul is iron bar, it
lasts. Its the solid unkillable thing. Socrates changed the meaning of
the word psyche (soul). When Christianity came around, it found a
ready made word for the self... psyche. Soul. So, know thyself is the
key that explains the paradox of evil: it cannot happen to the self,
it can only be chosen by the self. We are responsible for what happens
to us, because we choose to be happy. No evil, or Good, can just
'happen' to a Good man. When Christianity came into the world four
centuries later, Jesus says something like this- because he says that
the soul is closer to your essence, and your body is more outward. Its
not everything, but its primary. The body may not be nothing, but its
secondary.

Jesus said to the Pharisees that the devil cannot come to you from
ritual impurities, only from within... from your own heart. The Know
Thyself principle, then, makes clear that all virtue is knowledge.
That if you only KNOW the Good, you will do it. That all evil comes
from ignorance. And if it is true, it is an astonishing breakthrough:
we have isolated the cause of evil, and to know the cause, is to know
the cure. What is more important than that? How revolutionary is this
idea?

Lets assume: that we all seek our own Good not harm to ourselves. Its
a psychological fact. A second thing: you know yourself, and know that
the self is the soul, and that your own true Good is the Good of your
soul. You know that happiness is not in the body, any more than weight
or color is in the soul. And thirdly, you know without doubt that
virtue is the way to happiness. Because virtue is health of soul. If
you know these three things, what would follow? We would always seek
virtue and never vice. Because if we unify them, virtue is indeed
happiness, and our greatest Good. This is the Socratic revolution:
that the mind is the key to being Good. Moral wisdom is there. So is
wisdom itself, self knowledge.

The Greeks defined us as 'the rational animal' and yet we are more
than an ape with a computer. We are moral agents, who have self
consciousness, an asctetic sense, capable of religion (thinking about
ultimate universal reality) etc. but that stuff is exactly what the
ancients did mean by 'rational. Just because we got scientific, which
abrogated the term reason to itself. Not so. So, when Socrates said
the key to practicing virtue IS reason, he meant understanding,
standing under (not just knowing certain propositions are true not
false, but standing in them, like in the sunlight. If you really get
it, the reality, that you are essentially your soul, and its happiness
comes through virtue, you will love virtue. And if you love vice
sometimes, you don't understand (at least those times). You see the
forbidden thing as desireable. You see the temporary satisfaction as
better than the long range deep-happiness you get from doing the right
thing. You valued the subjectively satisfying as the greater Good than
the moral Good. Evil comes only when you see wrongly.

AN EXAMPLE OF IGNORANCE
Example: You are poor. You want to be rich and buy things that give
you pleasure. You are also poor in wisdom: you confuse yourself with
your body and its material Goods and pleasures. You identify the Good
life as that which allows you the power to get whatever you desire.
You ought to do right not wrong, though. You drive down the street and
a bank robber drops a sack of money, you pick it up and you think
damn, no one saw me! I can keep it. You know you should give it back.
But you are tempted to keep it. You are not a professional thief... it
doesn't feel like stealing... why are you tempted? Because you don't
really believe that virtue always makes you happy. You don't know
really believe that happiness is a matter of your soul, not your bank
account or your body. Because you are essentially your soul, your
mind, will, your character. You don't know that, at least not deep
down, without doubts. You are not wise enough to know yourself, you
figure, "well a little moral evil might be worth it. because it
sometimes will give you a lot of happiness." Suppose the thieves had
dropped a sack of cockroaches. You would not be tempted to steal them.
Why? Because you see the true value of cockroaches and know they won't
make you happy. You'd have to be nuts to think that... but you do
think the money can make you happy, because you don't know yourself.
You don't think of yourself as a soul, but as a bank account.

SOLVING IGNORANCE IN YOURSELF
Now, if ignorance is the cause of evil, wisdom is the cure. Remove the
effect, remove the cause! To remove evil, remove ignorance. For
Socrates, philosophy, love of wisdom, is the cure for moral evil. So,
why has it not worked then? What's wrong with this argument? The mind
DOES plays the major role in moral behavior... so the mind must have
the major role in determining if we are Good and evil... but is the
the only factor? Socrates did call the mind the soul's only light,
like the navigator seeking the lighthouse on a dark sea, but he did
leave out the Will. The will is like the captain of the ship, the
captain has the power to tell the navigator to shut up, or to speak.
When we reflect on our own Good and evil situations, we find both at
work: mind and will. We do find what Socrates says, the apparent
attractiveness of the evil we are tempted to, and thus behind that
attractiveness: ignorance, a lack of wisdom. But what caused the lack
of wisdom? When you see that money and know you can steal it without
being caught, at that moment something in you tells you the moral
truth: you KNOW that moral evil will not make you happy, not in the
long run. But there is something else that is telling you to shut that
voice down. It wants the temporary satisfaction and desires it can
give. And that something else want you to listen to IT. Its like the
old cartoons when the angelic and devilish you are talking in your
ears. One voice comes from your reason (conscience), what Freud calls
your superego, while another comes from your desires (id), and you
(the I, or ego) cast the deciding vote. There is a third thing in your
soul, the ego, that's you. You tell one of those two voices to shut up
and agree with the other. You command your thoughts, and your will
commands your mind to turn to one set of thoughts or another. The
captain orders the navigator around. You are responsible not just for
you actions, but for your thoughts! Socrates didn't see that fully.
Buddha and Jesus did.

