Ethics, Great Books, Intellectual History, Liberal Arts

On Plutarch, Moral Excellence, And History: An Examination of the Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Part Two

by Dave Seng
Aristotle

Part one can be found here. This post reflects on Plutarch’s emphasis on moral excellence and Aristotle’s sense of virtue when it comes to ethical foundations.

Plutarch believes that not any example of excellence will sufficiently induce his readers to moral virtue. A painting or work of art may be excellent and perfectly executed but the painter or artist may be wretched person. Plutarch explains,

For it does not necessarily follow, that if a piece of work pleases for its gracefulness, therefore he that wrought it deserves our admiration. Whence it is that neither do such things really profit or advantage the beholders, upon the sight of them, nor any impulse or inclination, which may prompt any desire or endeavor of doing the like. (121 – 122)

It seems to be Plutarch’s position that an artist or painter may or may not be a moral person, but the best use of art is to inspire great and good actions. What Plutarch really wants his readers to be inspired to perform is great deeds. He tells us that the best things his readers can contemplate for moral improvement are “acts of virtue.” He explains, “such objects we find in the acts of virtue, which also produce in the minds of mere readers about them an emulation and eagerness that may lead them on to imitation” (121). For Plutarch, then, moral excellence is connected to virtuous action.

Finally, Plutarch summarizes his argument by stating the importance of recognizing virtuous actions as a way to moral improvement:

But virtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men’s minds as to create at once both admiration of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to practice and exercise. We are content to receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from us. Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it inspires an impulse to practice, and influences the mind and character not by a mere imitation which we look at, but by the statement of the fact creates a moral purpose which we form. (122)

Again, we see the pragmatic emphasis in Plutarch. Moral improvement comes from observing expressions, actions, or events of moral excellence which influences the mind and character to move one towards a more excellent life. A virtuous character is formed by practicing good and honorable deeds. At many points, Plutarch states that virtue is a matter of practice and exercise. Moral excellence comes from a mind or character that is inspired to perform and practice good actions.

Plutarch is reflecting the classical Aristotelian idea of virtue and character development as habit. For Aristotle, humans have an inherent natural capacity to become virtuous. One becomes virtuous through practice and habit as he explains:

Virtue comes about as a result of habit … From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to nature. For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times. … Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. (Nicomachean Ethics, 952)

Along with Aristotle, Plutarch believes moral good is a practical stimulus and reasons that humans can be inspired to practice moral excellence by habit and example. Plutarch, however, never defines what virtue is. He seems to assume that his readers already know what he means by virtue. However, it is helpful to give a definition of what Plutarch might have in mind. Ethicist Louis Pojman defines the classical virtues as “excellences of character, trained behavioral dispositions that result in habitual acts” (166). There were essentially four cardinal virtues in ancient ethics – temperance (self-control), justice, courage, and wisdom (Thornton, 138). Plutarch states his desire to promote moral excellence but it will be helpful to explore how one might determine proper moral conduct and to better understand what he is saying.

Aristotle provides a compelling account of what virtue is and provides a helpful guide to understanding Plutarch and the larger questions of ethics and morality. Aristotle is also important because his ideas provided much of the intellectual context in which Plutarch wrote. For Aristotle, ethical virtue is a balance or proportion between excess and deficiency, intemperance and temperance, virtue and vice. Moral philosophers have called his position the “golden mean.” Aristotle states his position using examples from the physical world,

Drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. So too, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly, the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean. (954)

The morally virtuous life, then, consists of living in moderation according to the mean between virtue and vice, excess and deficiency. Plutarch seems to be in agreement with Aristotle. The men he most admires are leaders that have exhibited temperate and noble character. Plutarch tells us that this is precisely why he wrote the lives of Pericles and Fabius Maximus,

And so we have thought fit to spend our time and pains in writing of the lives of famous persons; and have composed this tenth book upon that subject, containing the life of Pericles and that of Fabius Maximus, who carried on the war against Hannibal, men alike, as in their other virtues and good parts, so especially in their mild and upright temper and demeanour, and in that capacity to bear the cross-grained humours of their fellow-citizens and colleagues in office, which made them both most useful and serviceable to the interests of their countries. (122)

Plutarch believes the virtues these men exhibited had important ramifications for the state. It was their virtues that made them “serviceable to the interests of their countries.” Plutarch then is not only interested in ethics at the individual level but also at the social and political level.

Works Cited:

Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. ed. by Richard McKeon. New York: Random House, Inc., 2001.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.

