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In this chapter, I take up a question which follows from the issues discussed in the previous ones. I have considered ways in which Greek thought, both as expressed in poetry and philosophy, assumes that there are objective norms, in psychology, ethics, and politics. This gives rise to the question: what is the ultimate basis for these norms? I focus on one kind of answer to this question, and on the debate from which this answer arises. This answer is that the normative basis for psychological, ethical, and political life exists in ‘nature’, in some sense. Versions of this answer can be found in, for instance, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans; and their answers build on fifth-century controversy about the relationship between ethics and nature, as well as developing an important feature of Presocratic thinking.
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1.
The title of this chapter is also that of a book on a related topic: M. Schofield and G. Striker, edd., The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic Ethics (Cambridge, 1986).
References
Notes
2. i.e. those of normative rationality (Ch. II), of ethical motivation (Ch. III), of the virtuous community (Ch. IV).
3. Obvious examples are the controversies about the ideas of Galileo and Darwin. A recent development is the emergence of thinkers who argue, by contrast, that a Christian world-view is fully compatible with current scientific thinking: see e.g. Polkinghorne, J., Science and Christian Belief (London, 1994)Google Scholar.
4. However, Kant saw this as a function of our existence as purely rational (‘noumenal’) beings, as distinct from our existence as members of the natural world and as subject to natural laws. See Kant, in Paton, H. J., The Moral Law (London, 1986), pp. 107-20Google Scholar; for analysis, see e.g. Irwin, T., ‘Morality and Personality: Kant and Green’, in Wood, A. W., ed., Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy (Ithaca, 1984), pp. 31–56 Google Scholar.
5. On the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’, see e.g. Luce, R. D. and Raiffa, H., Games and Decisions (New York, 1957)Google Scholar; Axelrod, R., The Evolution of Cooperation (Harmondsworth, 1984)Google Scholar. On the ‘veil of ignorance’, see Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971)Google Scholar. For the claim that a proper understanding of rationality or personal identity should lead one to see that it is rational to be morally good (i.e. motivated to benefit others), see Gewirth, A., Reason and Morality (Chicago, 1977)Google Scholar; Parfit, D., Reasons and Persons (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar, esp. part 3.
6. See MacIntyre, A., After Virtue (London, 1985, 2nd edn.), chs. 4–7 Google Scholar; Williams, B., Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London, 1985), pp. 54–70 Google Scholar, 77-81; on Parfit’s work, see Williams, , Moral Luck (Cambridge, 1981), ch., 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7. See Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, pp. 30-4. However, various features of R. , including the idea that the full development of virtue requires a complex two-stage process in a reason-ruled polis, are not compatible with the idea that arguments can persuade anyone to be just; see Ch. IV, text to nn. 57-62, and see further Gill, C., Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar, 6.6. For discussions of the central argument about justice in Pl. R. , see Ch. IV, n. 55.
8. See MacIntyre, After Virtue, ch. 12, taken with chs. 14-15; also Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London, 1988), chs. 6-7.
9. See Williams, , Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, ch. 3, esp. pp. 43-7Google Scholar, 51-3.
10. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, pp. 51-3 (cf. 43-4), and MacIntyre, After Virtue, pp. 148, 158, adopt versions of the former view; for discussion, see Gill, C., ‘The Human Being as an Ethical Norm’, in Gill, , ed., The Person and the Human Mind: Issues in Ancient and Modem Philosophy (Oxford, 1990), pp. 137-61Google Scholar, esp. pp. 138-43, 152-5. MacIntyre adopts the second view in his review of Gill, , ed., Person and Human Mind, in Arion (3rd series) 1 (1991), 188-94Google Scholar, esp. pp. 191-2, cited in text to n. 11 below. See also MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, chs. 7-8.
11. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, p. 52; MacIntyre, review of Gill, ed., Person and Human Mind, p. 192. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, pp. 141-5, MacIntyre acknowledges the tension apparently created in Aristotle’s account of virtue and happiness by NE 10.7-8 (on which, see Ch. III, text to nn. 72-81), but argues that this does not undermine the fundamental cohesion (or harmony) of Aristotle’s world-view.
