## 1. Introduction



In their moral theories, the ancient philosophers depended on several
important notions. These include virtue and the virtues, happiness
(*eudaimonia*), and the soul. We can begin with virtue.



Virtue is a general term that translates the Greek word
*arete*. Sometimes *arete* is also
translated as excellence. Many objects, natural or artificial, have
their particular *arete* or kind of excellence. There is
the excellence of a horse and the excellence of a knife. Then, of
course, there is human excellence. Conceptions of human excellence
include such disparate figures as the Homeric warrior chieftain and
the Athenian statesman of the period of its imperial expansion.
Plato's character Meno sums up one important strain of thought
when he says that excellence for a man is managing the business of the
city so that he benefits his friends, harms his enemies, and comes to
no harm himself (*Meno* 71e). From this description we can see
that some versions of human excellence have a problematic relation to
the moral virtues.



In the ancient world, courage, moderation, justice and piety were
leading instances of moral virtue. A virtue is a settled disposition
to act in a certain way; justice, for instance, is the settled
disposition to act, let's say, so that each one receives their
due. This settled disposition consists in a practical knowledge about
how to bring it about, in each situation, that each receives their
due. It also includes a strong positive attitude toward bringing it
about that each receives their due. Just people, then, are not ones
who occasionally act justly, or even who regularly act justly but do
so out of some other motive; rather they are people who reliably act
that way because they place a positive, high intrinsic value on
rendering to each their due and they are good at it. Courage is a
settled disposition that allows one to act reliably to pursue right
ends in fearful situations, because one values so acting
intrinsically. Moderation is the virtue that deals similarly with
one's appetites and emotions.



Human excellence can be conceived in ways that do not include the
moral virtues. For instance, someone thought of as excellent for
benefiting friends and harming enemies can be cruel, arbitrary,
rapacious, and ravenous of appetite. Most ancient philosophers,
however, argue that human excellence must include the moral virtues
and that the excellent human will be, above all, courageous, moderate,
and just. This argument depends on making a link between the moral
virtues and happiness. While most ancient philosophers hold that
happiness is the proper goal or end of human life, the notion is both
simple and complicated, as Aristotle points out. It seems simple to
say everyone wants to be happy; it is complicated to say what
happiness is. We can approach the problem by discussing, first, the
relation of happiness to human excellence and, then, the relation of
human excellence to the moral virtues.



It is significant that synonyms for *eudaimonia* are living
well and doing well. These phrases imply certain activities associated
with human living. Ancient philosophers argued that whatever
activities constitute human living - e.g., those associated with
pleasure - one can engage in those activities in a mediocre or
even a poor way. One can feel and react to pleasures sometimes
appropriately and sometimes inappropriately; or one might always act
shamefully and dishonorably. However, to carry out the activities that
constitute human living well over a whole lifetime, or long stretches
of it, is living well or doing well. At this point the relation of
happiness to human excellence should be clear. Human excellence is the
psychological basis for carrying out the activities of a human life
well; to that extent human excellence is also happiness.



So described, human excellence is general and covers many activities
of a human life. However, one can see how human excellence might at
least include the moral virtues. The moral virtue relevant to fear,
for instance, is courage. Courage is a reliable disposition to react
to fear in an appropriate way. What counts as appropriate entails
harnessing fear for good or honorable ends. Such ends are not confined
to one's own welfare but include, e.g., the welfare of
one's city. In this way, moral virtues become the kind of human
excellence that is other-regarding. The moral virtues, then, are
excellent qualities of character - intrinsically valuable for
the one who has them; but they are also valuable for others. In rough
outline, we can see one important way ancient moral theory tries to
link happiness to moral virtue by way of human excellence. Happiness
derives from human excellence; human excellence includes the moral
virtues, which are implicitly or explicitly other-regarding.



Since happiness plays such a vital role in ancient moral theory, we
should note the difference between the Greek word *eudaimonia*
and its usual translation as 'happiness'. Although its
usage varies, most often the English word 'happiness'
refers to a feeling. For example, we say, "You can tell he feels
happy right now, from the way he looks and how he is behaving."
The feeling is described as one of contentment or satisfaction,
perhaps with the way one's life as a whole is going. While some
think there is a distinction between feeling happy and feeling
content, still happiness is a good and pleasant feeling. However,
'happiness' has a secondary sense that does not focus on
feelings but rather on activities. For instance, one might say,
"It was a happy time in my life; my work was going well."
The speaker need not be referring to the feelings he or she was
experiencing but just to the fact that some important activity was
going well. Of course, if their work is going well, they might feel
contentment. But in speaking of their happiness, they might just as
well be referring to their absorption in some successful activity. For
ancient philosophers *eudaimonia* is closer to the secondary
sense of our own term. Happiness means not so much feeling a certain
way, or feeling a certain way about how one's life as a whole is
going, but rather carrying out certain activities or functioning in a
certain way. This sort of happiness is an admirable and praiseworthy
accomplishment, whereas achieving satisfaction or contentment may not
be.



In this way, then, ancient philosophers typically justify moral
virtue. Being courageous, just, and moderate is valuable for the
virtuous person because these virtues are inextricably linked with
happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, so anyone who realizes the link
between virtue and happiness will also want to be virtuous. This
argument depends on two central ideas. First, human excellence is a
good of the soul - not a material or bodily good such as wealth
or political power. Another way to put this idea is to say happiness
is not something external, like wealth or political power, but an
internal, psychological good. The second central idea is that the most
important good of the soul is moral virtue. By being virtuous one
enjoys a psychological state whose value outweighs whatever other
kinds of goods one might have by being vicious.



Finally, a few words about the soul are in order since, typically,
philosophers argue that virtue is a good of the soul. In some ways,
this claim is found in many traditions. Many thinkers argue that being
moral does not necessarily provide physical beauty, health, or
prosperity. Rather, as something good, virtue must be understood as
belonging to the soul; it is a psychological good. However, in order
to explain virtue as a good of the soul, one does not have to hold
that the soul is immortal. While Plato, for example, holds that the
soul is immortal and that its virtue is a good that transcends death,
his argument for virtue as a psychological good does not depend on the
immortality of the soul. He argues that virtue is a psychological good
in this life. To live a mortal human life with this good is in itself
happiness.



This position that links happiness and virtue is called eudaimonism
- a word based on the principal Greek word for happiness,
*eudaimonia*. By eudaimonism, we will mean one of several
theses: (a) virtue, together with its active exercise, is identical
with happiness; (b) virtue, together with its activities, is the most
important and dominant constituent of happiness; (c) virtue is the
only means to happiness. However, one must be cautious not to conclude
that ancient theories in general attempt to construe the value of
virtue simply as a means to achieving happiness. Each theory, as we
shall see, has its own approach to the nature of the link between
virtue and happiness. It would not be advisable to see ancient
theories as concerned with such contemporary issues as whether moral
discourse - i.e., discourse about what one ought to do -
can or should be reduced to non-moral discourse - i.e., to
discourse about what is good for one.



These reflections on virtue can provide an occasion for contrasting
ancient moral theory and modern. One way to put the contrast is to say
that ancient moral theory is *agent-centered* while modern
moral theory is *action-centered*. To say that it is
action-centered means that, as a theory of morality, it explains
morality, to begin with, in terms of actions and their circumstances,
and the ways in which actions are moral or immoral. We can roughly
divide modern thinkers into two groups. Those who judge the morality
of an action on the basis of its known or expected consequences are
consequentialist; those who judge the morality of an action on the
basis of its conformity to certain kinds of laws, prohibitions, or
positive commandments are deontologists. The former include, e.g.,
those utilitarians who say an action is moral if it provides the
greatest good for the greatest number. Deontologists say an action is
moral if it conforms to a moral principle, e.g., the obligation to
tell the truth. While these thinkers are not uninterested in the moral
disposition to produce such actions, or in what disposition is
required if they are to show any moral worth in the persons who do
them, their focus is on actions, their consequences, and the rules or
other principles to which they conform. The result of these ways of
approaching morality is that moral assessment falls on actions. This
focus explains, for instance, contemporary fascination with such
questions of casuistry as, e.g., the conditions under which an action
like abortion is morally permitted or immoral.



By contrast, ancient moral theory explains morality in terms that
focus on the moral agent. These thinkers are interested in what
constitutes, e.g., a just person. They are concerned about the state
of mind and character, the set of values, the attitudes to oneself and
to others, and the conception of one's own place in the common
life of a community that belong to just persons simply insofar as they
are just. A modern might object that this way of proceeding is
backwards. Just actions are logically prior to just persons and must
be specifiable in advance of any account of what it is to be a just
person. Of course, the ancients had a rough idea of what just actions
were; and this rough idea certainly contributed to the notion of a
just person, and his motivation and system of values. Still, the
notion of a just person is not exhausted by an account of the
consequences of just actions, or any principle for determining which
actions are and which are not just. For the ancients, the just person
is compared to a craftsman, e.g., a physician. Acting as a physician
is not simply a collection of medically effective actions. It is
knowing when such actions are appropriate, among other things; and
this kind of knowledge is not always definable. To understand what
being a physician means one must turn to the physician's
judgment and even motivation. These are manifested in particular
actions but are not reducible to those actions. In the same way, what
constitutes a just person is not exhausted by the actions he or she
does nor, for that matter, by any catalogue of possible just actions.
Rather, being a just person entails qualities of character proper to
the just person, in the light of which they decide what actions
justice requires of them and are inclined or disposed to act
accordingly.


## 2. Socrates



In this section we confine ourselves to the character Socrates in
Plato's dialogues, and indeed to only certain ones of the
dialogues in which a Socrates character plays a role. In those
dialogues in which he plays a major role, Socrates varies considerably
between two extremes. On the one hand, there is the Socrates who
claims to know nothing about virtue and confines himself to asking
other characters questions; this Socrates is found in the
*Apology* and in certain dialogues most of which end
inconclusively. These dialogues, e.g., *Charmides*,
*Laches*, *Crito*, *Euthydemus*, and
*Euthyphro*, are called aporetic. On the other hand, in other
dialogues we find a Socrates who expounds positive teachings about
virtue; this Socrates usually asks questions only to elicit agreement.
These dialogues are didactic, and conclusive in tone, e.g.,
*Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus,* and *Philebus*. However,
these distinctions between kinds of dialogues and kinds of Socratic
characters are not exclusive; there are dialogues that mix the
aporetic and conclusive styles, e.g., *Protagoras, Meno*, and
*Gorgias*. In observing these distinctions, we refer only to
the characteristic style of the dialogue and leave aside controversies
about the relative dates of composition of the dialogues. (See the
entry on
 Plato,
 especially the section on
 Socrates
 and the section on
 the historical Socrates.)