Pojman, Louis. Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong. 2nd ed. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1995.

Thornton, Bruce. Humanities Handbook. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 2001.

Ethics, Great Books, Intellectual History, Liberal Arts

On Plutarch, Moral Excellence, And History: An Examination of the Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Part One

by Dave Seng
Plutarch 46 – 119 AD

This is part one of a three part examination of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

The reason Plutarch is listed among the great authors is his ability to make his readers think about enduring human questions across academic disciplines. Plutarch is not merely a good historian but he also helps his readers think about truly significant questions of human existence. Some of the great questions of the Western intellectual tradition are – What does it mean to live a good life? In particular, what does it mean to determine right from wrong human conduct? What is the virtuous life and how does one attain it? And how do my actions affect the larger community? One of the reasons Plutarch wrote his Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans is to encourage his readers to pursue moral excellence. He wants his readers to examine the lives he is writing about and then spur them on to virtuous action. Since Plutarch does not give a clear definition of what kind of moral improvement he is discussing or what kind of virtue he is thinking of, it is helpful to explore the history in which he is writing and some of the ideas he could have been drawing from. Plutarch was writing in a particular time and place and he assumed his readers understood what he was writing about regarding moral improvement. However, because his notion of virtue is different from much of modern thought, it is helpful to re-examine Plutarch’s fundamental assumptions about moral and political behavior. By examining Plutarch’s historical and intellectual context, one will discover how individual virtue is related to the broader community and how different classical ethics are from modern American presuppositions.

Plutarch seeks the moral improvement of his readers but does not give a particularly philosophically rigorous ethical system as would Plato or Aristotle. Nonetheless, he does give some interesting and valuable ideas to think through when one is weighing ethical and moral systems. It is also important to understand the intellectual climate in which Plutarch wrote. Although there were many different ethical systems in fashion when Plutarch was writing (Epicureanism, Stoicism, and various mystery religions), his ethical ideas most closely parallel Aristotle’s teachings. Both Plutarch and Aristotle believed human beings were capable of rational ethical reflection and moral action. And they understood virtuous behavior, or its absence, to have ramifications for politics and community. Plutarch was not simply writing for the betterment of his readers, but for the improvement of the state.

Plutarch states in the opening paragraphs of his life of Pericles the moral purpose of his writing. He believes that by providing examples of good and noble deeds, his readers will be induced to similar great and good actions. In other words, he believes that by describing the noble deeds of the great men he is writing about his readers will intellectually ponder these deeds and then be prompted to act in morally excellent ways. Plutarch is a practical writer focused on human action and is convinced that moral reflection must be connected in some way to action. He is reflecting the classical idea that one’s words, thoughts, and deeds must be interconnected. Noble thought should be attached to noble action. If one’s words did not match their deeds, they were considered to be an inferior person or hypocrite. Also, Plutarch is concerned that many do not spend the kind of time on moral or ethical reflection that would be profitable to them. He believes human beings have a natural tendency for inquiry and observation but misuse these natural abilities. He explains,

…We blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good. (121)

Plutarch is concerned that although humans have a capacity for moral reflection they may not use that natural ability for their own good. For various reasons, human beings seem to have a proclivity to either disregard genuine moral reflection or divert themselves from the great questions of life. Perhaps Plutarch is reflecting the ancient equivalent of T.S. Eliot’s poetic statement in the Four Quartets that as human beings, we distract ourselves from distraction by distraction. Often, we do not use our natural intellect for good, and we feel a need to distract ourselves from true and genuine intellectual reflection. This problem, however, seems to be inherent to the human condition itself judging from the fact that in no society do we find a majority of the population given over to important intellectual pursuits. (Philosophers and other intellectuals are often, with Socrates, in the minority.) Plutarch is merely pointing us to a very basic human element that transcends time and place. Nonetheless, if Plutarch is right in asserting that everyone has a natural capacity for intellectual inquiry and observation, then one wonders if it is possible to live an authentic or genuine existence by not pursuing intellectual and moral excellence. Plutarch shares this sentiment when he says, “He who busies himself in mean occupations produces, in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good. (121)

Plutarch seeks to correct this human tendency by placing in front of his readers, great deeds that will cause moral reflection and virtuous actions. Though our senses take in everything from good to bad, he believes humans have an innate ability to discern good from bad and make value judgments. By focusing on the good, however, one may come closer to moral virtue. Plutarch writes “… It becomes a man’s duty to pursue and make after the best and choicest of everything, that he may not only employ his contemplation, but may also be improved by it” (121).