12. See McDowell, J., review of Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Mind 95 (1986), 377-86Google Scholar; see also his ‘The Role of Eudaimonia in Aristotle’s Ethics ’, in Rorty, A. O., ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley, 1980), pp. 359-76Google Scholar, esp. pp. 366-73; Annas, J., ‘Naturalism in Greek Ethics: Aristotle and After’, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium 4 (1988), 149-71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gill, ‘The Human Being as an Ethical Norm’, pp. 137-61, esp. pp. 138-43, 152-5; also Gill, Personality, 6. 4-5; Nussbaum, M. C., ‘Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundation of Ethics’, in Altham, J. E. G. and Harrison, R., edd., World, Mind and Ethics: Essays on the Philosophy of Bernard Williams (Cambridge, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
13. See Gill, Personality, 6. 5, text to nn. 130-2, taken with 4.6-7, 5.6-7. For a different type of ‘instability’ in Aristotle’s ethical viewpoint, see Annas, J., Morality of Happiness (Oxford, 1993), ch. 18 Google Scholar.
14. Morality of Happiness, part 2, esp. chs. 3, 9.
15. For the criticism by Williams and MacIntyre of this move in modern philosophy, see text to n. 6 above. For certain significant variations in the way in which this shared approach is applied by Greek thinkers, see nn. 59, 101 below.
16. See e.g. Il. 24.527-33 (Achilles on the two jars on the threshold of Zeus), cited, significantly, by Plato in his critique of traditional theology in R. 2 (379d). See also n. 19 below. For tragic statements about the problematic ethical status of the gods, see e.g. Sophocles, Trachiniae 1264-78, Euripides, Hippolytus 120, Herakles 1313-46.
17. Prominent critics of traditional poetic theology were Xenophanes and Plato (e.g. R. 377d-383b); for redefinitions of the divine, see e.g. Rice, D. E. and Stambaugh, J. E., Sources for the Study of Greek Religion (Missoula, Montana, 1979), pp. 44–50 Google Scholar; also Bremmer, J., Greek Religion (Oxford, 1994), pp. 12 Google Scholar, 89-90.
18. This is not to deny that such speculation could lead to conflict with conventional ideas about religion and its ethical implications; see text to nn. 40-3 below.
19. A different picture from that offered in this paragraph is given by Lloyd-Jones, H., The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley, 1971)Google Scholar: Lloyd-Jones argues that the idea of god (esp. Zeus) as an objective moral arbiter is prominent in Greek literature and thought from the Iliad onwards, and suggests that the later Greek philosophical idea of the kosmos as a providentially ordered whole can be seen as a linear continuation of the religious view. But I think that there are substantial difficulties in Lloyd-Jones’s view, one of which has been underlined by Yamagata, N., in Homeric Morality (Leiden, 1994)Google Scholar. Although Homeric poetry sometimes presents human beings as believing that the gods serve as impartial moral arbiters, the gods themselves are characteristically presented as activated by their concern for their own honour, their own favourites, or by the constraints of fate (moira); see her Part 1, esp. pp. 1-2, and ch. 6. Also important is R. Parker’s suggestion that the ethics of reciprocity (not of impartial or disinterested justice) constitute the relevant framework for thinking about the morality of Greek gods; see ‘Reciprocity in Greek Religion’, in Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N., Seaford, R., edd., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
20. Two other features bearing on the interpretation of the Presocratics have been brought out by recent studies: the importance of placing the Presocratics in their largely oral culture, dominated by poetic modes of expression: see Havelock, E. A., ‘The Linguistic Task of the Presocratics’, in Robb, K., ed. Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy (La Salle, Illinois, 1983)Google Scholar; the importance of locating the ‘fragments’ of the Presocratics in the context of the writings that quote or comment on them, including highly partisan early Christian writers: see Osborne, C., Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy (London, 1987)Google Scholar. Both points have possible implications for the question being pursued here.
