Great Books, Intellectual History, Natural Theology

Spinoza’s Philosophical Method and Augustine’s Natural Theology: Part Two

by Dave Seng

Part one can be found here.

The presuppositional method of Spinoza’s philosophy is an important part of the structure of his metaphysical system and generally follows Descartes’s reasoning. Spinoza does not argue for the existence of God discursively, deductively, or dialectically in the way Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, or Aquinas frames a cosmological argument, reasoning from an effect (the universe) to a cause (God).1 Spinoza believes that God necessarily exists because the notion of perfection proves that he exists. Spinoza puts it this way,

Perfection consequently does not prevent the existence of a thing, but establishes it; imperfection, on the other hand, prevents existence, and so of no existence can we be more sure than the existence of the Being absolutely infinite or perfect, that is to say God. For since His essence shuts out all imperfection and involves absolute perfection, for this very reason all cause of doubt concerning His existence is taken away, and the highest certainty concerning it is given,—a truth which I trust will be evident to any one who bestows only moderate attention. (593)

Spinoza reasons that both perfection and existence are properties of being and since God is the Perfect Being, God’s existence follows because existence is a necessary part of being. For Spinoza, God is the Perfect Being and substance of the universe. In fact, Spinoza thinks that those who reason from the natural order (what is) to the conclusion of God, “have not observed the proper order of philosophic study” (610). He explains,

For although the divine nature ought to be studied first, because it is first in order of knowledge and in the order of things, they think it last; while, on the other hand, those things which are called objects of the senses are believed to stand before everything else. Hence it has come to pass that there was nothing of which men thought less than the divine nature while they afterwards applied themselves to think about God, there was nothing of which they could think less than those prior fictions upon which they had built their knowledge of natural things, for these could in no way help to the knowledge of the divine nature. (611)

As a rationalist, Spinoza believes it is wrong to start with the “objects of the senses” because he thinks all knowledge comes by reason alone. After all, as Descartes famously insists, the senses can be wrong. Natural things, according to Spinoza do not provide knowledge of the divine. Arguments from natural reasoning, are based upon “fictions.” Instead, Spinoza thinks it is best to start with the existence of God, assumed or presupposed, and rationally describe the divine nature from there. “The divine nature ought to be studied first” according to Spinoza and he reasons that any natural argument from existence to an eternal and necessary Being is philosophically backwards. He thinks natural theology makes God an afterthought. In addition, Spinoza believes that God must be presupposed, or assumed, when it comes to the existence of the natural order, “Every one must admit that without God nothing can be nor be conceived; for every one admits that God is the sole cause both of the essence and of the existence of all things” (610). In other words, according to Spinoza, when considering the question of whether or not God exists, it must be assumed there is a God because “nothing can be nor be conceived” without God. A genuine inquiry into the existence or non-existence of God is not a viable option for Spinoza because God must be assumed and all reasoning must start from there. Spinoza repeats this assertion on page 611 of his Ethics, “individual things cannot be nor be conceived without God.” One reason why Spinoza takes this position is that he believes that all things and people are really a part of God. If all things are a part of God, it is unreasonable to discount the existence of God.

Spinoza, goes further than Descartes, however, and equates God with the universe which is pantheism. This is an important difference between Descartes and Spinoza. Like Descartes, Spinoza is a rationalist in his epistemology, unlike Descartes, Spinoza, is a pantheist in his theological perspective. Pantheism is the philosophical and theological position that equates God with the universe. With pantheism, the universe and God are one entity. In other words, the natural world and God are the same thing. According to Spinoza, “whatever is, is in God” (594) and “…in nature … only one substance exists, namely God” (600). Spinoza further claims that, “Hence it follows with the greatest clearness, firstly that God is one, that is to say … in nature there is but one substance, and it is absolutely infinite” (594). Finally, Spinoza concludes “All things which are, are in God and must be conceived through Him.” (597). Spinoza thinks that God is in all and all is in God. Spinoza’s metaphysical commitments ultimately lead him to conclude that all reality can be reduced to one thing, natural substance, which is God. The individual, particular things of this world are simply modes or attributes of the universal substance of God.

Spinoza, assumes or presupposes the nature of God’s existence because he is a rationalist, meaning that he believes all philosophic knowledge can be acquired through reason alone, apart from sense experience, or any appeal to external reality. God must exist because God is the perfect Being. God is in all and all are in Him. Spinoza’s rationalism also leads him to conclude that there can only be one substance in the universe and that substance is God. Further, Spinoza thinks that God, or the universe, created itself. He believes that the universe is the cause of itself (590). One of his earliest axioms in the Ethics is “that which cannot be conceived through another must be conceived through itself” (589). Later, he concludes, “for the thing whose nature (considered, that is to say, in itself) involves existence, is the the cause of itself and exists from the necessity of its own nature alone” (emphasis added, 599). For Spinoza, the reason why the universe exists is because the universe, which is God, made itself. Spinoza’s philosophical method for arguing to the existence of God is very different from Augustine’s.