The significance of this distinction among dialogues is that one can
isolate a strain of moral teaching in the aporetic and mixed
dialogues. In spite of their inconclusive nature, in the aporetic
dialogues the character Socrates maintains principles about morality
that he seems to take to be fundamental. In the mixed dialogues we
find similar teaching. This strain is distinct enough from the
accounts of morality in the more didactic dialogues that it has been
called Socratic, as opposed to Platonic, and associated with the
historical personage's own views. In what follows we limit
ourselves to this "Socratic" moral teaching -
without taking a position about the relation of "Socratic"
moral teaching to that of the historical Socrates. For our purposes it
is sufficient to point out a distinction between kinds of moral
teaching in the dialogues. We will focus on the aporetic dialogues as
well as the mixed dialogues *Protagoras*, *Gorgias*, and
*Meno*.



The first feature of Socratic teaching is its heroic quality. In the
*Apology*, Socrates says that a man worth anything at all does
not reckon whether his course of action endangers his life or
threatens death. He looks only at one thing - whether what he
does is just or not, the work of a good or of a bad man (28b-c).
Said in the context of his trial, this statement is both about himself
and a fundamental claim of his moral teaching. Socrates puts moral
considerations above all others. If we think of justice as, roughly,
the way we treat others, the just actions to which he refers cover a
wide range. It is unjust to rob temples, betray friends, steal, break
oaths, commit adultery, and mistreat parents (*Rep*
443a-b). A similarly strong statement about wrong-doing is found
in the *Crito*, where the question is whether Socrates should
save his life by escaping from the jail in Athens and aborting the
sentence of death. Socrates says that whether he should escape or not
must be governed only by whether it is just or unjust to do so (48d).
Obviously, by posing wrong-doing against losing one's life,
Socrates means to emphasize that nothing outweighs in positive value
the disvalue of doing unjust actions. In such passages, then, Socrates
seems to be a moral hero, willing to sacrifice his very life rather
than commit an injustice, and to recommend such heroism to others.



However, this heroism also includes an important element of
self-regard. In the passage from the *Apology* just quoted
Socrates goes on to describe his approach to the citizens of Athens.
He chides them for being absorbed in the acquisition of wealth,
reputation, and honor while they do not take care for nor think about
wisdom, truth, and how to make their souls better (*Ap*.
29d-e). As he develops this idea it becomes clear that the
perfection of the soul, making it better, means acquiring and having
moral virtue. Rather than heaping up riches and honor, Athenians
should seek to perfect their souls in virtue. From this exhortation we
can conclude that for Socrates psychological good outweighs material
good and that virtue is a psychological good of the first importance.
The *Crito* gives another perspective on psychological good.
Socrates says (as something obvious to everyone) that life is not
worth living if that which is harmed by disease and benefited by
health - i.e., the body - is ruined. But even more so, he
adds, life is not worth living if that which is harmed by wrong-doing
(*to adikon*) and benefited by the right - *sc*.
the soul - is ruined, insofar as the soul is more valuable than
the body (47e-48a). We can understand this claim in positive
terms. Virtue is the chief psychological good; wrong-doing destroys
virtue. So Socrates' strong commitment to virtue reflects his
belief in its value for the soul, as well as the importance of the
soul's condition for the quality of our lives.



A second feature of Socratic teaching is its intellectualism. Socratic
intellectualism is usually expressed in the claim that virtue is
knowledge, implying that if one knows what is good one will do what is
good. We find a clear statement of the claim in *Protagoras*
352c; but it underlies a lot of Socratic teaching. The idea is
paradoxical because it flies in the face of what seems to be the
ordinary experience of knowingly doing what is not good, called
*akrasia* or being overcome (sometimes anachronistically
translated as weakness of will). However, Socrates defends the idea
that *akrasia* is impossible. First, he argues that virtue is
all one needs for happiness. In the *Apology* (41c), Socrates
says that no evil at all can come to a good man either in living or in
dying (...*ouk esti andri agatho(i) kakon ouden oute
zonti oute teleutesanti*), implying the good
man's virtue alone makes him proof against bad fortune. In the
*Crito* (48b), he says living well and finely and justly are
the same thing (*to de eu kai kalos kai dikaios
[zen] hoti tauton estin...*). In turn, in the *Meno*
(77c-78b), Socrates argues that everyone desires happiness,
i.e., one's own welfare. So, in the first place, one always has
a good reason for acting virtuously; doing so entails one's own
happiness. However, even if the link between virtue and happiness is
granted, another problem remains. It is possible that one can,
knowingly, act against one's happiness, understood, as it is by
Socrates, as one's own welfare. It seems that an individual can
choose to do what is not in her own best interest. People can all too
easily desire and go after the pastry that they know is bad for them.
Socrates, however, seems to think that once one recognizes (i.e.,
really knows and fully appreciates) that the pastry is not good in
this way, one will cease to desire it. There is no residual desire
for, e.g., pleasure, that might compete with the desire for what is
good. This position is called intellectualism because it implies that
what ultimately motivates any action is some cognitive state, rational
or doxastic: if you know what is good you will do it, and if you do an
action, and it is bad, that is because you thought somehow that it was
good. All error in such choices is due to ignorance.



In support of the idea that if one knows what happiness is, one will
pursue it, Socrates argues, in the *Euthydemus*, that wisdom is
necessary and sufficient for happiness. While most of this dialogue is
given over to Euthydemus' and Dionysiodorus' eristic
display, there are two Socratic interludes. In the first of these
- in a passage that has a parallel in *Meno* (88a ff)
- Socrates helps the young Cleinias to see that wisdom is a kind
of knowledge that infallibly brings happiness. He uses an analogy with
craft (*techne*); a carpenter must not only have but know
how to use his tools and materials to be successful (*Euthyd*.
280b-d). In turn, someone may have such goods as health, wealth,
good birth, and beauty, as well as the virtues of justice, moderation,
courage, and wisdom (279a-c). Wisdom is the most important,
however, because, like carpentry, for example, it is a kind of
knowledge, about how to use the other assets so that they are
beneficial (281b-c). Moreover, all of these other so-called
goods are useless - in fact, even harmful - without
wisdom, because without it one will misuse any of the other assets one
may possess, so as to act not well but badly. Wisdom is the only
unconditional good (281d-e). Socrates' argument leaves it
ambiguous whether wisdom (taken together with its exercise) is
identical with happiness or whether it is the dominant and essential
component of happiness (282a-b).



In this account, the focus is on a kind of knowledge as the active
ingredient in happiness. The other parts of the account are certain
assets that seem as passive in relation to wisdom as wood and tools
are to the carpenter. Socratic intellectualism has been criticized for
either ignoring the non-rational, desiderative and volitional causes
of human action or providing an implausibly rationalist account of
them. In either case, the common charge is that it fails to account
for or appreciate the apparent complexities of moral psychology.


## 3. Plato



If the objections to intellectualism are warranted, Plato makes
significant progress by having his character Socrates suppose that the
soul has desires that are not always for what is good. This allows for
the complexities of moral psychology to become an important issue in
the account of virtue. That development is found in Plato's
mature moral theory. In the *Republic*, especially in its first
four books, Socrates presents the most thorough and detailed account
of moral psychology and virtue in the dialogues.



It all begins with the challenge to the very notion of morality,
understood along traditional lines, mounted by Callicles in the second
half of the *Gorgias* and by Thrasymachus in *Republic*
I. Callicles thinks that moral convention is designed by the numerous
weak people to intimidate the few strong ones, to keep the latter from
taking what they could if they would only use their strength. No truly
strong person should be taken in by such conventions (*Gorg.*
482e ff). Thrasymachus argues that justice is the advantage of the
more powerful; he holds that justice is a social practice set up by
the powerful, i.e., rulers who require their subjects through that
practice to act against their own individual and group self-interest
(*Rep*. 338d ff). No sensible person should, and no
strong-willed person would, accept rules of justice as having any
legitimate authority over them. In answer to the latter challenge, in
*Republic* II, Glaucon and Adeimantus repeatedly urge Socrates
to show what value justice has in itself, apart from its rewards and
reputation. They gloss the intrinsic value of justice as what value it
has in the soul (358b-c), what it does to the soul simply and
immediately by its presence therein. Before giving what will be a new
account of the soul, Socrates introduces his famous comparison between
the soul and the city. As he develops his account of the city,
however, it becomes clear that Socrates is talking about an ideal
city, which he proceeds to construct in his discussion.



This city has three classes (*gene*) of citizens. The
rulers are characterized by their knowledge about and devotion to the
welfare of the city. The auxiliaries are the warrior class that helps
the rulers. These two are collectively the guardians of the city
(413c-414b; 428c-d). Finally, there are the farmers,
artisans, and merchants - in general those concerned with the
production of material goods necessary for daily life
(369b-371e). The importance of this structure is that it allows
Socrates to define virtues of the city by relations among its parts.
These virtues are justice, wisdom, courage, and moderation. For
instance, justice in the city is each one performing that function for
which he is suited by nature and not doing the work that belongs to
others (433a-b). One's function, in turn, is determined by
the class to which he belongs. So rulers should rule and not amass
wealth, which is the function of the farmers, artisans, and merchants;
if the rulers turn from ruling to money-making they are unjust.



Completing the analogy, Socrates gives an account of the soul. He
argues that it has three parts, each corresponding to one of the
classes in the city. At this point, we should note the difficulty of
talking about parts of the soul. In making his argument about conflict
in the soul, Socrates does not usually use a word that easily
corresponds to the English 'part.' Sometimes he uses
'form' (*eidos*) and 'kind'
(*genos*) (435b-c), other times a periphrasis such as
'that in the soul that calculates' (439d-e),
although in the subsequent account of virtue, we do find
*meros*, which means part (442b-d). So, insofar as
vocabulary is concerned, one should be cautious about taking the
subdivisions of the soul to be independent agents. Perhaps the least
misleading way of thinking about the parts is as distinct functions.
Reason is the function of calculating, especially about what is good
for the soul. The appetites for food, drink, and sex are like the
producing class - they are necessary for bodily existence
(439c-e). These two parts are familiar to the modern reader, who
will recognize the psychological capacity for reasoning and
calculating, on the one hand, and the bodily desires, on the other.
Less familiar is the part of the soul that corresponds to the
auxiliaries, the military class. This is the spirited part
(*thymos* or *thymoeides*). Associated with the heart,
it is an aggressive drive concerned with honor. *Thumos* is
manifested as anger with those who attack one's honor. Perhaps
more importantly, it is manifested as anger with oneself when failing
to do what one knows he should do (439e-440d).