21. The standard source-book for the Presocratics is Diels, H., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, rev. Kranz, W., 2 vols. (Berlin, 1961, 10th edn.)Google Scholar (-DK); all fragments cited below are as numbered in DK, and are B fragments (frs.) unless otherwise specified. See also Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., and Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983, 2nd edn.)Google Scholar; Wright, M. R., The Presocratics, main fragments with introduction and commentary (Bristol, 1985)Google Scholar; both books contain useful bibliographies. Some at least of the points made here could also have been made in connection with e.g. Anaximander (for whom ‘justice’ is both a cosmic and a normative principle) and Parmenides (for whom the recognition of the unity of being transforms both the understanding ornature and that of human knowledge and aspiration). See e.g. Anaximander, fr. A9, Parmenides frs. 1-2, 6-8; see further Kahn, C. H., Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (New York, 1960)Google Scholar; Mourelatos, A. P. D., The Route of Parmenides (New Haven, 1970)Google Scholar.
22. See esp. frs. 1, 2, 26, 41, 50, 54, 67, 117-18, 123; see Kirk, Raven, Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers, ch. 6; Kahn, C. H., The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; Hussey, E., ‘Epistemology and Meaning in Heraclitus’, in Schofield, M. and Nussbaum, M. C., edd., Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 33–59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23. Wright, M. R., ‘Presocratic Minds’, in Gill, , ed., Person and Human Mind, pp. 207-25Google Scholar, quotation from p. 221; see also her pp. 218-25.
24. See esp. fr. 101: ‘I searched out myself’; also Kirk, Raven, Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers, pp. 211-12. On the possible influence of the mystery cults on Presocratics such as Heraclitus, see Seaford, R., ‘Immorality, Salvation, and the Elements’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 90 (1986), 1–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see esp. pp. 14-20.
25. My account follows that of Wright, M. R., Empedocles: The Extant Fragments, ed. with introduction and commentary (New Haven, 1981), esp. pp. 57–76 Google Scholar; also Kirk, Raven, Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers, ch. 10, esp. pp. 320-1. For other interpretations, see Wright, p. 57 n. 1; also Kirk, Raven, Schofield, p. 459.
26. See esp. frs. 6, 17 (esp. lines 21-6), 27, 29, 31, 105, 109, 133-4. See also Wright, Empedocles, pp. 72-5.
27. The process is couched partly in terms of transmigration of lives, e.g. frs. 115, 137. Although Empedocles’ thought can be interpreted in analytic terms, as summarized here, it may also be seen as based on religious practices, such as those linked with the mystery cults; see e.g. Zuntz, G., Persephone (Oxford, 1971), pp. 181–274 Google Scholar; Seaford, ‘Immortality, Salvation, and the Elements’, 10-14.
28. See esp. frs. 121, 130, 136; 110 (line 2 cited).
29. This point anticipates a theme discussed earlier in later Greek ethical thought: that the best possible way to benefit others is to communicate to them what is taken to be the truth (esp. about the nature of human happiness), even if the truth so conveyed does not consist in the recommendation of what is conventionally taken to be other-benefiting virtue; see Ch. III, text to nn. 78-81.
30. Pythagoras himself wrote nothing; and the earliest evidence for Pythagorean number-theory comes from Philolaus (5th c.), to whom some scholars, including Burkert, attribute key features of the theory. On this question, see Kirk, Raven, Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers, pp. 215-16,324, also chs. 7, 11; Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1972)Google Scholar; Kahn, C. H., ‘Pythagorean Philosophy before Plato’, in Mourelatos, A. P. D., The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York, 1974), pp. 161-85Google Scholar; Huffman, C.A., Philolaus of Croton: Pythagorean and Presocratic (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar.
31. See esp. Kirk, Raven, Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers: Pythagoras frs. 269-72, 275, 277, 285-6; Philolaus, frs. 450-8, (fr. nos. as in Kirk, Raven, Schofield).
32. This is not because the Presocratics were wholly naive regarding philosophical methodology. Scholars have, for a long time, presumed that the history of Presocratic philosophy consisted in a continuing debate about ideas of nature and, to some extent, about philosophical methodology: on the latter, see e.g. Irwin, T., Classical Thought (Oxford, 1989), pp. 29–38 Google Scholar. But they seem not to have discussed explicitly the issues raised by linking the study ornature and ethics in this way.