Next time, we will examine how Augustine’s natural theology is different from Spinoza’s and why self-creation is a logical contradiction.

1Plato argued for a Demiurge or God-like artisan of the universe based on the reality of Being. Aristotle argued for a “Prime Mover” reasoning that an actual uncreated being is necessary to actualize the potency of the universe. Augustine and Aquinas also argued from the reality of Being to the creator Christian God. All thinkers agree that non-being cannot create being.

Works Cited

Spinoza. Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 28. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Epistemology, Great Books, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy

On the Intellect, Induction, and Abstraction

by Dave Seng

It was a good idea to call the soul ‘the place of forms’, though (1) this description holds only of the intellective soul, and (2) even this is the forms only potentially, not actually. – Aristotle

[Note: In my previous posts, I spoke about Aristotelians and Thomists as being innatist in their epistemology. I should have been more clear about this terminology because realists are not innatists in the Platonic sense. Human beings are not cognitively pre-loaded with the Platonic forms. Aristotelians are innatist in a very strict sense. What is innate, according to classical realists, is the capacity or potential to receive the form, universal, or essence of the sense object as it is in act. (See, for example, the last chapter of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics for further explication.) I will try to develop this theme as we move along.]

In our most recent posts on Berkeleyan idealism, we learned that the mind is structured to receive and apprehend reality as it is. In other words, being is the touchstone of all reality. Being is, and can not be denied (it can not be otherwise because it would be non-being or nothing). We also learned that the intellectual faculty of judgment has both metaphysical (ontological) and epistemic or psychological aspects. When the mind is working correctly, one knows reality. Concrete reality is the proper starting point for metaphysics, not one’s theory about it (one’s theory of reality could be wrong, which is why, again, being is the touchstone of reality). In this post, I will try to explicate the basics of how the intellect works at the foundational level—at the reception of being—what Aristotelian philosophers call the intellect. This will lay the groundwork for why metaphysical realists claim that one can know reality as it is and provides further insight into the distinction between apprehension and concept—the central confusion and philosophical error among idealists, although I will develop that in upcoming posts. For now, it is important to understand how the intellect itself works.

First, what is the intellect? The word comes from the Latin terms, intus, and legere—to read within. The intellect is the cognitive capacity that humans have to think rationally, carefully, and logically about the perennial questions of existence as they find it. It is the intellect and the ability to reason which separates humans from animals. Although humans are animals, they are not simply or just animals. It should be obvious that humans have different cognitive abilities than that of animals. In addition to sense knowing, which all animals have, humans have the ability to reflect on and arrive at deeper understandings of their sense knowledge. As noted in previous posts, to sense something and to understand something is not the same thing. I can hear a foreign language but not understand it. My cat can see the same image of a sign on its retina as I do, but have no understanding of what it means, while I can easily grasp its message. Just as humans are different in kind from animals, there must be some faculty in the human mind that is different in kind from simple sense perception. This faculty is called the intellect or what philosophers in the Aristotelian and Thomist traditions call the agent intellect.

The agent intellect is a special faculty of the mind and has two important functions. First, the intellect is in potency to knowledge—it does not know to start with (it requires the act of existence to motivate it because it depends on being, as act is prior to potency). Second, as immaterial, the intellect receives the essence, universal, or form of the external object through sense perception. Aquinas reminds us, “Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible things, because all our knowledge originates from sense.”1 The senses are the only connection one has to reality. Even so, what comes into the intellect has an immaterial rather than material mode of existence. The tree I am looking at through the window does not exist as a physical tree in my mind. The intellect grasps the form or essence of the sense object. This is because there is an immaterial aspect to all reality. To account for this essential reception, however, there must be a prior ability, capacity, or function in the intellect which apprehends the form of the material object. The same form of the material object exists in the intellect that exists in reality, only the mode of existence is different. This second function of the intellect is an immaterial apprehension of the material form or essence. This is what Aristotle calls the agent intellect and the reason why he calls the intellect, or soul, “the place of the forms.”2 The agent intellect apprehends the essence of the thing perceived. The nature of the agent intellect is to receive the object of sense perception3.

A question remains, however. How do the forms or universals get into the intellect?