The importance of this account is that it is a moral psychology, an
account of the soul which serves as a basis for explaining the
virtues. Socrates' account also introduces the idea that there
is conflict in the soul. For instance, the appetites can lead one
toward pleasure which reason recognizes is not good for the whole
soul. In cases of conflict, Socrates says the spirited part sides with
reason against appetite. Here we see in rough outline the chief
characters in a well-known moral drama. Reason knows what is good both
for oneself and in the treatment of others. The appetites,
short-sighted and self-centered, pull in the opposite direction. The
spirited part is the principle that sides with reason and enforces its
decrees.



While the opposition between reason and appetite establishes their
distinctness, it has another, more profound consequence. Most
commentators read this section of the argument as implying that reason
looks out for what is good for the soul while appetite seeks food,
drink, and sex, heedless of their benefit for the soul (437d ff).
Although open to various interpretations, the difference between
reason and appetite does seem aimed at one of the central paradoxes of
Socratic intellectualism. Common experience seems to contradict the
claim that if one knows what is good he will do it; there seem to be
obvious instances where someone does what she, in some sense, knows is
not good, while having options to act otherwise. By introducing
non-rational elements in the soul, the argument in the
*Republic* also introduces the possibility of doing what one
knows, all things considered, not to be good. In such cases, one is
motivated by appetite, which lacks the capacity to conceive of what is
good, all things considered.



Some interpret this heedlessness as appetite's being
good-independent, whereas reason is good-dependent. Thus, appetite
pursues what it pursues without reference to whether what it pursues
is good; reason pursues what it pursues always understanding that what
it pursues is good. In this kind of interpretation, Socrates in the
*Republic* accepts the possibility of *akrasia* because
some parts of the soul, which are indifferent to the good, can
motivate actions that do not aim at what is good. Others interpret
this heedlessness as appetite's operating on a constrained
notion of good; for instance, for appetite only pleasure is good. By
contrast, reason operates on a larger notion, i.e., what is good, all
things considered. In this interpretation, *akrasia* is also
possible, but now because some parts of the soul, which motivate
action, do so with a constrained view of good. In any event, the stage
is set for conflict in the soul between reason and appetite. If we
assume that either can motive action on its own, the possibility
exists for the soul's pursuing bodily pleasure in spite of
reason's determination that doing so is not good, all things
considered. This potential gives rise to a separate strain of thinking
about virtue. While, for Socratic intellectualism, virtue just is
knowledge, in the aftermath of the argument for subdividing the soul,
virtue comes to have two aspects. The first is to acquire the
knowledge which is the basis of virtue; the second is to instill in
the appetites and emotions - which cannot grasp the knowledge
- a docility so that they react in a compliant way to what
reason knows to be the best thing to do. Thus, non-rational parts of
the soul acquire reliable habits on which the moral virtues
depend.



Given the complexity of the differences among the parts, we can now
understand how their relations to one another define virtue in the
soul. Virtue reduces the potential for conflict to harmony. The master
virtue, justice, is each part doing its function and not interfering
with that of another (441d-e; 443d). Since the function of
reason is to exercise forethought for the whole soul, it should rule.
The appetites, which seek only their immediate satisfaction, should
not rule. A soul ruled by appetites is the very picture of
psychological injustice. Still, to fulfill its function of ruling,
reason needs wisdom, the knowledge of what is beneficial for each of
the parts of the soul and for the whole. Moderation is a harmony among
the parts based on agreement that reason should rule. Courage is the
spirited part carrying out the decrees of reason about what is to be
feared (442b-d). Any attentive reader of the dialogues must feel
that Socrates has now given an answer to the questions that started
many of the aporetic dialogues. At this point, we have the fully
developed moral psychology that allows the definition of the moral
virtues. They fall into place around the tripartite structure of the
soul.



One might object, however, that all Socrates has accomplished is to
define justice and the other virtues as they operate *within*
the soul. While each part treats the others justly, so to speak, it is
not clear what justice among the parts of someone's soul has to
do with that person treating other people justly. Socrates at first
addresses this issue rather brusquely, saying that someone with a just
soul would not embezzle funds, rob temples, steal, betray friends,
break oaths, commit adultery, neglect parents, nor ignore the gods.
The reason for this is that each part in the soul does its own
function in the matter of ruling and being ruled (443a-b).
Socrates does not explain this connection between psychic harmony and
moral virtue. However, if we assume that injustice is based in
overweening appetite or unbridled anger, then one can see the
connection between restrained appetites, well-governed anger and
treating others justly. The man whose sexual appetite is not governed
by reason, e.g., would commit the injustice of adultery.



This approach to the virtues by way of moral psychology, in fact,
proves to be remarkably durable in ancient moral theory. In one way or
another, the various schools attempt to explain the virtues in terms
of the soul, although there are, of course, variations in the
accounts. Indeed, we can treat the theory of the *Republic* as
one such variation. While the account in *Republic* IV has
affinities with that of Aristotle in *Nicomachean*
*Ethics*, for instance, further developments in
*Republic* V-VII make Plato's overall account
altogether unique. It is in these books that the theory of forms makes
its appearance.



In *Republic* V, Socrates returns to the issue of political
rule by asking what change in actual cities would bring the ideal city
closer to realization. The famous answer is that philosophers should
rule as kings (473d). Trying to make the scandalous, even ridiculous,
answer more palatable, Socrates immediately begins to explain what he
means by philosophers. They are the ones who can distinguish between
the many beautiful things and the one beautiful itself. The beautiful
itself, the good itself, and the just itself are what he calls forms.
The ability to understand such forms defines the philosopher
(476a-c). Fully elaborated, this extraordinary theory holds that
there is a set of unchanging and unambiguous entities, collectively
referred to as being. These are known directly by reason in a way that
is separate from the use of sensory perception. The objects of sensory
perception are collectively referred to as becoming since they are
changing and ambiguous (508d). This infallible grasp means that one
knows what goodness is, what beauty is, and what justice is. Because
only philosophers have this knowledge - an infallible grasp of
goodness, beauty, and justice - they and only they are fit to be
rulers in the city.



While moral theory occupies a significant portion of the
*Republic*, Socrates does not say a lot about its relation to
the epistemology and metaphysics of the central books. For instance,
one might have expected the account to show how, e.g., reason might
use knowledge of the forms to govern the other parts of the soul.
Indeed, in Book VI, Socrates does say that the philosopher will
imitate in his own soul the order and harmony of the forms out of
admiration (500c-d). Since imitation is the heart of the account
of moral education in Books II-III, the idea that one might
imitate forms is intriguing; but it is not developed. In fact, the
relation between virtues in the soul and the metaphysics and
epistemology of the forms is not an easy one. For instance, Socrates
says that virtue in the soul is happiness (580b-c). However, he
also says that knowledge and contemplation of the forms is happiness
(517c-d). Since having or exercising the virtues of wisdom,
moderation, courage, and justice is different from knowledge and
contemplation of forms, the questions naturally arises about how to
bring the two together into an integrated life. In the dialogues, the
relation between knowledge of forms and virtues such as moderation,
justice, and courage is an issue that never seems to be fully resolved
because it receives different treatments.



In *Republic*IX, Socrates offers a sketch of one way to bring
these two dimensions together. Toward the end of the book, Socrates
conducts a three-part contest to show the philosophical, or
aristocratic, man is the happiest. In the second of these contests, he
claims that each part of the soul has its peculiar desire and
corresponding pleasure. Reason, for instance, desires to learn;
satisfying that desire is a pleasure distinct from the pleasure, e.g.,
of eating (580d-e). One can now see that the functions of each
of the parts has a new, affective dimension. Then, in the last of the
contests, Socrates makes an ontological distinction between true
pleasure of the soul and less true pleasure of the body. The former is
the pleasure of knowing being, i.e., the forms, and the latter is the
pleasure of filling bodily appetite. The less true pleasures also give
rise to illusions and phantoms of pleasure; these illusions and
phantoms recall the images and shadows in the allegory of the cave
(583b-586c). Clearly, then, distinctions from the metaphysics
and epistemology of the central books are being made relevant to the
divisions within the soul. Pleasures of reason are on a higher
ontological level than those of the bodily appetites; this difference
calls for a modification of the definitions of the virtues from Book
IV. For instance, in Book IV, justice is each part fulfilling its own
function; in Book IX, that function is specified in terms of the kinds
of pleasure each part pursues. Reason pursues the true pleasure of
knowing and the appetites the less true pleasure of the body. Appetite
commits injustice if it pursues pleasure not proper to it, i.e., if it
pursues bodily pleasures as though they were true pleasures
(586d-587a). The result is an account of virtue which
discriminates among pleasures, as any virtue ethics should; but the
criterion of discrimination reflects the distinction between being and
becoming. Rational pleasures are more real than bodily pleasures,
although bodily pleasures are not negligible. Happiness, in turn,
integrates the virtue of managing bodily appetites and pleasures with
the pleasures of learning, but definitely gives greater weight to the
latter.



However, in the *Phaedo*, we find another approach to the
relation between knowledge of forms and virtues in the soul. Socrates
identifies wisdom with kowledge of such forms as beauty, justice, and
goodness (65d-e). The philosopher can know these only by reason
that is detached from the body as much as possible (65e-66a). In
fact, pure knowledge is found only when the soul is completely
detached from the body in death. With such a severe account of the
knowledge of the forms it is not surprising that courage, justice, and
moderation are subordinated to wisdom. When Socrates says the true
exchange of pleasures, pains, and fears is for wisdom, he invokes
moderation, justice, and courage as virtues that serve this exchange
(68b-69e). This passage suggests, for instance, that moderation
would control bodily pleasures and pains and fears so that reason
could be free of these disturbances in order to pursue knowledge. This
notion of virtues differs from the account in the first books of the
*Republic* in that the latter presents a comprehensive picture
of the welfare of all the parts of the soul whereas the
*Phaedo*, by implication, subordinates to reason those parts
characterized by pleasures, pain, and fears.