33. As with other aspects of intellectual life in this period, it is difficult to draw a clear line between Plato and the late fifth-century intellectual debates for which he is such an important, but partisan, source. For attempts to gain a historical perspective on this period that is not unduly shaped by Plato, see e.g. Havelock, E. A., The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Farrar, C., The Origins of Democratic Thought: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Romilly, J., The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar.
34. Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy (=HGP), vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1969), chs. 4–5 Google Scholar, discusses a wide range of sources; Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1981), ch. 10 Google Scholar, offers a more analytic account.
35. See Guthrie, HGP, vol. 3, pp. 101-16; Kerferd, Sophistic Movement, pp. 115-23 (also discussing Thrasymachus in Plato R. 1); for Callicles, see Pl. Gorgias 481 ff, esp. 482-3. The usual view of Antiphon as an ‘immoralist’ is questioned by Saunders, T. J., ‘Antiphon the Sophist on Natural Laws’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 78 (1977-8), 26–35 Google Scholar, but restated by Furley, D. in ‘Antiphon’s Case against Justice’, in Kerferd, G. B., ed., The Sophists and their Legacy (Wiesbaden, 1981), pp. 81–91 Google Scholar.
36. See Guthrie, , HGP, vol. 3, pp. 84-8Google Scholar, and Kerferd, Sophistic Movement, pp. 123-5, referring to e.g. two debates in Thucydides: the Melian debate (esp. 5.105.2) and the Mitylenean debate (esp. 3.40.4, 44.1.).
37. See Guthrie, , HGP, vol. 3, pp. 63–79 Google Scholar; Kerferd, Sophistic Movement, pp. 125-30, referring to e.g. Protagoras and the Anonymus Iamblichi. See also Ch. IV, text to nn. 46-7.
38. See Guthrie, , HGP, vol. 3, ch. 5 Google Scholar; Kerferd, Sophistic Movement, pp. 147-50, referring to e.g. Pl. R. 358e-359b (a position put forward for the sake of the argument), Critias, Sisyphus DK fr. 25; for another, more positive, version of the social contract theory, see Pl. Crito 50c-53a.
39. On the latter view, see Ch. IV, section 3.
40. For these and other suggestions about cultural and intellectual factors underlying this debate (including responses to the ‘naturalism’ of the Presocratics), see Irwin, , Classical Thought, ch. 4, esp. pp. 59–67 Google Scholar; Kerferd, Sophistic Movement, pp. 112-14, Guthrie, , HGP, vol. 3, ch. 2 Google Scholar.
41. On these thinkers, see e.g. Kirk, Raven, Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers, chs. 12, 16; and Schofield, M., An Essay on Anaxagoras (Cambridge, 1980)Google Scholar; Laks, A., Diogène d’ Apollonie (Lille, 1983)Google Scholar.
42. See Aristophanes, Clouds 366-436, 1075-82, 1399-1405; Pl. Apology 18b-19d, 23d-e, 26d-e; Laws 888e-890a; see also Guthrie, , HGP, vol. 3, pp. 113-16Google Scholar.
43. It is clear from Pl. Ap. (refs. in a 42 above) that Plato thought that the popular impression that Socrates had engaged in this kind of speculation had proved very damaging, and had contributed to Socrates’ being brought to trial on the charges of ‘corrupting the young and not believing in the gods that the city believes in’. For recent discussions of Socrates’ trial and of his ‘piety’, see Ch. IV, text to nn. 37-43.
44. Plato’s dialogues are usually subdivided into early (supposedly recreating the dialectical mode of the early Socrates); middle (supposedly developing independent metaphysical theories); late (either re-examining these theories or taking them further). Phaedo is usually classed (like R.) as ‘middle’, Timaeus as ‘late’. On Plato’s chronology, see Brandwood, L., ‘Stylometry and Chronology’, in Kraut, R., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 90–120 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Plato’s use of the dialogue form, see refs. in Ch. IV, n. 40.
