Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/630

 ETHICS

558

ETHICS

of ethics; for, though they proposed various moral truths and principles, they did so in a dogmatic and didactic, and not in a philosophically systematic manner. Ethics properly so called is first met with among the Greeks, i. e. in the teaching of Socrates (470-399 B. c). According to him, the ultimate ob- ject of hvnnan activity is happiness, and the neeessarj' means to reach it, virtue. Since everj-body neces- sarily seeks happiness, no one is deliberately corrupt. All evil arises from ignorance, and the virtues are one and all but so many kinds of prudence. Virtue can, therefore, be imparted by instruction. The disciple of Socrates, Plato (427-347 B. c), declares that the summum bonum consists in the perfect imitation of God, the Absolute Good, an imitation which cannot be fully realized in this life. Virtue enables man to order his conduct, as he properly should, according to the dictates of reason, and acting thus he becomes like unto God. But Plato differed from Socrates in that he did not consider virtue to consist in wisdom alone, but in justice, temperance, and fortitude as well, these constituting the proper harmony of man's activities. In a sense, the State is man writ large, and its function is to train its citizens in virtue. For his ideal State he proposed the community of goods and of wives and the public education of children. Though Socrates and Plato had been to the fore in this mighty work and had contributed much valuable materi.al to the upbuilding of ethics; nevertheless, Plato's illustrious disciple, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), must be considered the real founder of systematic ethics. With charac- teristic keenness he solved, in his ethical and political writings, most of the problems with which ethics con- cerns itself. Unlike Plato, who began with ideas as the basis of his observations, Aristotle chose rather to take the facts of experience as his starting-point; these he analysed accurately, and sought to trace to their highest and ultimate causes. He sets out from the fact that all men tend to happiness as the ultimate object of all their endeavours, as the highest good, which is sought for its own sake, and to which all other goods merely serve as means. This happiness cannot consist in external goods, but only in the activity proper to human nature — not indeed in such a lower activity of the vegetative and sensitive life as man possesses in common with plants and brutes, but in the highest and most perfect activity of his reason, which springs in tm-n from virtue. This activity, however, has to be exercised in a perfect and enduring life. The highest pleasure is naturally bound up with this activity, yet, to constitute perfect happiness, ex- ternal goods must also supply their share. True hap- piness, though prepared for him by the gods as the object and the reward of virtue, can be attained only through a man's own individual exertion. With keen penetration Aristotle thereupon proceeds to investi- gate in turn each of the intellectual and moral virtues, and his treatment of them must, even at the present time, be regarded as in great part correct. The na- ture of the State and of the family were, in the main, rightly explained by him. The only pity is that his vision did not penetrate beyond this earthly life, and that he never saw clearly the relations of man to God.

A more hedonistic (^5o^■^, "pleasure") turn in ethics begins with Democritus (.about 4GO-370 B. c), who considers a perpetually joyous and cheerful dis- position as the highest good and happiness of man. The means thereto is virtue, which makes us inde- pendent of external goods — so far as that is possible — and which wLsely discriminates between the pleasures that are to be sought after and those that are to be shunned. Pure Sensualism or Hedonism was first taught by Aristippus of (^Tene (43.'>-3.54 n. c), ac- cording to whom the greatest possible pleasure, espe- cially sensual ple:isure. is the enil and supreme good of himian endeavour. Epicurus (341-270 b. c.) differs

from Aristippus in holding that the largest sum total possible of spiritual and sensual enjoyments, with the greatest possible freedom from displeasure and pain, is man's highest good. Virtue is the proper directive norm in the attainment of this end.

The Cj-nics, Antisthenes (444-369 B. c.) and Dio- genes of Sinope (414-324 B. c), taught the direct con- trary of Hedonism, namely, that virtue alone suffices for happiness, that pleasure is an evU, and that the truly wise man is above human laws. This teaching soon degenerated into haughty arrogance and open contempt for law and for the remainder of men (Cyn- icism). The Stoics, Zeno (336-2G4 B. c.) and his dis- ciples, C'leanthes, Chrysippus, and others, strove to refine and perfect the views of Antisthenes. Virtue, in their opinion, consists in man's living according to the dictates of his rational nature, and, as each one's individual nature is but a part of the entire natural order, virtue is, therefore, the harmonious agreement with the Divine Reason, which shapes the whole course of nature. Whether they conceived this relation of God to the world in a pantheistic or a theistic .sense, is not altogether clear. Virtue is to be sought for its own sake, and it suffices for man's happiness. All other tilings are indifferent and are, as circumstances require, to be striven after or shunned. The passions and affections are bad, and the wise man is independ- ent of them. Among the Roman .*>toics were Seneca (4 B. c.-A. D. 65), Epictetus (born about .\. D. 50), and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (a. d. 121-180), upon whom, however, at least upon the latter two. Chris- tian influences had already begun to make themselves felt. Cicero (lOG-43 b. c.) elaborated no new philo- sophical system of his own, but chose tho.se particular views from the various .systems of Grecian philosophy which appeared best to him. He maintained that moral goodness, which is the general object of all virtues, consists in what is becoming to man as a ra- tional being distinct from the brute. Actions are often good or bad, just or unjust, not because of hu- man institutions or customs, but of their own intrinsic nature. Above and beyond human laws, there is a natural law embracing all nations and all times, the expression of the rational will of the Most High God, from obedience to which no human authority can exempt us. Cicero gives an exhaustive exposition of the cardinal virtues and the obligations connected with them; he insists especially on devotion to the gods, without which human society could not exist.

Parallel with the above-mentioned Greek and Ro- man ethical systems runs a sceptical tendency, which rejects everj^ natural moral law, bases the whole moral order on custom or human arbitrariness, and frees the wise man from subjection to the ordinary precepts of the moral order. This tendency was fur- thered by the Sophists, against whom Socrates and Plato arrayed themselves, and later on by Carneades, Theodore of Cyrene, and others.

A new epoch in ethics begins with the dawn of Christianity. Ancient paganism never had a clear and definite concept of the relation between God and the world, of the imity of the human race, of the destiny of man, of the nature and meaning of the moral law. Christianity first shed full light on these and similar questions. As St. Paul teaches (Rom., ii, 24 sq.), God has written His moral law in the nearts of all men, even of those outside the influence of Christian Revelation; this law manifests itself in the conscience of every man and is the norm according to which the whole human race will be judged on the day of reckoning. In consequence of their perverse in- clinations, this law had to a great extent Ijecome ob- scured and distorted among the pagans; Christianity, however, restored it to its pristine integrity. Thus, too, ethics received its richest and most fruitful stim- ulus. Proper ethical methods were now unfolded, and philosophy was in a position to follow up and