In the *Symposium*, we find yet another configuration of the
relation between virtue and the forms, in which the non-rational parts
of the soul disappear - or are sublimated. In Diotima's
discourse on *eros*, she argues that the real purpose of love
is to give birth in beauty (206b-c). This idea implies two
dimensions: inspiration by what is itself beautiful and producing
beautiful objects. Although Diotima talks about the way these concepts
work in sexual procreation, her real interest is in their
psychological manifestations. For instance, the lover, inspired by the
physical beauty of the beloved, will produce beautiful ideas. In turn,
the beauty of a soul will inspire ideas that will improve young men
(210a-d). Finally, Diotima claims that the true object of erotic
love is not the beautiful body or even the beautiful soul - but
beauty itself. Unlike the beauty of bodies and of souls, this beauty
does not come to be nor pass away, neither increases nor decreases.
Nor does it vary according to aspect or context. It is not in a face
or hands but is itself by itself, one in form (211a-c). Since
this paradigm of beauty is the true object of *eros*, it
inspires its own particular product, i.e., true virtue, distinct from
the images of virtue inspired by encounters with beauty in bodies and
souls (212a-c). While this passage highlights the relation
between *eros* and the form of beauty in motivating virtue, it
is almost silent on what this virtue might be. We do not know whether
it just is the expression of love of beauty in the lover's
actions, or its concretization in the dispositions of the
lover's soul, or another manifestation. Clearly, this account in
the *Symposium* works without the elaborate theory about parts
of the soul and their function in virtue, found in *Republic*
I-IV.



As with other ancient theories, this account of virtue can be called
eudaimonist. Plato's theory is best represented as holding that
virtue, together with its active exercise, is the most important and
the dominant constituent of happiness (580b-c). One might object
that eudaimonist theories reduce morality to self-interest. We should
recall however that *eudaimonia* in this theory does not refer
primarily to a feeling. In the *Republic*, it refers to a state
of the soul, and the active life to which it leads, whose value is
multifaceted. The order and harmony of the soul is, of course, good
for the soul because it provides what is good for each of the parts
and the whole, and so makes the parts function well, for the benefit
of each and of the whole person. In this way, the soul has the best
internal economy, so to speak. Still, we should not overlook the ways
in which order and harmony in the soul are paired with order and
harmony in the city. They are both modeled on the forms. As a
consequence, virtue in the soul is not a private concern artificially
joined to the public function of ruling. Rather, the philosopher who
imitates forms in ruling her soul is equally motivated to imitate
forms in ruling the city. So, insofar as virtue consists in imitating
the forms, it is also a state of the soul best expressed by exercising
rule in the city - or at least in the ideal city.
*Eudaimonia*, then, includes looking after the welfare of
others.



Indeed, the very nature of Plato's account of virtue and
happiness leaves some aspects of the link between the two unclear.
While virtue is the dominant factor in happiness, we still cannot tell
whether for Plato one can have a reason for being, e.g., courageous
that does not depend directly on happiness. Plato, even though he has
forged a strong link between virtue and happiness, has not addressed
such issues. In his account, it is still possible that one might
be courageous just for its own sake while at the same time believing
courage is also reliably linked to happiness. In the
*Republic*, Socrates tries to answer the question what value
justice has by itself in the soul; it does not follow that he is
trying to convince Glaucon and Adeimantus that the value of justice is
exhausted by its connection to one's own happiness.



(For further developments in Plato's moral theory in dialogues
usually thought to postdate the *Republic* (especially
*Philebus*), see
 Plato
 entry, especially the section on
 Socrates
 and the section on
 Plato's indirectness.)


## 4. Aristotle



The moral theory of Aristotle, like that of Plato, focuses on virtue,
recommending the virtuous way of life by its relation to happiness.
His most important ethical work, *Nicomachean Ethics*, devotes
the first book to a preliminary account of happiness, which is then
completed in the last chapters of the final book, Book X. This account
ties happiness to excellent activity of the soul. In subsequent books,
excellent activity of the soul is tied to the moral virtues and to the
virtue of "practical wisdom" - excellence in
thinking and deciding about how to behave. This approach to moral
theory depends on a moral psychology that shares a number of
affinities with Plato's. However, while for Plato the theory of
forms has a role in justifying virtue, Aristotle notoriously rejects
that theory. Aristotle grounds his account of virtue in his theory
about the soul - a topic to which he devotes a separate
treatise, *de Anima*.



Aristotle opens the first book of the *Nicomachean Ethics* by
positing some one supreme good as the aim of human actions,
investigations, and crafts (1094a). Identifying this good as
happiness, he immediately notes the variations in the notion
(1095a15-25). Some think the happy life is the life of
enjoyment; the more refined think it is the life of political
activity; others think it is the life of study or theoretical
contemplation (1095b10-20). The object of the life of enjoyment
is bodily pleasure; that of political activity is honor or even
virtue. The object of the life of study is philosophical or scientific
understanding. Arguing that the end of human life must be the most
complete, he concludes that happiness is the most complete end.
Whereas pleasure, honor, virtue, and understanding are choice-worthy
in themselves, they are also chosen for the sake of happiness.
Happiness is not chosen for the sake of anything else
(1097a25-1097b5). That the other choice-worthy ends are chosen
for the sake of happiness might suggest that they are chosen only as
instrumental means to happiness, as though happiness were a separate
state. However, it is more likely that the other choice-worthy ends
are constituents of happiness. As a consequence, the happy life is
composed of such activities as virtuous pursuits, honorable acts, and
contemplation of truth. While conceiving these choice-worthy ends as
constituents of happiness might be illuminating, it does, in turn,
raise the issue of whether happiness is a jumble of activities or
whether it requires organization - even prioritization -
of the constituents.



Next, Aristotle turns to his own account of happiness, the summit of
Book I. The account depends on an analogy with the notion of function
or characteristic activity or work (*ergon*). A flutist has a
function or work, i.e., playing the flute. The key idea for Aristotle
is that the good of flute players (as such) is found in their
functioning as a flutist. By analogy, if there is a human function,
the good for a human is found in this function (1097b20-30).
Aristotle then turns to the human soul. He argues that, in fact, there
is a human function, to be found in the human soul's
characteristic activity, i.e., the exercise of reason
(1098a1-20). Then, without explanation, he makes the claim that
this rational function is expressed in two distinct ways: by
deliberating and issuing commands, on the one hand, and by obeying
such commands, on the other. The part that has reason in itself
deliberates about decisions, both for the short term and the long. The
part that obeys reason is that aspect of the soul, such as the
appetites, that functions in a human being under the influence of
reason. The appetites can fail to obey reason; but they at least have
the capacity to obey (as, for example, such autonomic functions as
nutritive and metabolic ones do not).



Aristotle then argues that since the function of a human is to
exercise the soul's activities according to reason, the function
of a good human is to exercise well and finely the soul's
activities according to reason. Given the two aspects of reason that
Aristotle has distinguished, one can see that both can be well or
badly done. On the one hand, one can reason well or badly -
about what to do within the next five minutes, twenty-four hours, or
ten years. On the other, actions motivated by appetites can be well or
badly done, and likewise having an appetite at all can sometimes not
be a well done, but a badly done, activity of the soul. Acting on the
desire for a drink from the wine cooler at a banquet is not always a
good idea, nor is having such a desire. According to Aristotle, the
good human being has a soul in which these functions are consistently
done well. Thus, good persons reason well about plans, short term or
long; and when they satisfy their appetites, and even when they
*have* appetites, it is in conformity with reason. Returning to
the question of happiness, Aristotle says the good for a human is to
live the way the good human lives, that is, to live with one's
life aimed at and structured by the same thing that the good human
being aims at in his or her life. So, his account of happiness, i.e.,
the highest good for a human, is virtuous or excellent activity of the
soul. But he has not identified this virtuous activity with that of
the moral virtues, at this point. In fact, he says if there are many
kinds of excellence, then human good is found in the active exercise
of the highest. He is careful to point out that happiness is not just
the ability to function well in this way; it is the activity itself.
Moreover, this activity must be carried out for a complete life. One
swallow does not make a spring.



Although the reference here to parts or aspects of the soul is
cursory, it is influenced by Aristotle's theories in the *de
Anima*. Fundamental to the human soul and to all living things,
including plants, is nutrition and growth (415a20 ff). Next is
sensation and locomotion; these functions are characteristic of
animals (416b30 ff). Aristotle associates appetite and desire with
this part of the soul (414b1-5). Thus we have a rough sketch of
animal life: animals, moved by appetite for food, go toward the
objects of desire, which are discerned by sensation. To these
functions is added thought in the case of humans. Thought is both
theoretical and practical (427a 15-20). The bulk of the *de
Anima* is devoted to explaining the nutritive, sensory, and
rational functions; Aristotle considers desire and appetite as the
source of movement in other animals (432a15 ff), and these plus reason
as its source in humans. In *Nicomachean Ethics* he focuses on
the role that appetite and desire, together with reason, play in the
moral drama of human life.



In chapter 8 of Book I, Aristotle explicitly identifies human good
with psychological good. Dividing goods into external goods, those of
the body, and those of the soul, he states that his account of
happiness agrees with those who hold it is a good of the soul. In
fact, in this account, happiness is closely related to traditionally
conceived psychological goods such as pleasure and moral virtue,
although the nature of the relation has yet to be shown
(1098b10-30). Still, in Book I Aristotle is laying the
foundation in his moral psychology for showing the link between the
moral virtues and happiness. In Book II he completes this foundation
when he turns to the question of which condition of the soul is to be
identified with (moral) virtue, or virtue of character.



In II. 5, he says that conditions of the soul are either feelings
(*pathe*), capacities for feeling (*dynameis*) or
dispositions (*hexeis*). Feelings are such things as appetite,
anger, fear and generally those conditions that are accompanied by
pleasure and pain. Capacities are, for example, the simple capacity to
have these feelings. Finally, disposition is that condition of the
soul whereby we are well or badly off with respect to feelings. For
instance, people are badly disposed with respect to anger who
typically get angry violently or who typically get angry weakly
(1105b20-30). Virtue, as a condition of the soul, will be one of
these three. After arguing that virtue is neither feeling nor
capacity, Aristotle turns to what it means to be well or badly off
with respect to feelings. He says that in everything that is
continuous and divisible it is possible to take more, less, or an
equal amount (1106a25). This remark is puzzling until we realize that
he is actually talking about feelings. Feelings are continuous and
divisible; so one can take more, less, or an equal amount of them.
Presumably, when it comes to feeling anger, e.g., one can feel too
much, not enough, or a balanced amount. Aristotle thinks that what
counts as too much, not enough, or a balanced amount can vary to some
extent from individual to individual. At this point he is ready to
come back to moral virtue for it is concerned with feelings and
actions (to which feelings give rise), in which one can have excess,
deficiency, or the mean. To have a feeling like anger at the right
time, on the right occasion, towards the right people, for the right
purpose and in the right manner is to feel the right amount, the mean
between extremes of excess and deficiency; this is the mark of moral
virtue (1106a15-20). Finally, virtue is not a question only of
feelings since there is a mean between extremes of action. Presumably,
Aristotle means that the appropriate feeling - the mean between
the extremes in each situation - gives rise to the appropriate
action.