45. See Phaedo 96a-99c, esp. 97b-98c; for Socrates’ application of his alternative approach to what is, in a sense, the ‘natural world’, see 100a-106e. See further Gallop, D., Plato: Phaedo, tr. with commentary (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar; Bostock, D., Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar; Rowe, C.J., Plato: Phaedo, ed. with introduction and commentary (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar.
46. For a succinct statement of the relationship between Phaedo and Timaeus, see Irwin, T., Classical Thought (Oxford, 1989), pp. 111-13Google Scholar. See e.g. Timaeus 35b-36d, 38c-39e, 43a-47e, 53c-57c. On the Timaeus, see e.g. Vlastos, G., Plato’s Universe (Oxford, 1975), chs. 2–3 Google Scholar; Guthrie, , HOP, vol. 5, ch. 4 Google Scholar (see his index under ‘Pythagoreans’).
47. Phaedo 68c-69c, 78d-79d, 82e-84a. Conventional virtue is conceived simply as the exchange of one body-based pleasure and pain for another. For the idea that real virtue depends on philosophical reflection or dialectic, see Ch. III, text to n. 38, also nn. 69-70. On the possible influence of the mystery cults on Plato’s use, here and elsewhere, of ideas such as ‘purification’, see Riedweg, C., Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon und Klemens von Alexandrien (Berlin, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48. See Timaeus 42e-47d, 69d-72d, 86b-89e; on the idea that certain vices depend on defective physiological make-up (86b-87b), see Mackenzie, M. M., Plato On Punishment (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 176-8Google Scholar; on the psychology of the Timaeus, see Robinson, T. M., Plato’s Psychology (Toronto, 1970), chs. 4–5 Google Scholar.
49. See Timaeus 47b-d, 90a-d, taken with 44b-c, 87b; i.e. Plato is not saying that the bare facts of nature can make anyone good, regardless of her pre-existing character; on the relevant issue, see text to n. 15 above.
50. See Ch. III, text to nn. 67-71.
51. R. 529a-530e; on this combination of types of knowledge, see e.g. Mueller, I., ‘Mathematical Method and Philosophical Truth’, in Kraut, , ed., Cambridge Companion to Plato, pp. 170-99Google Scholar, esp. pp. 183-94.
52. See Irwin, T., Plato’s Moral Theory (Oxford, 1977), ch. 7, esp. pp. 230-48Google Scholar; Plato’s Ethics (Oxford, 1995), chs. 17-18; see further Ch. III, text to nn. 62-3, and Gill, Personality, 4.3, 5.2.
53. See R. 500a-501c, esp. 500c-d, taken with 400d-402c, esp. 401d-402c.
54. See Krämer, H.-J., Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles (Heidelberg, 1959, 2nd edn. Amsterdam, 1967)Google Scholar; also Gaiser, K., Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre (Stuttgart, 1968, 2nd edn.)Google Scholar; Findlay, J. N., Phto: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines (London, 1974)Google Scholar; scholars presently pursuing this approach include T. Szlezák and G. Reale. For a succinct account, see Gaiser, , ‘Plato’s Enigmatic Lecture on the Good’, Phronesis 25 (1980), 1–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, for a review of the whole subject, see Methexis 6 (1993), a special issue on Plato’s unwritten doctrines.
55. See e.g. G. Vlastos’s famous critique of Krämer, Arete, ‘On Plato’s Oral Doctrine’, in Platonic Studies (2nd edn., Princeton, 1981), pp. 379-403. See also Sayre, K. M., Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar, who sees the unwritten doctrines as virtually identical with the ideas of Plato’s Philebus.
56. Burnyeat, M. F., ‘Platonism and Mathematics: A Prelude to Discussion’, in Graeser, A., ed., Mathematics and Metaphysics in Aristotle: Proceedings of the X Symposium Aristotelicum (Bern/Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 213-40Google Scholar; esp. pp. 217-20, 232-40.