It is important to remember that ethical reflection is basic to human beings. It is part of what it means to be human. Ask anyone about any issue or news event of the day and you will find that they will immediately tell you what they find right or wrong about the situation. Moral reflection is a way of life whether we think it is or not. Plutarch is correct in pointing out that reflecting on moral excellence will aid us in exploring the deepest questions of human life and conduct.

Works cited:

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 13, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1993.

Consensual Government, Intellectual History, Liberal Arts, Uncategorized

On Democracy, an Index

by Dave Seng

The democracy series was a large project, so I decided to collect all the links and post them here in a kind of index. The hope is to organize the entire series and allow easier discovery of the posts. I also posted the works cited here as a helpful resource.

A final thought. I hope the series has been helpful in coming to terms with what a democracy actually is and why America is no longer one. It has become fashionable in some circles to claim that there is an inherent extreme individualism in the Western definition of democracy that is to blame for the decline of democratic societies in the West. Although it is true that many such as Locke did emphasize a kind of individualism, an unbridled or unrestricted individualism was never part of the Western idea of democracy. This should be clear from reading the Greeks and Roman (primarily Stoic) presentations of consensual representation. When things go bad (and they certainly are today) often it is because the fundamentals have been forgotten or rejected.

The posts:

On Democracy, Part One can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Two can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Three can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Four can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Five can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Six can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Seven can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Eight can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Nine can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Ten can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Eleven can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Twelve can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Thirteen can be found here.

On Democracy, Part Fourteen can be found here.

Works cited:

Adler, Mortimer. Adler’s Philosophical Dictionary. New York: Scribner, 1995.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Great Books Of The Western World, Vol. 9, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

— Politics, Great Books Of The Western World, Vol. 9, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes., Great Books Of The Western World, Vol. 5, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Goodwin, Gerald, Richard Current, Paula A. Franklin. A History of the United States. 2nd ed. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1985.

Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, Great Books Of The Western World, Vol. 6, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Homer. Iliad. Trans. by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Hutchins, Robert. The Great Conversation: A Reader’s Guide to Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1994.

Kagan, Donald. Pericles of Athens And The Birth of Democracy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.

Lukacs, John. Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed.

Miller, Ed. Questions That Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy. 4th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 1996.

Pascal, The Provincial Letters, Pensees, Scientific Treatises, Great Books Of The Western World, Vol. 33, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Plato, The Republic,tr. Francis MacDonald Cornford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1945.

“Stoicism.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD 5 July 2006.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Ed. Hammond, N.G. L. and H.H. Scullard. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. Ed. by Hornblower, Simon and Anthony Spawforth. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998.

Thucydides. The History of The Peloponnesian War, Great Books Of The Western World, Vol. 6, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Woodruff, Paul. First Democracy: The Challenge of An Ancient Idea. New York: Oxford University Press.

Consensual Government, Intellectual History, Liberal Arts

On Democracy, Part Fourteen

by Dave Seng
Alexander Hamilton

This is the final installment in the series on democracy. Part thirteen can be found here.

America began as a republic, shifted to a democracy, and now is little more than a constitutional bureaucracy. For example, the Western idea of debate and discussion among political parties in Congress is largely over. Parliamentarianism has died and much of the real work of Congress is now conducted in committees. Congressmen and women do spend time on the floor to promote their views but little real discussion occurs and the genuine work is done in committee to serve a particular party, not the people. In addition, presidential executive orders are often used to sidestep the work of congress. Either way, with these procedural moves, participatory and consensual government is undermined and rule of law is generally ignored. A bureaucracy of elites now determines what is best for the party, not the people or country at large. Another evidence of American bureaucratization is the specialized governmental departments and the sheer size of government. The historian John Lukacs gives us this telling example,

In the Middle Ages – indeed, until about the seventeenth century – kings had no specialized ministries; they depended on the councils of intimate advisors. In the second half of the twentieth century the elective monarchy of the American presidency assumed more and more of the characteristics of medieval kingship, with liege lords having the power to determine the very access to the monarch, to the extent that even cabinet officers could no longer call on the president on their own – that is, without the consent of the above-mentioned liege lords, who decided not only what and whom the president should see but also what he should hear – and perhaps what he should think.1

