Introduction

In antiquity, ethical interests were different from what they are now in Western thought. In Greek philosophia, ethics is more something given than a set of problems and issues to be reflected on, because the connection between nature and customs, commands, precepts, or law is intrinsic. What is at stake here depends on the ontological impact of the ideas of being essential and reality. If natural law is invoked as a standard, what kind of rule is to be invoked? Does the validity of this rule consist in being invoked or is reality as such law-like and natural? The non-Christian type of natural law is clearly expressed by the Roman philosopher Cicero (106–43 BC): true law is right reason in agreement with nature. It is of universal application, unchangeable and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. We may put the key notions of law, reason, truth, and nature within the contexts of Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoic or Neoplatonist thought and we find that still the same pattern of absolute reality obtains, although the nature of this reality is interpreted in different ways.

The decisive point is whether being natural is seen as an ethical or political rule in its own right or nature itself is a kind of society and social reality truly natural. According to ancient thought, everything is necessary, law-like and natural.