At last Aristotle is ready to discuss particular moral virtues.
Beginning with courage, he mentions here two feelings, fear and
confidence. An excessive disposition to confidence is rashness and an
excessive disposition to fear and a deficiency in confidence is
cowardice. When it comes to certain bodily pleasures and pains, the
mean is moderation. While the excess is profligacy, deficiency in
respect of pleasures almost never occurs. Aristotle gives a fuller
account of both of these virtues in Book III; however, the basic idea
remains. The virtue in each case is a mean between two extremes, the
extremes being vices. Virtue, then, is a reliable disposition whereby
one reacts in relevant situations with the appropriate feeling -
neither excessive nor deficient - and acts in the appropriate
way - neither excessively nor deficiently.



To complete the notion of moral virtue we must consider the role
reason plays in moral actions. Summing up at Book II.6, Aristotle says
virtue is a disposition to choose, lying in the mean which is relative
to us, determined by reason (1107a1). Since he is talking about
choosing actions, he is focusing on the way moral virtue issues in
actions. In turn, it is the role of practical wisdom
(*phronesis*) to determine choice. While moral virtues,
virtues of character, belong to the part of the soul which can obey
reason, practical wisdom is a virtue of the part of the soul that
itself reasons. The virtues of thought, intellectual virtues, are
knowledge (*episteme*), comprehension
(*nous*), wisdom (*sophia*), craft
(*techne*), and practical wisdom (1139b15-25). The
first three grasp the truth about what cannot be otherwise and is not
contingent. A good example of knowledge about what cannot be otherwise
is mathematics. Craft and practical wisdom pursue the truth that can
be had about what can be otherwise and is contingent. What can be
otherwise includes what is made - the province of craft -
and what is done - the province of practical wisdom (1140a1).
While Aristotle's account of practical wisdom raises several
problems, we will focus on only two closely related issues. He says
that it is the mark of someone with practical wisdom to deliberate
well about what leads to the good for himself (*to dunasthai
kalos bouleusasthai peri ta hauto(i) agatha*). This
good is not specific, such as health and strength, but is living well
in general (1140a25-30). This description of practical wisdom,
first of all, implies that it deliberates about actions; it is a skill
for discerning those actions which hit the mean between the two
extremes. However, the ambiguity of the phrase 'what leads to
the good' might suggest that practical wisdom deliberates only
about instrumental means to living well. Still since practical wisdom
determines which actions hit the mean between two extremes, such
actions are not instrumental means to living well - as though
living well were a separate state. Actions which hit the mean are
parts of living well; the good life is composed of actions under the
headings of, for instance, honor and pleasure, which achieve the mean.
In addition, the deliberation of practical wisdom does not have to be
confined to determining which actions hit the mean. While Aristotle
would deny that anyone deliberates about whether happiness is the end
of human life, we do deliberate about the constituents of happiness.
So, one might well deliberate about the ways in which honor and
pleasure fit into happiness.



Now we can discern the link between morality and happiness. While
happiness itself is excellent or virtuous activity of the soul, moral
virtue is a disposition to achieve the mean between two extremes in
feeling and in action. The missing link is that achieving the mean is
also excellent activity of the soul. Activity that expresses the
virtue of courage, for example, is also the best kind of activity when
it comes to the emotion of fear. Activity that expresses the virtue of
moderation is also excellent activity when it comes to the bodily
appetites. In this way, then, the happy person is also the virtuous
person. However, in Book I Aristotle has already pointed out the
problem of bodily and external goods in relation to happiness. Even if
happiness is virtuous activity of the soul, in some cases these goods
are needed to be virtuous - for example, one must have money to
be generous. In fact, the lack of good birth, good children, and
beauty can mar one's happiness for the happy person does not
appear to be one who is altogether ugly, low born, solitary, or
childless, and even less so if he has friends and children who are
bad, or good friends and children who then die
(1099a30-1099b10). Aristotle is raising a problem that he does
not attempt to solve in this passage. Even if happiness is virtuous
activity of the soul, it does not confer immunity to the vicissitudes
of life.



Aristotle's moral psychology has further implications for his
account of happiness. In Book I, chapter 7, he said that human good is
virtuous activity of the soul but was indefinite about the virtues. In
most of the *Nicomachean Ethics* he talks about the moral
virtues, leaving the impression that virtuous activity is the same as
activity associated with moral virtues. In Book X, however, Aristotle
revisits the issue of virtuous activity. If happiness, he says, is
activity in accordance with virtue, it will be activity in accordance
with the highest. The highest virtue belongs to the best part of the
soul, i.e., the intellect (*nous*) or the part that governs in
the soul and contemplates the fine and godly, being itself the divine
part of the soul or that which is closest to the divine
(1177a10-20). Up to this point, Aristotle has apparently been
talking about the man of political action and the happiness that is
suitable to rational, embodied human beings. Active in the life of the
city, this person exercises courage, moderation, liberality, and
justice in the public arena. Now, instead of the life of an effective
and successful citizen, Aristotle is holding up the life of study and
contemplation as the one that achieves happiness - that is, the
highest human good, the activity of the highest virtue. Such a life
would achieve the greatest possible self-sufficiency and
invulnerability (1177a30). Indeed, at first he portrays these two
lives as so opposite that they seem incompatible.



In the end, however, he palliates the differences, leaving the
possibility for some way to harmonize the two (1178a30). The
differences between the two lives are rooted in the different aspects
of the soul. Moral virtues belong to the appetites and desires of the
sensory soul - the part obviously associated with the active
political life, when its activities are brought under the guidance and
control of excellent practical thought and judgment. The
"highest" virtues, those belonging to the scientific or
philosophical intellect, belong to theoretical reason. To concentrate
on these activities one must be appropriately disengaged from active
political life. While the latter description leads Aristotle to
portray as possible a kind of human life that partakes of divine
detachment (1178b5 ff), finally human life is an indissolvable
composite of intellect, reason, sensation, desires, and appetites. For
Aristotle, strictly speaking, happiness simply *is* the
exercise of the highest virtues, those of theoretical reason and
understanding. But even persons pursuing those activities as their
highest good, and making them central to their lives, will need to
remain connected to daily life, and even to political affairs in the
community in which they live. Hence, they will possess and exercise
the moral virtues and those of practical thought, as well as those
other, higher, virtues, throughout their lives. Clearly, this
conception of happiness does not hold all virtue, moral and
intellectual, to be of equal value. Rather, Aristotle means the
intellectual virtue of study and contemplation to be the dominant part
of happiness. However, problems remains since we can understand
dominance in two ways. In the first version, the activity of
theoretical contemplation is the sole, exclusive component of
happiness and the exercise of the moral virtues and practical wisdom
is an instrumental means to happiness, but not integral to it. The
problem with this version of dominance is that it undermines what
Aristotle has said about the intrinsic value of the virtuous activity
of politically and socially engaged human beings, including
friendship. In a second version of dominance, we might understand
contemplation to be the principal, but not exclusive, constituent of
happiness. The problem with this version of dominance lies in
integrating such apparently incompatible activities into a coherent
life. If we give the proper weight to the divine good of theoretical
contemplation it may leave us little interest in the virtuous pursuits
of the moral goods arising from our political nature, except, again,
as means for establishing and maintaining the conditions in which we
may contemplate.



Like Plato, Aristotle is a eudaimonist in that he argues that virtue
(including in some way the moral virtues of courage, justice and the
rest) is the dominant and most important component of happiness.
However, he is not claiming that the only reason to be morally
virtuous is that moral virtue is a constituent of happiness. He says
that we seek to have virtue and virtuous action for itself as well
(*Nicomachean Ethics*, 1097b 1-10); not to do so is to
fail even to *be* virtuous. In this regard, it is like
pleasure, which is also a constituent of the happy life. Like
pleasure, virtue is sought for its own sake. Still, as a constituent
of happiness, virtuous action is grounded in the highest end for a
human being. One can discern in the *Nicomachean Ethics* two
different types of argument for the link between virtue and happiness.
One is based on Aristotle's account of human nature and
culminates in the so-called function argument of Book I. If happiness
is excellent or virtuous activity of the soul, the latter is
understood by way of the uniquely human function. If one understands
the human function then one can understand what it is for that
function to be done excellently (1098a5-15). This sort of
argument has been criticized because it moves from a premise about
what humans are to a conclusion about what they ought to be. Such
criticism reflects the modern claim that there is a fact-value
distinction. One defense of Aristotle's argument holds that his
account of human nature is meant both to be objective and to offer the
basis for an understanding of excellence. The difference, then,
between modern moral theory and ancient is over what counts as an
objective account of human nature. However, even if we accept this
defense, we can still ask why a human would consider it good to
achieve human excellence as it is defined in the function argument. At
this point another argument for the link between happiness and virtue
- one more dispersed in the text of the *Nicomachean
Ethics* - becomes relevant; it is based on value terms only
and appeals to what a human might consider it good to achieve.
Aristotle describes virtuous activity of the soul as fine
(*kalos*) and excellent (*spoudaios*). Finally, the link
between virtue and happiness is forged if a human sees that it is good
to live a life that one considers to be fine and excellent.



(For further detailed discussion, see entry on
 Aristotle's ethics.)



## 5. Cynics



Although the Cynics had an impact on moral thinking in Athens after
the death of Socrates, it is through later, and highly controversial,
reports of their deeds and sayings - rather than their writings
- that we know of them. Diogenes the Cynic, the central figure,
is famous for living in a wine jar (Diogenes Laertius [= DL] VI 23)
and going about with a lantern looking for 'a man' -
i.e., someone not corrupted (DL VI 41). He claimed to set courage over
against fortune, nature against convention, and reason against passion
(DL VI 38). Of this trio of opposites, the most characteristic for
understanding the Cynics is nature against convention. Diogenes taught
that a life according to nature was better than one that conformed to
convention. First of all, natural life is simpler. Diogenes ate,
slept, or conversed wherever it suited him and carried his food around
with him (DL VI 22). When he saw a child drinking out of its hand, he
threw away his cup, saying that a child had bested him in frugality
(DL VI 37). He said the life of humans had been made easy by the gods
but that humans had lost sight of this through seeking after honeyed
cakes, perfumes, and similar things (DL VI 44). With sufficient
training the life according to nature is the happy life (DL VI
71).