It is amazing to see how bureaucratic America has become and to contrast our current situation with Hamilton’s or Madison’s vision of America. Now, both parties will enlarge the government to maintain their own power at the expense of the individual citizen. This bureaucratic tendency can also be seen in another example. In the 1980’s the staff of Ronald Reagan’s wife in the White House was larger than Franklin Roosevelt’s at the height of the Second World War.2

These problems, the lack of proportional representation, the media, and the age of bureaucracy point to the need of recovering what the classical thinkers would call civic virtue. This idea of civic virtue is especially important since many elementary schools have now eliminated grades for citizenship and citizenship education. Aristotle would remind us that the success of nations rests on the education of our children. The Athenian and Roman empires fell because the people no longer understood what it meant to be an Athenian or Roman and no longer protected what they had. Likewise, America has moved from understanding itself as a “melting pot” to a mere clash of wills among different people groups.

Aristotle, however, connects morality, education, and politics together to build a virtuous society. For the ancients, the purpose of virtuous action aims at “eudaimonia” which means “well-being” or “happy-life.” The virtues are habits of conduct that provide a happy well being. Essentially this is achieved by finding the mean in ethical reflection and action. However, Aristotle’s starting point (along with much of ancient political philosophy) is that man is primarily a political animal. Moral excellence is not only necessary at the individual level but also at the social level, because society is made up of individuals and all forms of moral excellence (individual and social) strive for the common good – that which is good for everyone. When one works for the common good, he or she is working for their own good. Ancient moral philosophy stresses the idea of the “polis,” or social community, which is formed for the realization of a common good and, as in the individual; the virtues are conducive to the common good, or well-being of the community.3 In other words, the polis or state is then responsible for nurturing moral excellence and enacting laws contributing to the common good and well-being. The morally responsible individual contributes to the common good by encouraging the state or community to pass laws and behave in ways that support moral excellence and human well-being.

A core value for the ancient Romans was the Stoic notion of “officium.” This was a strong sense of commitment to fulfill the responsibilities the individual was born to fulfill within the state for the common good. Stoic moral philosophy is also based on the view that the world, as one great city, is a unity. Man, as a world citizen, has an obligation and loyalty to all things in that city. He must play an active role in world affairs, remembering that the world exemplifies virtue and right action.4 Therefore, Stoic political philosophy corresponds with much of Aristotle’s political thought in the emphasis of virtuous action aimed toward the common good, natural law, and a moral life based on rational reflection.

From the classical perspective, modern American individualism looks very strange. Classical ethical theory is focused on the larger community and the shared, common good to which the individual participants in that community contribute through their virtuous activity.5 Much more holistic in its approach, classical virtue theory would question much of modern American individualism focused simplistically on the rights of individuals. No one can pursue their own good completely isolated and independent from their social community or government. Furthermore, classical political theory would question the ideas of valuing a candidate simply because he was good looking, wealthy, popular, or articulate. The ancients would be first interested in the candidate’s ethical code and moral principles. The classical thinkers, therefore, would educate citizens to be virtuous contributors to society which is one of the greatest tasks of education today. The classical thinkers, therefore, would educate citizens to be virtuous contributors to society which is one of the greatest tasks of education today.

Time and again we find wisdom in ancients. The greatest thing about studying history is discovering the wisdom of the ages. Certainly, the ancients made mistakes, and we should learn from their errors, but they were different mistakes than we are making today. We learn from the Greeks the enduring nature of mankind. The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski said that we don’t study history merely for finding facts or to acquire knowledge about events, but to discover who we are as a race. History shows us what it means to be alive on this planet. We can learn much from the ancients because they too believed in the Great Ideas. They began the great discussion of these ideas. Their self-reflective questioning, discussion, and debate of these ideas are often more thoughtful than contemporary thinking on many of these subjects, especially when it comes to a proper understanding of democracy. Aristotle considered democracy and ideal. Democracy will always be an ideal because it goes against the grain of human nature. Like the fabled Icarus, humans will always strive for more than they can attain, and always be tempted to go beyond natural human limitations. Human beings do not want to share power with others. Nonetheless, democracy, as an ideal should be attempted. Historically, it has given rise to the middle class and has provided more freedom and affluence than any other political system. Furthermore, democracy is an evolving idea. The values of Western civilization are not static but always seeking to improve and adapt. The Greeks and Romans were always willing to adapt and change when necessary. Therefore, we can be thankful to the great classical thinkers for the conversation and heritage built into the conversation of democracy.

1 Lukacs, John. Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.), 189.

2 Ibid.

3 Miller, 557.

4 “Stoicism.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD 5 July 2006.

5 Miller, 558.