MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

For the purpose of this paper, I assume that if a person is morally responsible for an action, this is a necessary and sufficient condition for moral appraisal of that person for that action. For instance, if the action is morally wrong, moral blame is in order. Other morally relevant responses that are sometimes connected with moral responsibility are praise, pardon, shame, pride, reward, punishment, remorse.

I now introduce two quite different concepts of moral responsibility: one grounded on the causal responsibility of the agent for an action, the other on the ability of the agent to do otherwise. The one based on the agent's causal responsibility considers it a necessary condition for praising or blaming an agent for an action, that it was the agent and not something else that brought about the action. The question of moral responsibility becomes one of whether the agent was the or a cause of the action, or whether the agent was forced to act by something else. On this view, actions or choices can be attributed to agents because it is in their actions and choices that the agents, qua moral beings, manifest themselves.

The second idea of moral responsibility considers it a prerequisite for blaming or praising an agent for an action that the agent could have done otherwise.

Previously I have discussed the diverse ways in which one could apply the image of the body. I will now examine a uniquely Stoic use. Authors such as Seneca and Cicero often compared a human body to a universal humanity which was, for them, another type of body in a very real way. Understanding how the Stoics saw the universe and society as a “body” may help us comprehend what lies behind Paul's statements that the believers are not only “like” a body, but also “are” the body of Christ.

The universe as living creature in Stoicism

The Stoics considered the universe to be a living being. In this context the body could be used to describe some aspect of the universe as being a living creature which grows and develops. Cleanthes says,

For Cleanthes, the way in which the human body develops provides a proper analogy for the growth of various parts of the universe.

Likewise Cicero relates,

In the preceding chapter I attempted to demonstrate that the Stoic identification of the universe as a “body” was a statement about the unified and organic nature of the universe. In this chapter I will examine the relationship of this conception of the universe to Stoic ethics. We will see that the idea of a bodily universe was applied to a universal and bodily humanity and that Stoic social ethics was based upon the ability to understand the consequences of the nature of a unified humanity. The role of the moral teacher was not simply to instruct the student, but to help him or her grow in reasoning ability so that the student would understand the basic connection between one's relationship to the whole and subsequent ethical behavior. Understanding corporate identity, specifically bodily unity, was the critical component in social ethics.

The goal of ethics

Like many other Greek philosophers such as the Aristotelians, Platonists, and Epicureans, the Stoics considered happiness or εὐδαιμονία to be the goal or τέλος of life. For the Stoics, happiness consisted in “living in accordance with nature,” or the order of the universe. This is the virtuous life. To live in accordance with virtue or nature is to live in accordance with a universal law or right reason. The virtuous life becomes equated with life according to nature because virtue becomes “the goal towards which nature guides us.”

The current revival of virtue ethics is indebted to Aristotle in many ways: Aristotle clearly states that the virtuous agent displays the right action together with the appropriate motivation; he explicitly connects the concept of virtue with the accomplishment of the best and flourishing life; he formulates a principle that is often used to define the very concept of virtue ethics, namely the principle that the good particular action cannot be defined by general rules, but is rather determined by the way the virtuous person would act; in the same context Aristotle seems to hint at the idea that it is a sort of context-sensitivity that allows us to find and execute the right course of action. Further, Aristotle unambiguously describes the acquisition of virtues as a process of forming and habituating one's character, and last but not least, he outlines his theory of ethical virtue in terms of emotional responses to various situations. Some of these points can be found in other ancient ethical schools as well, but there are characteristics of Aristotle's ethics that make it more attractive for modern ethical theory: his account of virtue does not seem to carry the burden of Socratic intellectualism; it seems to be less dependent on metaphysical background theories than, e. g., Plato's ethics; it does not display the same hostile attitude towards emotions as the Stoic account of virtue; and it seems to be closer to some important common-sense convictions, e.g., that the good life must be a pleasant one and that not even virtue immunizes us against the effects of great misfortunes.

Anyone who has read the first few chapters of the Nicomachean Ethics will know that Aristotle considers his treatise on ethics as a contribution to the science of politics. The claim is stated prominently at the beginning (e. g. 1.2, 1094b10–11; cf. 1.13, 1102a7-13); we are reminded of it in the discussion of practical wisdom in book 6 (e. g. 6.8, 1141b23 ff.), and the last chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics announces the transition to the inquiry into politics proper – forms of government and the ideal state. But few scholars who have written on the Ethics pay more than passing attention to these statements. This is understandable: not only has the treatise on politics come down to us as a separate work; politics also plays hardly any role in the treatises on ethics, and after all, the two disciplines have been treated as distinct since ancient times. Furthermore, ethics has stubbornly remained a part of philosophy, while political science now officially purports to be a social science – one which seems, however, to be largely a combination of history and philosophical theory (much like Aristotle's Politics, by the way). Besides, Aristotle's Politics may come as something of a shock for readers who begin with the Ethics. It is much more obviously a product of its time in history and advocates views that are now thoroughly unacceptable: it defends slavery, assumes the natural inferiority of women to men, and argues for a rather elitist form of government.