The intellect is in potency to knowledge and has a capacity to receive the essence of an external object. Now, it is important to understand how the form or essence of a thing is delivered to the intellect. Briefly, this is accomplished by induction and abstraction. Induction, or inductive reasoning, is the logical process of thinking in which the conclusion follows from experience, examination of particulars, and arriving at generalized or universal principles—for Aristotelians, the foundation of all subsequent reasoning. Aristotle held that wider and wider generalization is derived from repeated empirical experiences of particular things until the essence or universal concept is established in the intellect. Philosopher Ed Miller puts Aristotelian inductive reasoning it this way:

From the experience of the particular man Callias, the man Socrates, the man James, the man Tad, the man Bill … the intellect derives the general or universal idea of man, that is man as such. From the experience of the particular dog Fido, the dog Lassie, the dog Rover, the dog Flip … the intellect derives the universal idea dog. And the universal ideas—man, dog, and innumerable other concepts derived from experience in the same manner—become the tools and building blocks of all reasoning. They then make it possible to say and know, “Socrates is a man,” “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” etc.4

Aristotle compares the formation of the universal in the intellect to the formation of soldiers making a stand against a wartime enemy:

We conclude that these states of knowledge are neither innate in a determinate form, nor developed from other higher states of knowledge, but from sense-perception. It is like a rout in battle stopped by first one man making a stand and then another, until the original formation has been restored. The soul is so constituted as to be capable of this process. . . . When one of a number of logically indiscriminable particulars has made a stand, the earliest universal is present in the soul: for though the act of sense-perception is of the particular, its content is universal—is man, for example, not the man Callias. A fresh stand is made among these rudimentary universals, and the process does not cease until the indivisible concepts, the true universals, are established: e.g. such and such a species of animals is a step towards the genus animal, which by the process is a step towards a further generalization. Thus it is clear that we must get to know the primary premisses by induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants the universal is inductive.5

In fact, Aristotle believes induction to be the basis of all other knowledge:

From experience again—i.e. from the universal now stabilized in the soul, the one beside the many which is a single identity within them all—originate the skill of the craftsman and the knowledge of the man of science, skill in the sphere of coming to be and science in sphere of being.6

Metaphysics, the study of being as being, is the science in the sphere of being. In other words, metaphysics is a kind of science in the Aristotelian and Thomist tradition. Being is at the center of whatever is thought or done. One can not change the oil in his truck or complete a math equation without referencing being. Being, however, is the first act of knowing. The intellect can only understand the universal or essence of any external object through induction.

Aristotle’s notion of induction is very similar to the concept of abstraction put forward by St. Thomas. Aquinas focuses on the idea that the mind can remove, withdraw, or pull out the concept of redness from viewing various red objects. One understands the concept of justice by examining just actions. Abstraction is a general idea, universal, or essence that the intellect removes from the multiple expressions of the same form found in the particular instances of it (the essential nature of the particular whether it be dog, cat, chair, human, or concepts such as the good, true, beautiful etc.).

St. Thomas helps us understand how the intellect moves from the particular to the universal (here “intelligible species” means essence. “Phantasms” are the mental images of things):

Our intellect cannot know the singular in material things directly and primarily. The reason of this is that the principle of singularity in material things is individual matter, while our intellect … understands by abstracting the intelligible species from such matter. Now what is abstracted from individual matter is the universal. Hence our intellect knows directly the universal only. But indirectly and as it were by a kind of turning back (reflectio), it can know the singular, because … even after abstracting the intelligible species, the intellect, in order to understand actually, needs to turn to the phantasms in which it understands the species. … Therefore it understands the universal directly through the intelligible species, and indirectly the singulars represented by the phantasms. And thus it forms the proposition, “Socrates is a man.”

Classical realists, then, begin with being—the concrete particular things encountered in the sensible external world. Being is more than physical reality but never less than it. With the universal firmly in place in the intellect one is enabled to return and know reality through reflection and judgment. One can genuinely think about reality, know it, and express it, “Socrates is a human being.”

For Further Reading:

Holloway, M., “Abstraction from Matter in Human Cognition”, The Modern Schoolman, Vol. XXIII (1946), pp. 120 – 130.

For a more general introduction to Thomist epistemology see:

Wilhelmsen, Fredrick. Man’s Knowledge of Reality: An Introduction to Thomistic Epistemology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1956.

I wrote about the Aristotelian distinctions of act and potency here.

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica Volume 1. The Great Books of the Western World, edited by Mortimer J. Adler et al., Vol. 17, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996.