Accordingly Diogenes became famous for behavior that flouted
convention (DL VI 69). Still, he thought that the simple life not only
freed one from unnecessary concerns but was essential to virtue.
Although he says nothing specific about the virtues, he does commend
training for virtuous behavior (DL VI 70). His frugality certainly
bespeaks self-control. He condemned love of money, praised good men,
and held love to be the occupation of the idle (DL VI
50-51).



Besides his contempt for convention, what is most noteworthy about
Diogenes as a moral teacher is his emphasis on detachment from those
things most people consider good. In this emphasis, Diogenes seems to
have intensified a tendency found in Socrates. Certainly Socrates
could be heedless of convention and careless about providing for his
bodily needs. To Plato, however, Diogenes seemed to be Socrates gone
mad (DL VI 54). Still, in Diogenes' attitude, we can see at
least the beginning of the idea that the end of life is a
psychological state marked by detachment. Counseling the simple and
uncomplicated satisfaction of one's natural instincts and
desires, Diogenes urges detachment from those things held out by
convention to be good. While he is not so explicit, others develop the
theme of detachment into the notion of tranquility. The Stoics and
Epicureans hold that happiness depends on detachment from vulnerable
or difficult to obtain bodily and external goods and consists in a
psychological state more under one's own direct control. In this
way, happiness becomes associated (for the Epicureans) with
tranquility (*ataraxia*). Finally, in Skepticism, suspension of
judgment is a kind of epistemic detachment that provides tranquility.
So in Diogenes we find the beginnings of an idea that will become
central to later ancient moral theory.


## 6. Cyrenaics



The first of the Cyrenaic school was Aristippus, who came from Cyrene,
a Greek city on the north African coast. The account of his teachings,
in Diogenes Laertius, can seem sometimes inconsistent. Nevertheless,
Aristippus is interesting because, as a thorough hedonist, he is
something of a foil for Epicurus. First of all, pleasure is the end or
the goal of life - what everyone should seek in life. However,
the pleasure that is the end is not pleasure in general, or pleasure
over the long term, but immediate, particular pleasures. Thus the end
varies situation by situation, action by action. The end is not
happiness because happiness is the sum of particular pleasures (DL II
87-88). Accumulating the pleasures that produce happiness is
tiresome (DL II 90). Particular pleasures are ones that are close-by
or sure. Moreover, Aristippus said that pleasures do not differ from
one another, that one pleasure is not more pleasant than another. This
sort of thinking would encourage one to choose a readily available
pleasure rather than wait for a "better" one in the
future. This conclusion is reinforced by other parts of his teaching.
His school says that bodily pleasures are much better than mental
pleasures. While this claim would seem to contradict the idea that
pleasures do not differ, it does show preference for the immediately
or easily available pleasures of bodily gratification over, e.g., the
mental pleasure of a self-aware just person. In fact,
Aristippus' school holds that pleasure is good even if it comes
from the most unseemly things (DL II 88). Aristippus, then, seems to
have raised improvidence to the level of a principle.



Still, it is possible that the position is more than an elaborate
justification for short-sighted pleasure-seeking. Cyrenaics taught
that a wise man (*sophos*) (one who always pursues immediate
gratification) will in general live more pleasantly than a foolish
man. That prudence or wisdom (*phronesis*) is good, not
in itself but in its consequences, suggests that some balance, perhaps
even regarding others, is required in choosing pleasures (DL II 91).
The Cyrenaic attitude to punishment seems to be an example of
prudence. They hold that nothing is just, fine, or base by nature but
only by convention and custom; still a good man will do nothing out of
line through fear of punishment (DL II 93). Finally, they hold that
friendship is based in self-interest (DL II 91). These aspects of
Cyrenaic teaching suggest they are egoist hedonists. If so, there are
grounds for taking the interest of others into account as long as
doing so is based on what best provides an individual pleasure.



Nevertheless, Aristippus' school holds that the end of life is a
psychological good, pleasure. Still, it is particular pleasures not
the accumulation of these that is the end. As a consequence, their
moral theory contrasts sharply with others in antiquity. If we take
the claims about the wise man, prudence, and friendship to be
references to virtue, then Aristippus' school denies that virtue
is indispensable for achieving the end or goal of life. While they
hold that virtue is good insofar as it leads to the end, they seem
prepared to dispense with virtue in circumstances where it proves
ineffective. Even if they held virtue in more esteem, the Cyrenaics
would nonetheless not be eudaimonists since they deny that happiness
is the end of life.


## 7. Epicurus



Epicurean moral theory is the most prominent hedonistic theory in the
ancient world. While Epicurus holds that pleasure is the sole
intrinsic good and pain is what is intrinsically bad for humans, he is
also very careful about defining these two. Aware of the Cyrenaics who
hold that pleasures, moral and immoral, are the end or goal of all
action, Epicurus presents a sustained argument that pleasure,
correctly understood, will coincide with virtue.



In the *Letter to Menoeceus*, Epicurus begins by making a
distinction among desires. Some desires are empty or groundless and
others are natural; the natural are further subdivided into the merely
natural and the necessary. Finally, the necessary are those necessary
for happiness, those necessary for the body's freedom from
distress, and those necessary for life itself (*Letter to
Menoeceus* 127). A helpful scholiast (cf. *Principal
Doctrines* XXIX) gives us some examples; necessary desires are
ones that bring relief from unavoidable pain, such as drinking when
thirsty - if we don't drink when we need replenishment, we
will just get thirstier and thirstier, a painful experience. The
natural but not necessary are the ones that vary pleasure but are not
*needed* in order to motivate us to remove or ward off pain,
such as the desire for expensive food: we do not need to want, or to
eat, expensive food in order to ward off the pain of prolonged hunger.
Finally, the groundless desires are for such things as crowns and
statues bestowed as civic honors - these are things that when
desired at all are desired with intense and harmful cravings. Keeping
these distinctions in mind is a great help in one's life because
it shows us what we need to aim for. The aim of the blessed life is
the body's health and the soul's freedom from disturbance
(*ataraxia*) (128).



After this austere introduction, Epicurus makes the bold claim that
pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life. Then he makes
an important qualification. Just because pleasure is the good,
Epicureans do not seek every pleasure. Some lead to greater pain. Just
so, they do not avoid all pains; some lead to greater pleasures
(128-29). Such a position sounds, of course, like common-sense
hedonism. If one's aim is to have as much pleasure as possible
over the long term, it makes sense to avoid some smaller pleasures
that will be followed by larger pains. If one wants, for example, to
have as much pleasure from drinking wine as possible, then it would
make sense to exercise some judgment about how much to drink on an
occasion since the next morning's hangover will be very
unpleasant, and might keep one from having wine the next day. However,
his distinction among groundless, natural, and necessary desires
should make us suspicious that Epicurus is no common-sense hedonist.
The aim of life is not maximizing pleasures in the way the above
example suggests. Rather, real pleasure, the aim of life, is what we
experience through freedom from pain and distress. So it is not the
pains of the hangover or the possible loss of further bouts of wine
drinking that should restrain my drinking on this occasion. Rather one
should be aiming at the pleasure given by freedom from bodily pain and
mental distress (131-32).



The usual way to understand the pleasure of freedom from pain and from
distress is by way of the distinction between kinetic pleasures and
katastematic, or what are, following Cicero, misleadingly called
'static' ones (Diogenes Laertius X 136). The name of the
former implies motion and the name of the latter implies a state or
condition. The reason the distinction is important is that freedom
from pain and from distress is a state or condition, not a motion.
Epicurus holds not only that this state is a kind of pleasure but that
it is the most complete pleasure (*Principal Doctrines* III).
Modern commentators have taken various approaches to explaining why
this state should be considered a pleasure, as opposed to, e.g., the
attitude of taking pleasure in the fact that one is free of pain and
distress. After all, taking pleasure in a fact is not a feeling in the
same sense as the pleasure of drinking when thirsty. Since the latter
is usually taken to be an example of kinetic pleasure (and is
associated with the pain of thirst), sometimes katastematic pleasure
is said to be just kinetic pleasure free from pain and distress, e.g.,
the pleasure of satiety. A somewhat broader conception of katastematic
pleasure holds that it is the enjoyment of one's natural
constitution when one is not distracted by bodily pain or mental
distress. Finally, some commentators hold the pleasure of freedom from
pain and from distress to be a feeling available only to the wise
person, who properly appreciates simple pleasures. Since eating plain
bread and drinking water are usually not difficult to achieve, to the
wise, their enjoyment is not overwhelmed by fear (130-31).
Accordingly, the pleasure they take in these is free of pain and
distress. Of course, the wise do not have to confine themselves to
simple pleasures; they can enjoy luxurious ones as well - as
long as they avoid needing them, which entails fear.



At this point, we can see that Epicurus has so refined the account of
pleasure and pain that he is able to tie them to virtue. In the
*Letter to Menoeceus*, he claims, as a truth for which he does
not argue, that virtue and pleasure are inseparable and that living a
prudent, honorable, and just life is the necessary and sufficient
means to the pleasure that is the end of life (132). An example of
what he might mean is found in *Principal Doctrines*, where
Epicurus holds that justice is a contract among humans to avoid
suffering harm from one another. Then he argues that injustice is not
bad *per se* but is bad because of the fear that arises from
the expectation that one will be punished for his misdeeds. He
reinforces this claim by arguing that it is impossible for someone who
violates the compact to be confident that he will escape detection
(*Principal Doctrines* XXXIV-V). While one might doubt
this claim about the malfactor's state of mind, nevertheless, we
can see that Epicurus means to ground justice, understood as the rules
governing human intercourse, in his moral psychology, i.e., the need
to avoid distress.



Epicurus, like his predecessors in the ancient moral tradition,
identified the good as something psychological. However, instead of,
for example, the complex Aristotelian notion of excellent activity of
the soul, Epicurus settled on the fairly obvious psychological good of
pleasure. Of course, Aristotle argues that excellent activity of the
soul is intrinsically pleasurable (*Nicomachean Ethics*
1099a5). Still, in his account pleasure seems something like a
dividend of excellent activity (1175b30). By contrast, for Epicurus
pleasure itself is the end of life. However, since Epicureans hold
freedom from pain (*aponia*) and distress (*ataraxia*)
gives the preferable pleasure, they emphasize tranquility
(*ataraxia*) as the end of life. Modern utilitarians, for whom
freedom from pain and distress is not paramount, would include a
broader palate of pleasures.