Over the last decades, moral philosophers have become increasingly interested in questions that modern ethics had been neglecting since the seventeenth century: What does it mean to have a moral character? How can such a character be acquired and developed? What is the link between character and responsibility? Since a morally valuable character trait is traditionally called ‘virtue’, the new focus on moral psychology is typically combined with a renewed concern for the virtues. Some participants in the debate have proposed ‘virtue ethics’ as a third type of normative ethics next to theories in the Utilitarian and Kantian traditions. Those who argue that a substantial account of virtue can be assimilated into the existing types tend to use virtue ethics as a remedy for certain defects characteristic of morality as understood by modern philosophers. However, what the different positions in the debate on moral psychology share is the constant and explicit reference to the way moral philosophy was practised by the ancient Greeks.

Ancient Greek ethics sets out to teach the good life as a whole without being confined either to justifying moral principles and values, as in modern ethics of duty since the Enlightenment, or to resolving moral dilemmas, as in much contemporary analytic philosophy. Virtue (aretē) is one of its key terms. In order to clarify what the Greeks have to say on virtue, moral education, the emotions and related issues, historians of ancient philosophy have started revisiting their sources with greater scrutiny than ever before.

For many readers of the Nicomachean Ethics it is surprising how highly Aristotle values a capability which he calls epieikeia or to epieikes, an expression usually rendered by ‘equity’. In the short chapter EN 5.10, he characterizes it as a perfect moral competence which overrides even justice. At first glance, one might suppose that Aristotle does nothing more in this passage than report several traditional commonplaces (endoxa). But on a close reading, there can be no doubt that his account is strongly affirmative. The reason he gives us for this affirmation is that while to epieikes is itself a form of justice, at the same time it goes beyond justice, since it enables the person who possesses it to improve written law when it is in need of correction or when written law is incomplete. Thus to epieikes, he says, can even be used as an equivalent of ‘good’ (anti tou agathou), for what is more equitable (epieikesteron) is always the better. What is called equitable, Aristotle continues, is a form of justice, but it is even superior to justice (1137b1–2 and 8–11). According to Aristotle, the riddle of how equity can simultaneously transgress justice and be a form of justice finds a simple solution: to epieikes is the second part of justice which supplements the first part, or the law. Both are species of a unique genus justice, but to epieikes is the better one of them (1137b11–13).

We have seen thus far that just as the Stoics saw humanity as a body unified by πνεῦμα, so too does Paul in 1 Cor. 12 describe the new humanity in Christ as a body in the Spirit. Overall, the chapter provides a description of the unity and diversity of the Corinthians as the body of Christ, and this description provides the basis from which Paul can give more specific instructions.

In the following chapters I will explore how Paul further develops the implications of bodily unity. First, while the inherent unity of being a body was a common trait of all humanity for the Stoics, there was still the potential for deeper relationships. “Love” was the means of forming these more intense relationships. In 1 Cor. 13 Paul similarly describes a “more excellent way” of love. Second, the Stoics' bodily unity was the foundational principle for ethical precepts. In 1 Cor. 14 Paul presents his specific commands to the Corinthians in regard to prophecy and speaking in tongues. In the whole picture of 1 Cor. 12–14, then, Paul sets the foundation of the Corinthians' corporate identity as a body, shows them the higher way of love which can intensify the already-existing unity they have in Christ, and concludes by commanding them to apply this unity and love in their use of the spiritual gifts of prophecy and tongues for the edification of the community rather than the self.

Dorothea Frede's contributions to the study of Greek ethics are rooted in both an intimate knowledge of Greek culture and civilization and a powerful understanding of the philosophical issues of the modern world. She does not lose sight of what makes the ancient Greeks remote and foreign, but equally she attends to those features of Greek ethics which connect it to our own philosophical concerns. Thus (as in so many other ways) she has been a model to emulate. The Greeks made major contributions to the question of personal identity as we still understand it, despite the considerable differences between their cultural context and ours. It is an honour to dedicate to Professor Frede this brief consideration of Empedocles' contribution to a still vital philosophical question.

In approaching this question, I have two closely connected aims. First, I want to show that Empedocles, in the fifth century bc, had a deep and serious interest in the question of personal identity, an issue shaped for us by the influence of Locke. Second, I want to argue, partly on the basis of this Empedoclean contribution to the issue, that we should accept the readings of the primary scribe of the newly recovered Strasbourg papyrus of Empedocles at the three critical points where this ancient text transmits the letter θ rather than the letter v which we would expect from the evidence of the indirect tradition.