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle Volume 1. The Great Books of the Western World, edited by Mortimer J. Adler et al., Vol. 7, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996.

Miller, Ed. Questions that Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.

Footnotes

1Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Trans. by Father Laurence Shapcote of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996) 1a, q.1, art. 9.

2Aristotle, On the Soul (De Anima), Trans. by J. A. Smith (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996) 661.

3 While we are distinguishing the important faculties of the intellect, it is also very important to be aware that the whole person is involved in knowing. This requires a bit of development and goes beyond the scope of this post but I plan on explicating this notion in time. For now, it is important to understand that for those in the Aristotelian and Thomist tradition, the entire person is involved in apprehending reality. This is because form and body (matter and form) are united and should never be separated. Not only does the individual know and understand things through deduction and induction, humans also know through connatural knowledge—the lived and embodied contact one has with others and reality itself. This involves knowing through empathy, lived human experience, intuition, and the contact of the intellect with the truth of reality itself by other holistic ways of knowing such as imaginative literature, the arts, and history. Embodied knowledge means knowledge through the whole person and by way of all the arts and sciences. The Platonic tradition sees form and matter as separate which, if unchecked, leads to idealism. Idealism is the result of disembodied knowledge, a disembodied epistemology. Platonist metaphysics rests on the separation of form from matter and provides the foundation for the error of idealism.

4Ed Miller, Questions That Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996) 235.

5Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (Analytica posteriora), Trans. by G.R.G Mure (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996) 136.

6Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 136.

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 Three

by Dave Seng
Roman Statesman and Philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 – 43 BC, detail of a marble bust; in the Capitoline Museums, Rome.

This is part three of three posts on Plutarch’s Lives. Part two can be found here.

That Plutarch and Aristotle connect morality with politics or society is neither uncommon nor hard to understand. 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 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. Ancient moral philosophy stresses the idea of the “polis,” or social community, which is formed for the realization of the common good and, as in the individual, the virtues are conducive to the common good, or well-being of the community (Miller 557). 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 (Britannica 2006). 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 (Miller 558). 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.

It would go beyond the scope of this post to fully analyze every ethical system conceived in Western thought. I have simply tried to show the intellectual climate and historical background in which Plutarch wrote and outline a few implications from his ideas. There are several important insights we can learn from Plutarch and the first is that in classical virtue philosophy, moral values are inextricably fused to political values. The emphasis on virtue holds larger implications on the social community and state, which is why Plutarch wrote his biographies.

Also, a recovery of virtue ethics has practical ramifications for today. Society and the world of commerce should be interested in recovering the virtues. Capitalism itself should be aware of corporate leaders who lack virtue and make thousands of dollars while at the same time their company stock prices fall and workers are laid off. A recovery of the common good and virtue will be a healthy corrective to predatory capitalism. Some kind of recovery of classical virtue theory is needed in contemporary social and ethical thought.

Finally, Plutarch helps one to understand the intersection of history and moral philosophy. Plutarch falls within the tradition of the Roman historians Livy, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus (among others) who insisted that the purpose of history is to teach us something by contemplating examples of morality. The first-century Greek philosopher Dionysius Halicarnassus even said, “History is philosophy, teaching by example” (Lukacs 40). When a historian such a Plutarch places before his readers examples of virtuous action it is natural to inquire what exactly is meant by moral excellence. It is helpful to use the analytical tools of reason and logic developed by philosophers to investigate moral conduct.

History also helps one to think philosophically in another sense. By contrasting and comparing (as Plutarch does with his lives) one discovers how to make similar comparisons to his or her own time. By looking across time and investigating the past, one discovers a broader perspective and will be able to offer correctives to one’s own contemporary situation. Sometimes the ancients made the same mistakes that we make today. Other times they do things in a superior manner which we should learn from. The study of history opens one to new ways of thinking and offers possibilities of viewing the world that spans across time and space.

History strengthens and enriches the human spirit. There seems to be something ennobling and inspiring when one reads Herodotus’ account of the battle of Marathon or the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae. These ancient Greeks understood what it meant to sacrifice for the common good. Likewise, Plutarch’s accounts of Alexander or Caesar are equally edifying. History takes on existential implications when one reads Thucydides’ account of human nature and realizes that humans have always been driven by the same passions, desires, and appetites. History has a way of showing us who we are and what it means to be human. Plutarch understands history as a way to improve the human spirit and has a way of making his readers think through some of the enduring questions of life. For this Plutarch is correctly listed among the great authors.

Works cited/consulted

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

Lukacs, John. A Student’s Guide To The Study Of History. Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2001.

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

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.

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

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 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.