Epicurus' doctrine can be considered eudaimonist. While Plato
and Aristotle maintain that virtue is constitutive of happiness,
Epicurus holds that virtue is the only means to achieve happiness,
where happiness is understood as a continuous experience of the
pleasure that comes from freedom from pain and from mental distress.
Thus, he is a eudaimonist in that he holds virtue is indispensable to
happiness; but he does not identify virtuous activity, in whole or in
part, with happiness. Finally, Epicurus is usually interpreted to have
held a version of psychological hedonism - i.e., everything we
do is done for the sake of pleasure - rather than ethical
hedonism - i.e., we ought to do everything for the sake of
pleasure. However, *Principal Doctrine* XXV suggests the latter
position; and when in the *Letter to Menoeceus* he says that
"we" do everything in order not to be in pain or in fear,
he might mean to be referring to "we" Epicureans. If so,
the claim would be normative. Still, once all disturbance of the soul
is dispelled, he says, one is no longer in need nor is there any other
good that could be added (128). Since this claim appears to be
descriptive, Epicurus could be taken, as he usually has been, to be
arguing that whatever we do is done for the sake of pleasure. In this
account, that aspect of human nature on which virtue is based is
fairly straightforward. The account is certainly less complex than,
e.g., Aristotle's. In turn, Epicurus seems to have argued in
such a way as to make pleasure the only reason for being virtuous. If
psychological hedonism is true, then when one realizes the necessary
link between virtue and pleasure, one has all the reason one needs to
be virtuous and the only reason one can have.


## 8. Stoics



The Stoics are well known for their teaching that the good is to be
identified with virtue. Virtues include logic, physics, and ethics
(*Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta* [=SVF]II 35), as well as wisdom,
moderation, justice, and courage. To our modern ears, the first three
sound like academic subjects; but for the Stoics, they were virtues of
thought. However, orthodox Stoics do not follow the Aristotelian
distinction between intellectual and moral virtues because - as
we shall see - they hold that all human psychological functions,
including the affective and volitional, are rational in a single,
unified sense. For them, consequently, all virtues form a unity around
the core concept of knowledge. Finally, all that is required for
happiness (i.e., the secure possession of the good, of what is needed
to make one's life a thoroughly good one) - and the only
thing - is to lead a virtuous life. In this teaching Stoics are
addressing the problem of bodily and external goods raised by
Aristotle. Their solution takes the radical course of dismissing such
alleged goods from the account of happiness because they are not
necessary for virtue, and are not, in fact, in any way good at
all.



They argue that health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, good
reputation, and noble birth are neither good nor bad. Since they can
be used well or badly and the good is invariably good, these assets
are not good. The virtues, however, are good (DL VII 102-103),
since they are perfections of our rationality, and only rationally
perfected thoughts and decisions can possibly have the features of
harmony and order in which goodness itself consists. Since possessing
and exercising virtue is happiness, happiness does not include such
things as health, pleasure, and wealth. Still, the Stoics do not
dismiss these assets altogether since they still have a kind of value.
These things are indifferent to happiness in that they do not add to
one's virtue nor detract from it, and so they do not add to or
take away from one's possession of the good. One is not more
virtuous because healthy nor less virtuous because ill. But being
healthy generally conforms with nature's plans for the lives of
animals and plants, so it is preferable to be healthy, and one should
try to preserve and maintain one's health. Health is, then, the
kind of value they call a preferred indifferent; but it is not in any
way a good, and it makes no contribution to the quality of one's
life as a good or a bad one, happy or miserable.



In order to understand the Stoic claims about the relation of virtue
to happiness, we can begin with virtue. Chrysippus says that virtue is
a craft (*techne*) having to do with the things of life
(*SVF* II 909). In other texts, we learn that the things of
life include impulse (*horme*). Each animal has an
impulse for self-preservation; it has an awareness of its constitution
and strives to preserve its integrity. There is also a natural impulse
to care for offspring. Humans, then, are naturally inclined toward
preserving life, health, and children. But then grown-up humans also
do these things under the guidance of reason; reason in the adult
human case is the craftsman of impulse (DL VII 85-6). This
latter phrase is significant because it implies that just following
natural impulse is not enough. In fact, it is not even possible for an
adult human, whose nature is such as to do everything they do
*by* reason, even to follow the sort of natural impulses that
animals and immature humans do in their actions. In order to lead a
virtuous life, reason must shape our impulses and guide their
expression in action.



Impulse is the key to understanding the relation between virtue and
happiness. An impulse is a propositional attitude that, when assented
to, leads to action, e.g., 'I should eat this bread now.'
However, impulses do not arise in a separate, non-rational part of the
soul. Stoics deny there are any non-rational desires of appetite
capable of impelling action. The soul, insofar as it provides
motivations and is the cause of our actions, consists of the
commanding faculty (*hegemonikon*) which is also reason
(*SVF* I 202). We can distinguish correct impulses into those
which treat virtue as the only good and those which treat things
indifferent as indifferent. By contrast, emotions or passions (*pathe*) are incorrect impulses that treat what is
indifferent as good. However, they do not come from a non-rational
part of the soul but are false judgments about the good, where
judgment is understood as assent to some impulse. Emotions, such as
desire, fear, pleasure, and pain, embody such erroneous judgments
(*SVF* III 391, 393, 394). For instance, the desire for health
arises from assenting to the impulse that embodies the false judgment
that health is good, instead of a preferred indifferent. The sage
- someone perfected in virtue - would never assent to such
false propositions and thus would never have emotions in this sense,
no feelings that carried him beyond reason's true assessment. He
would, however, experience feelings attuned to reason,  *eupatheiai* -literally good emotions or feelings. For instance, he
would feel joy over his virtue, but not pleasure - the latter
being an emotion that treats the actual possession of an indifferent
as a good.



Knowledge, then, about what is good, bad, and indifferent is the heart
of virtue. Courage, e.g., is simply knowledge of what is to be
endured: the impulse to endure or not, and the *only* impulse
that is needed by courage, then follows automatically, as a product or
aspect of that knowledge. This tight unity in the soul is the basis
for the Stoic teaching about the unity of the virtues. Zeno (the
founder of the school) defines wisdom (*phronesis*), or
rather practical *knowledge*, in matters requiring distribution
as justice, in matters requiring choice as moderation, and in matters
requiring endurance as courage (Plutarch *On Moral Virtue*
440E-441D). Practical knowledge, then, is a single,
comprehensive knowledge of what is good and bad in each of these kinds
of circumstance.



Attending to this identification of virtue and practical knowledge is
a good way to understand the central Stoic teaching that virtue is
living in agreement with nature (*SVF* III 16). Nature includes
not only what produces natural impulses but also the rest of the
government of the cosmos, the natural world. The universe is governed
by right reason that pervades everything and directs (causes) the way
it functions - with the exception of the only rational animals
there are, the adult human beings: their actions are governed by
themselves, i.e., by assenting to, or withholding assent from
particular impulses. Nature is even identified with Zeus, who is said
to be the director of the administration of all that exists (DL VII
87-9). Since reason governs the universe for the good,
everything happens of necessity and for the overall good. Virtue,
then, includes understanding both one's individual nature as a
human being and the way nature arranges the whole universe. At this
point, we can appreciate the role of logic and physics as virtue since
these entail knowledge of the universe. This understanding is the
basis for living in agreement with the government of the universe,
i.e., with nature, by making one's decisions and actions be such
as to agree with Zeus's or nature's own plans, so far as
one can understand what those are.



It is in this context that we can best understand the Stoic teaching
about indifferents, such as health and wealth. An individual's
health is vulnerable to being lost if right reason that governs the
universe requires it for the good of the whole. If happiness depended
on having these assets and avoiding their opposites, then, in these
cases, happiness would be impossible. However, if virtue is living in
agreement with nature's government of the universe and if virtue
is the only good, one's happiness is entirely determined by his
patterns of assent and is therefore not vulnerable to being lost. If
one understands that the good of the whole dictates that in a
particular case one's health must be sacrificed, then one
recognizes that his happiness does not require health. We should not,
however, see this recognition as tantamount to renunciation. If the
Stoic notion of happiness has any relation at all to the ordinary
sense, renunciation cannot be a part of it. Rather, the Stoic view of
living in accordance with nature should imply not only understanding
the way right reason rules the universe but agreeing with it and even
desiring that things happen as they do. We can best appreciate the
notion that virtue is the good, then, if we take virtue as both
acknowledging that the universe is well governed and adopting the
point of view, so to speak, of the government (DL VII 87-9).



A refinement of the Stoic approach to indifferents gives us a way of
understanding what living in agreement with nature might look like.
After all, such things as health and wealth cannot just be dismissed
since they are something like the raw material of virtue. It is in
pursuing and using them that one exercises virtue, for instance. In
the attempt to integrate preferred indifferents into the pursuit of
the good, Stoics used an analogy with archery (*On Ends*
III.22). Since he aims to hit the target, the archer does everything
in his power to hit the target. Trying everything in his power
reflects the idea that such factors as a gust of wind - chance
happenings that cannot be controlled or foreseen - can intervene
and keep him from achieving the goal. To account for this type of
factor, it is claimed that the goal of the archer is really trying
everything in his power to attain the end. The analogy with the art of
living focuses on this shift from the goal of hitting the target to
the goal of trying everything in one's power to hit the target
(*On Ends* V.17-20). It is the art of trying everything
in one's power to attain such preferred indifferents as health
and wealth. However, if right reason, which governs the universe,
decides that one will not have either, then the sage follows right
reason. At this point the analogy with archery breaks down since, for
the sage, trying everything in one's power does not mean
striving until one fails; rather, it means seeking preferred
indifferents guided by right reason. By this reasoning, one should see
that virtue and happiness are not identified with achieving heath and
wealth but with the way one seeks them and the evaluative propositions
one assents to. Finally, the art of living is best compared to such
skills as acting and dancing (*On Ends* V. 24-5).



This way of relating preferred indifferents to the end, i.e., to
happiness, was challenged in antiquity as incoherent. Plutarch, for
instance, argues that it is contrary to common understanding to say
that the end is different from the reference point of all action. If
the reference point of all action - what one does everything to
achieve - is to have preferred indifferents such as health, then
the end is to have preferred indifferents. However, if the end is not
to have preferred indifferents (but, say, always to act prudently),
then the reference point of all action cannot be the preferred
indifferents (*On Common Conceptions* 1070F-1071E). The
Stoics are presented with a dilemma: either preferred indifferents are
integral to the end or they are not the object of choice.