57. See e.g. Timaeus 35a-36d, 43a-44a, 54c-56c; see further text to nn. 48-9 above.
58. On the two-stage programme of ethical education in R., see Ch. III, text to nn. 67-71; on relevant refs. in R.., see n. 53 above.
59. For the Presocratics, see text to nn. 21-31 above; see also text to n. 47 above, nn. 86-90, 94-5 below, on comparable positions in Pl. Phaedo and Epicurean philosophy. For the Aristotelian and (one version of the) Stoic position, which stress rather, like Pl R., the importance of pre-refleclive character-development as a preliminary for reflective understanding of the role of nature, see text to nn. 67, 78-9 below. This broad division in Greek thought represents part of the division noted in Ch. III, text to a 38; see also n. 101 below.
60. Roughly speaking, ethics is characterized by (1) its practical rather than theoretical aim; (2) its focus on the question of the proper overall goal of a human life; (3) the importance of the notion of virtue (including virtue of character, ēthos, the term which gives ‘ethics’, ēthica, its name). See e.g. NE 1. 1, 13, 2. 1-2. See further Annas, Morality of Happiness, chs. 1-2; also Gill, C., ‘Ethical Thought, Classical’, in Zeyl, D., ed., Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy (New York, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
61. Nussbaum, M. C., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), chs. 8 Google Scholar and 10; on the Platonic approach, see her ch. 5.
62. Lear, J., Aristotk: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chs. 1, 4, and 6. 8; see esp. Metaphysics 12. 7, 9, De Anima (On the Soul) 3. 3-5, taken with NE 10. 7, 1177b26-1178a22. A distinct, but partly parallel, approach is taken by Irwin, T., in Aristotle’s First Principles (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar: he thinks that Aristotle believes that ‘strong dialectic’ (argument based on unrefutable metaphysical principles) can provide the basis for conclusions about the issues of other branches of philosophy, including ethics.
63. Other important texts for this question include the characterization of’what each of us is’ (i.e. our essential human nature) in the discussion of friendship, NE 9. 4, esp. 1166al3-23, 9. 8, esp. 1168b28-1169a3 (see Ch. III, text to n. 45). See also the analysis of akrasia (‘weakness of will’) ‘in a way that makes reference to nature’, φυσικώς (NE 7. 3, esp. 1147a24-5); and the analysis of the role of friendship in happiness ‘in a way that makes more reference to nature’ (than the preceding arguments), φυοίκώηρον (NE 9.9, 1170al3-14).
64. See text to nn. 8-11 above; for the idea of’metaphysical biology’, see MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 148.
65. See refs in n. 12 above.
66. See text to nn. 8-9, 12 above. On the idea of an ‘Archimedean point’, a fulcrum or pivotal point, that should persuade anyone, regardless of her pre-existing beliefs or character, see Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, ch. 2 (Williams himself regards this idea as illusory).
67. See NE 1. 3-4, esp. 1095b6-7, 10.9, esp. 1179b4-31; see Burnyeat, M. F., ‘Aristotle on Learning to be Good’, in Rorty, A. O., ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley, 1980), pp. 69–92 Google Scholar, esp. pp. 71-6.
68. NE 1. 7 includes a brief survey of the relationship between human and non-human capacities, 1097b33-1098a5; on his views elsewhere on distinctively human capacities, see e.g. Gill, C., ‘Is There a Concept of Person in Greek Philosophy?’, in Everson, S., ed., Psychology: Companions to Ancient Thought 2 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 166-93Google Scholar, esp. pp. 171-84; Sorabji, R., Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate (London, 1993), esp. Part 1 Google Scholar.
69. The key passage in NE 1. 7 (1098a7-18), arguably, has a different function in the argument from that of 10. 7-8, namely that of giving an ‘Outline’ (for this idea, see 1098a20-2) of an account of happiness (see esp. al7-18, ‘if there are several types of virtue, in accordance with the best and most perfect type’), whereas 10. 7-8 adjudicates between the most serious candidates for the role of being ‘best and most perfect’.