BUDDHA AND JESUS SAY THOUGHTS ARE IMPORTANT
1st line in Dama Pada: All that we are is determined by our thoughts,
it begins where our thoughts begin, and moves where out thoughts move,
and ends where our thoughts end. If we think thoughts like "he hurt
me, he stole from me, he is my enemy," then our life and our destiny
will follow that thought like the wheel follows the axle. And if we
think thoughts like "he cannot hurt me, only I can hurt myself, he
cannot steal from me, he cannot be my enemy, only I can be my enemy,"
then our life and destiny will follow those thoughts.

And Jesus reproved the self-righteous Pharisees, though their actions
seemed morally respectable, for their thoughts.  He turned ethics from
an outward focus on action to an inward focus on the heart. St. Paul
said in a letter, "Take every thought captive, and have the MIND of
Christ." Thoughts are extremely important to Buddhist and Christians,
and they are to be controlled by a deeper source, a more mysterious
center. What we in the West call the 'heart' or the 'will'. Socrates
didn't quite reach that point.

The question remains, how much can the mind really do to make us Good?
Can virtue be taught at all? Can we have moral education? Should our
schools be making their students not just smarter but better? Even if
virtue is not JUST knowledge, how much IS knowledge?

MAENO AND THE IDEA THAT VIRTUE CAN BE TAUGHT
Plato asked this question, in the Maeno. Maeno asks Socrates, "Can
virtue be taught? Or, does it come to man in some other way, by habit
and practice? Or is it simply innate in his nature? Or does he get it
in some other way?"

These four paths to getting virtue that Plato gives are EXACTLY the
four main philosophies in the next 2,400 years in the West and the
East.

by teaching? plato's answer, all you have to do is make the mind wise
and the rest will follow. plato would expect our schools to do moral
education
by practice and habit? that is aristotle's answer. we are not vicious
or virtuous by nature, and that moral virtues come to us by practice.
only the intellectual virtues come through teaching. so he would agree
that our schools should not do moral education because that is the
family's job
3) by our nature? The most optimistic- this is rousseau's answer
against our nature? the most pessimistic answer. virtue comes against
human nature, and must be enforced through fear. we have to
machiavell's answer in 16C and Hobbes answer in 17C

In china, they came up with the same four answers! Lao Tzu was like
Rousseau: we are virtuous by nature, Confucius was a combination of
Plato and Aristotle: teaching and habit both contribute to acquiring
of virtue, and the Realist School summarized the way to solve social
problems in two words: hit them!

Its amazing that Plato summarized the next two thousand four hundred
years in philosophy in the first paragraph of his dialogue maeno!

There are two questions here: first, "can you tell me socrates?" and
"can virtue BE taught, or does one get it by one of those another
ways?" The answer to the first one Socrates gives, but not the second.
He does not answer questions, he teaches, not tells. Teaching takes
place by questioning not lecturing. First, Socrates says he can help
find the answer in two ways. First, he admits that he does not know.
Maeno says he does, but he doesn't really. Secondly, Socrates says we
have to define virtue's essence or we won't know what we are talking
about. So, Maeno's definitions are shown to be in error, and then
Maeno gets frusterated and wants to go home. He becomes skeptical:
people cannot know the truth anyway! But then Socrates refutes
skepticism: he gives up that everyone really does have a hidden
storehouse of knowledge in the mind. Knowing is really remembering.
Remembering what is in the unconscious what you will.  You have to
'remember' unconscious knowledge. Socrates pushes the buttons to
access this knowledge by his Socratic logical questioning. He
demonstrates this to be true by teaching Maeno's uneducated young
manservant a complex geometric principle: the Pathagorean Theorem,
just by drawing some lines in the sand and getting the guy to answer
some questions about them. He tells no answers, and the boy figured it
out. So, now Maeno is without an excuse on not wanting to find out
what virtue is by thinking about it. So, Socrates inspires him by
agitating him by taking both sides: first he proves virtue is
knowledge and therefore can be taught, but then proves that there are
no teachers of it, so it is not teachable. Even the best people, like
Pericles, and even Socrates himself, did not teach their children the
right virtue. So, its a contradiction. Finally, the dilemma is solved:
virtue is neither certain knowledge, nor ignorance, but a sort of
knowledge. A right opinion, or belief. It is neither easily teachable
by men, like geometry is, nor unteachable. It is teachable in a 'way',
only 'god' can teach it, but we can help. Religion? He did say that it
was 'right opinion' and 'right belief', the words for that are 'ortho'
and 'doxa': orthodoxy. Socrates says virtue is a faith: which is a
kind of knowledge, but it is based on faith, not knowledge. if you
really believe that you are a soul, and that virtue makes you happy,
that works as well as knowledge. And only god teaches virtue? But is
he not teaching it? No, he is teaching about virtue. He is a prophet
who reveals not answers, but the right questions and method.

Maybe he is kidding. No joke. Some scholars think he is not being
serious here, and actually giving us a deliberate weak answer so we
would find a better one. For one thing, he did NOT think that religous
faith and the gods of his society would make you virtuous. The gods
themselves were not virtuous! Socrates was executed for not believing
in these gods! On the other hand, he may have been seriously. He did
not ever speak seriously about the greek gods, but he did speak
sometimes of a single unknown God, whom he never claimed to know or
name.

Is ethics based on religion, then?

Is ethics dependent on religion? Is a thing right just because the gods say so?
Is ethics an alternative to religion? A better alternative that uses
reason over faith, that attains knowledge instead of belief? Or is it
another kind of religion?

If everyone seeks happiness- if most people know the road to happiness
is to do Good- so are we crazy or stupid? We would have to be crazy
not to pick virtue, which would lead to happiness. Socrates said we
are stupid. But we are crazy too... we prefer sometimes to be hurt.
Sometimes envious! There is something that addicts us to something
that we know is harmful for us, yet we do it.

READING FOR THE NEXT LECTURE

Return to PHL 100

     Prof. N. Rensberg