The Stoics are extreme eudaimonists compared to Plato or Aristotle,
although they are clearly inspired by Socratic intellectualism. While
Plato clearly associates virtue and happiness, he never squarely faces
the issue whether happiness may require other goods, e.g., wealth and
health. Aristotle holds happiness to be virtuous activity of the soul;
but he raises - without solving - the problem of bodily
and external goods and happiness. For these two, virtue, together with
its active exercise, is the dominant and most important component of
happiness, while Stoics simply identify virtue and the good, and so
make it the only thing needed for a happy life. Still, Stoics do not
reduce happiness to virtue, as though 'happiness' is just
a name for being perfectly just, courageous, and moderate. Rather they
have independent ways of describing happiness. Following Zeno, all the
Stoics say it is a good flow of life. Seneca says the happy life is
peacefulness and constant tranquility. However, we should keep in mind
that, while they do not reduce happiness to virtue, their account of
happiness is not that of the common person. So in recommending virtue
because it secures happiness the Stoics are relying on happiness in a
special, although not idiosyncratic, sense. In fact, their idea of
happiness shares an important feature with the Epicurean, which puts a
premium on tranquil pleasures. In Stoicism as well, deliverance from
the vicissitudes of fate leads to a notion of happiness that
emphasizes tranquility. And, as we shall see, tranquility is a value
for the Skeptics.



Clearly, the Stoic account of virtue and happiness depends on their
theory about human nature. For Aristotle, virtue is perfection of the
human function and the Stoics follow in this line of thinking. While
their notion of virtue builds on their notion of the underlying human
nature, their account of the perfection of human nature is more
complex than Aristotle's. It includes accommodation to the
nature of the universe. Virtue is the perfection of human nature that
makes it harmonious with the workings of fate, i.e. with Zeus's
overall plan, regarded as the ineluctable, though providential, cause
of what happens in the world at large.


## 9. Pyrrhonian Skeptics



Pyrrho, a murky figure, roughly contemporary with Epicurus and Zeno
the Stoic, left no writings. In the late, anecdotal tradition he is
credited with introducing suspension of judgment (DL IX 61). He became
the eponymous hero for the founding of Pyrrhonian skepticism in the
first century B.C. (See entry on
 *Pyrrho*
 and on
 *Ancient Skepticism*.)
 Having discovered that for every argument examined so far there is an
opposing argument, Pyrrhonian Skeptics expressed no determinate
opinions (DL IX 74). This attitude would seem to lead to a kind of
epistemic paralysis. The Skeptics reply that they do not abolish,
e.g., relying on sight. They do not say that it is unreliable and they
do not refuse, personally, ever to rely on it. Rather, they have the
impression that there is no reason why we are entitled to rely on it,
in a given case or in general, even if we go ahead and rely on it
anyhow (DL IX 103). For example, if one has the visual impression of a
tower, that appearance is not in dispute. What is in dispute is
whether the tower is as it appears to be. For Skeptics, claiming that
the tower is as it appears to be is a dogmatic statement about the
object or the causal history of the appearance. As far as the Skeptic
is concerned, all such statements have failed to be adequately
justified, and all supporting arguments can be opposed by equally
convincing counter-arguments. Lacking any grounds on which to prefer
one dogmatic statement or view over another, he suspends judgment.



Such views have an obvious impact on practical and moral issues. First
of all, the Skeptics argue that, so far as we have been given any
compelling reason by philosophers to believe, there is nothing good or
bad by nature (Sextus Empiricus, *Outlines of Pyrrhonism*
[=*PH*] III 179-238, *Adversus Mathematicos*
[=*M*] XI 42-109). And just in case he does find such
reasons compelling, the Skeptic will resist the temptation to assent
by posing a general counter-argument: what is good by nature would be
recognized by everyone, but clearly not everyone agrees - for
instance, Epicurus holds that pleasure is good by nature but
Antisthenes holds that it is not (DL IX 101) - hence there is
nothing good by nature (see section 4 of the entry on
 *Moral Skepticism*).
 The practical consequences of suspending judgment are illustrated by
two traditions about the life of Pyrrho. In one, Pyrrho himself did
not avoid anything, whether it was wagons, precipices, or dogs. It
would appear that, suspending judgment about whether being hit by a
wagon was naturally good or bad, Pyrrho might walk into its path, or
not bother to get out of the way. His less skeptical friends kept him
alive - presumably by guiding him away from busy roads, vicious
dogs, and deep gorges. Another tradition, however, says that he only
theorized about suspension of judgments, and took action to preserve
himself and otherwise lead a normal life, but doing so without any
judgments as to natural good and bad. Living providently, he reached
ninety years of age (DL IX 62).



In any event, Pyrrho's suspension of judgment led to a certain
detachment. Not knowing what was good or bad by nature, he was
indifferent where dogmatists would be unhappy or at least anxious. For
instance, he performed household chores usually done by women (DL IX
63-66). Thus Pyrrho's skepticism detached him from the
dogmatic judgments of a culture in which a man's performing
women's work was considered demeaning. In turn, his skepticism
and suspension of judgment led to freedom from disturbance
(*ataraxia*) (DL IX 68). It is significant that this
psychological state, so important for Epicureans as part of the end of
life, should play a key role in Pyrrhonian skepticism at its beginning
with Pyrrho, but certainly in its development with Sextus
Empiricus.



While suspension of judgment in moral matters brings freedom from
disturbance, it does not lead to immoral behavior - anymore than
it leads to the foolhardy behavior of the first tradition about
Pyrrho's life. Sextus generalizes the Skeptic teaching about
appearances to cover the whole area of practical activity. He says the
rules of everyday conduct are divided into four parts: (1) the
guidance from nature, (2) compulsion that comes from bodily states
like hunger and thirst, (3) traditional laws and customs about pious
and good living, (4) the teachings of the crafts (*PH*, I
21-24). The Skeptic is guided by all of these as by appearance,
and thus undogmatically. For instance, he would follow the traditional
laws about pious and good living, accepting these laws as the way
things appear to him to be in matters of piety and goodness but
claiming no knowledge and holding no beliefs.



Sextus says that the end of life is freedom from disturbance in
matters of belief, plus moderate states in matters of compulsion.
Suspension of judgment provides the former in that one is not
disturbed about which of two opposing claims is true, when (as always
seems to happen) one cannot rationally decide between them. Matters of
compulsion cover such things as bodily needs for food, drink, and
warmth. While the Skeptic undeniably suffers when hungry, thirsty, or
cold, he achieves a moderate state with respect to these sufferings
when compared to the person who both suffers them and believes they
are naturally bad. The Skeptic's suspension of judgment about
whether his suffering is naturally bad gives him a certain detachment
from the suffering, and puts him in a better condition than those who
also believe their suffering is naturally bad (*PH* I
25-30).



As a consequence, the Skeptic conception of the end of life is similar
in some ways to Epicurean and Stoic beliefs. For Epicureans the end is
freedom from pain and distress; the Stoic identification of virtue and
the good promises freedom from disturbance. While Pyrrho and Sextus
hold freedom from disturbance to be the end of life, they differ from
the former over the means by which it is achieved. Both the Epicureans
and Stoics, for example, hold that a tranquil life is impossible in
the absence of virtue. By contrast, Sextus does not have a lot to say
in a positive vein about virtue, although he does recommend following
traditional laws about piety and goodness, and he indicates that the
Skeptic may live virtuously (*PH* I 17). Rather, it is for the
Skeptics an epistemic attitude embodied in a distinctive practice, not
virtue, that leads to the desired state. This alone would seem to be
enough to disqualify Pyrrhonism as a form of eudaimonism.



Sextus does however offer his skeptical practice as a corrective to
the dogmatists' misleading path to *eudaimonia*: it is
not possible to be happy while supposing things are good or bad by
nature (*M* XI 130, 144). It is the person who suspends
judgment that enjoys the most complete happiness (*M* XI 160,
140). It is important to observe that Sextus proposes his skeptical
*practice* as an alternative to dogmatic *theories*. For
the Skeptic makes no commitments, or even assertions, regarding the
supposedly objective conditions that are supposed by other
philosophers to underlie our natural, human *telos*.
Accordingly, some have objected that the kind of tranquility and
happiness that the Skeptic enjoys could just as well be produced
through pharmacology or, we might add, Experience Machines. More
generally speaking, the objection is that skeptical tranquility and
happiness comes at a cost we should not be willing to pay. By refusing
to accept the world is ever as it appears, the Skeptic becomes a
detached, passive spectator, undisturbed by any of the thoughts that
pass through his mind. Such detachment might seem to threaten his
ability to care about other people as he observes all that happens to
them with the same tranquil indifference. Also, he would seem to be at
best a moral conformist, unable or at least unwilling to engage in any
moral deliberation, either hypothetically or as a means to directly
address a pressing moral issue.



Sextus provides an example of the latter situation when he imagines
the Skeptic being compelled by a tyrant to commit some unspeakable
deed, or be tortured (*M* XI 164-66). Critics propose
that the Skeptic's choice will necessarily reveal his evaluative
convictions, and thus his inconsistency in claiming to have no such
convictions. But Sextus replies that he will simply opt for one or the
other in accordance with his family's laws and customs. In other
words, he will rely on whatever moral sentiments and dispositions he
happens to have. These cognitive states will be neither the product of
any rational consideration nor will they inform any premises for moral
reasoning or philosophical deliberation. Like Sartre's
existentialism, Sextus' skepticism offers a way to respond to
moral dilemmas without supposing there is a correct, or even
objectively better, choice.



We should note that it is not entirely fair to ask whether the
Pyrrhonist's moral life is one that we, non-Skeptics, would deem
good or praise-worthy. For, as Sextus would say, we are part of the
dispute regarding what kind of life is morally good and praise-worthy.
To claim that nothing really matters to the Skeptic, for example,
presupposes some account of the mental state of caring. In the end,
the question of how or whether a Skeptic might be morally good is
equivalent to asking what role belief, or knowledge, plays in the
moral goodness of people and their actions. If we suppose that one
must, at a minimum, have adequately justified evaluative beliefs
informing her actions in order for those actions, and the underlying
character, to count as morally good, then the Skeptic will be immoral,
or at least amoral. On the other hand, if the Skeptic manages to
undermine our confidence in that supposition, we will have to suspend
judgment regarding whether the Skeptic, or anyone else for that
matter, is in fact capable of performing morally good and
praise-worthy action, or whether their reasoned account of
*eudaimonia* is true.



The question we should ask here is whether and in what respect those
with strong, rational convictions will be better off than the Skeptic
when confronting moral dilemmas, or even everyday moral choices. If,
like the Skeptic, one suspects that the dogmatists' have no
knowledge, let alone adequately justified beliefs to guide them, then
it seems that they are no better or worse off than those who simply
conform to moral customs and norms.