70. See Ch. III, text to nn. 72-81.
71. See refs. in n. 62 above; also NE 6. 7, esp. 1141al8-bl2, 6. 12, esp. 1144al-6, 6. 13, esp. 1145a6-11.
72. See further Gill, Personality, 5. 6.
73. For this, as a general feature of Greek thinking, see n. 15 above; for a division between those who do or do not give an important role to pre-reflective virtue, see n. 59 above.
74. See Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N., The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar (-LS), 63 A-C.
75. Engberg-Pedersen, T., ‘Discovering the Good: oikeiōsis and kathēkonta in Stoic Ethics’, in Schofield, and Striker, , edd., Norms of Nature, pp. 145-83Google Scholar; ‘Stoic Ethics and the Concept of a Person’, in Gill, ed., Person and Human Mind, pp. 109-35; The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis; Moral Development and Social Interaction in Early Stoic Theory (Aarhus, 1990). For a contrasting account, which is more teleological in approach than Engberg-Pedersen’s, see White, N. P., ‘The Basis of Stoic Ethics’, Harvard Studies in Classical Phiblogy 83 (1979), 143-78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
76. Annas, , Morality of Happiness, ch. 5, esp. pp. 163-6Google Scholar; her aim is to reconstruct the view of Chrysippus, the most important and systematic of Stoic thinkers. See also J. Brunschwig, ‘On a Book-Title by Chrysippus: “On the Fact that the Ancients Admitted Dialectic along with Demonstrations” ‘, OSAP supp. vol. (1991), pp. 81-96. On the Stoic philosophical curriculum, see LS 26 B (different Stoic thinkers held different views about the proper order of the subjects).
77. On this claim and other key Stoic ethical claims, see LS 58, 70.
78. This is (part of) Chrysippus’ explanation for the fact that most people fail to complete what he sees as the ‘natural’ course of ethical development; see Gal. PHP (for full ref. see Ch. II, a 36) V 5.13-14, pp. 318-21 De Lacy. See further Long, A. A., ‘The Stoic Concept of Evil’, Phibsophical Quarterly 18 (1968), 329-42Google Scholar. On the different strands of Stoic thought about the proper context for virtuous social life and development, see Ch. IV, text to nn. 88-94.
79. See LS 59D, 57F: = Cicero, Fin. 3.17,20-2,62-8; for a useful edn. of Fin. 3, see Wright, M. R., Cicero: On Stoic Good and Evil: De Finibus, 3 and Paradoxa, Stoicorum, ed. with tr. and commentary (Warminster, 1991)Google Scholar. See further Striker, G., ‘The Role of Oikeiosis in Stoic Ethics’, OSAP 1 (1983), 145-67Google Scholar; also Pembroke, S., ‘Oikeiosis’, in Long, A.A., ed., Problems in Stoicism (London, 1971), pp. 114-49Google Scholar.
80. Annas, , Morality of Happiness, ch. 5, esp. pp. 160-3Google Scholar, 165-75; see also, Gill, , ‘The Human Being as an Ethical Norm’, in Gill, , ed., Person and Human Mind, esp. pp. 143-51Google Scholar.
81. See e.g. White, N. P., ‘Nature and Regularity in Stoic Ethics’, OSAP 3 (1985), 289–305 Google Scholar; Striker, G., ‘Following Nature: A Study in Stoic Ethics’, OSAP 9 (1991), 1–73 Google Scholar. On the idea of’reason’ as a norm as well as a function, see Ch. II, text to n. 29.
82. See LS 54; an important source is Cicero, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) (=ND) 2, which cites Plato’s Timaeus at 2. 32. On Timaeus, see text to nn. 48-9 above; and on links between Platonic and Stoic thought in these respects, see White, ‘Basis of Stoic Ethics’, 177-8; also Sedley, D., ‘Chrysippus on Psychophysical Causality’, in Brunschwig, J. and Nussbaum, M. C., edd., Passions and Perceptions (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 313-31Google Scholar.
83. See Cic. ND 2. 133 (=LS 54 N); the line of thought in 2.133-56 is close to that of Timaeus 44d-47e; see also LS 63 D-E. On Stoic thinking on the relationship between human and animal psychological functions and the moral implications of these, see Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals (see his index under ‘Stoics’).