On 5 July 2006 Professor Dr Dorothea Frede will celebrate her 65th birthday. Professor Frede, who has held a chair of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg since 1991, is one of the outstanding scholars in the field of Ancient Philosophy, with a high reputation in Germany and the international academic community. She has published widely on Plato, Aristotle and the Hellenistic philosophers. She has also conducted research on Heidegger and phenomenology, Rorty and Davidson. Currently she is president of the German Society for Ancient Philosophy (GANPH). Recently she has been appointed Mills Visiting Professor at the University of Berkeley, a position she will take up in 2006. Professor Frede's birthday will also mark the end of her official activities in Hamburg. Friends and colleagues in Germany, England, the United States and Canada would like to use this occasion to offer her this volume and thereby to express their gratitude for her academic contributions and her friendship over the years. The title of this collection of eleven papers on ancient Greek ethics thus refers to the common topic of all contributions as well as to the honorand herself.

As editor I would like to thank everybody who has been involved in the production of this book, first of all Stella Haffmans for her assistance in preparing the final typescript and the indices.

SYSTEMATIZING SOCRATES

Socrates is a figure in all of Plato's dialogues except the Laws; and in all the dialogues in which he occurs, Socrates illustrates something important to Plato about philosophy and the way it should be pursued. However, as soon as we try to think of Socrates as an intellectual personality unified across dialogues, we run into the need to take an interpretative stance.

There has recently been increased focus on the radically different lines taken by developmentalism, which sees Plato's works in terms of an overall development of thought between dialogues, and unitarianism, which leads us to approach Plato in terms of themes across dialogues. In this paper I aim to continue in a constructive and friendly way a debate on this issue with Dorothea Frede, hoping to develop a point of debate between us in a (relatively) new direction. It is a pleasure to offer this paper to Dorothea, whose work on Plato has excited and benefited us all.

Developmentalists see progress from Socrates as negative arguer to Socrates as positive expounder. As far as this development is concerned, we can separate off those dialogues where Socrates takes part only in a short introductory conversation, and the rest is carried on by somebody else, like the Eleatic Visitor or Timaeus. When we look at Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus or Critias we find that Socrates' presence in these dialogues is important, but not central to the issue of this development.

The description of the Corinthians as possessing the mind of Christ and being his body speaks of their new existence. In the first chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul indicates that they are distinct from the world which does not possess the νοῦς Χριστοῦ and cannot comprehend the things of God. In their new corporate existence as God's temple, they should cease their quarreling over leaders. In 1 Cor. 12 Paul calls them Christ's body and likewise calls them to unity.

Just as both instances reflect the Corinthians' existence as members of a new humanity in Christ, so do both speak of the need to “build” the community of God properly. Even though the Corinthians are already united by virtue of their inclusion in new humanity, Paul wants to “build” the community properly in anticipation of the Day of Judgment (3:10–15). In 1 Cor. 12–14 the Corinthians are the body of Christ, united in the Spirit, and Paul wants them to seek gifts that “build” the community (14:3, 4, 5, 12, 17, 26).

The way to do this is love, and Paul says explicitly in 1 Cor. 8:1, “Love builds up.” 1 Cor. 13 is his extended description of love, and 1 Cor. 14 is the application of love to the body, with the result that prophecy is valued more than speaking in tongues.

INTRODUCTION

Ancient virtue ethics assumes that all persons have a natural concern for their own life and well-being. It holds that the ability to lead a good life is grounded on certain excellent qualities and dispositions of one's character and intellect. Those qualities or dispositions are called aretai – ‘virtues’ as the term is traditionally if problematically translated. A crucial question for ancient virtue theory is: does the set of ‘virtues’ that enable a person to lead a good life have to include attitudes like justice and generosity? Or are the intelligent, self-controlled, resolute egoists who see other people as mere instruments, or obstacles, to their own well-being equally or even better suited to leading a good life?

The speech of Callicles in Plato's Gorgias is a famous and forceful defence of the attitude of moral egoism. A theoretical elaboration of the view that all human beings are ultimately egoists is set forth in Glaucon's speech in Plato's Republic 2. Aristotle follows Socrates' and Plato's footsteps in depreciating a sort of egoism that seeks fulfilment in the augmentation and gratification of bodily pleasures or the amassment of wealth and social prestige. He unequivocally affirms the value of virtues like justice and generosity and states that behaviour exhibiting those virtues has to be motivated by the acknowledgement of their value and, hence, is clearly different from a strategic pretence of justice or generosity.