84. On this point, see Annas, Morality of Happiness, pp. 165-6; note also the rather stronger role given to the idea ornature in refs. in n. 81 above. Annas suggests that some later Stoics, esp. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, do use the idea of cosmic nature to introduce a new ethical principle: that we are ‘only a part of the kosmos’ and that this fact should affect the way that we shape our lives: Annas, pp. 175-9. See further Rutherford, R. B., The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; the revised Everyman translation of Epictetus’ Discourses by R. Hard, with introduction by C. Gill (London, 1995); Long, A. A., ‘Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius’, in Luce, J., ed., Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome (New York, 1982), pp. 985–1002 Google Scholar, to be reprinted in Long, Stoic Studies (Cambridge, forthcoming).
85. See e.g. Cic. Fin. 3. 62-8, esp. 64, 65, 68 (-LS 57 F), also LS 66 J. On Stoic thinking about other-benefiting motivation, see Annas, Morality of Happiness, pp. 262-76; and, on the question whether Stoic thinking represents an exception to the Greek tendency to define norms of interpersonal ethics in terms of mutual benefit rather than altruism, Gill, ‘Reciprocity or Altruism in Greek Ethical Philosophy?’, in Gill, , Postlethwaite, , Seaford, , edd., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar. On the contrasting position of Plato and Aristotle on this point, see Ch. III, section 4.
86. See LS 21, esp. A-B. On the Epicurean claim that the behaviour of animals and young children shows that pleasure is naturally taken as the proper object of desire, see the lucid analysis by Brunschwig, J., ‘The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism’, in Schofield, and Striker, , edd., Norms of Nature, pp. 113-44Google Scholar, esp. pp. 115-28.
87. A further important distinction is between ‘static’ pleasures (those in which the human organism is in a stable or optimal state) and ‘kinetic’ ones (those restoring the organism to a stable state). See LS 21 esp. B, I, J, Q-R; see further Gosling, J. and Taylor, C. C. W., The Greeks on Pleasure (Oxford, 1982), chs. 18–20 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 19; Striker, G., ‘Epicurean Hedonism’, in Brunschwig, and Nussbaum, , edd., Passions and Perceptions, pp. 3–17 Google Scholar.
88. See further Annas, Morality of Happiness, pp. 188-200; also Fowler, D., ‘Epicurean Anger’, in Braund, S. and Gill, C., edd., The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge, forthcoming)Google Scholar. An important text for Epicurean thinking about anger is Philodemus, Peri Orgēs (On Anger), ed. Wilke, C. (Leipzig, 1974)Google Scholar, G. Indelli (Naples, 1988).
89. See LS 57 D-F; see also Blundell, M. W., ‘Parental Love and Stoic OUciiuais ’, Ancient Philosophy 10 (1990), 221-42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
90. On Epicurean thinking on friendship, see Ch. III, text to nn. 52-8. On the point that Epicurean thinking, like that of other Greek ethical theories, sets out to define an overall goal for shaping one’s life (and not just a system for maximizing localized episodes of pleasure, which is the Cyrenaic strategy), see Annas, Morality of Happiness, pp. 334-50, also 227-36, on the Cyrenaics; and Hossenfelder, M., ‘Epicurus - Hedonist malgré lui’, in Schofield, and Striker, , edd., Norms of Nature, pp. 245-63Google Scholar.
91. This point is very clear from Lucretius’ account of Epicurean theory, encapsulated in the recurrent idea that ‘the terror and darkness of the mind’ can only be removed by naturae species ratioque (an understanding of ‘the form and intelligibility of nature’ ), De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe) e.g. 1. 146-8. Epicurus’ Peri Phuseōs (On Nature) was, evidently, one of Epicurus’ largest and most important works, though only fragments survive; for the most comprehensive collection of Epicurus’ works, including these fragments, see Arrighetti, G., Epicuro opere (Turin, 1960, 2nd edn. 1973)Google Scholar.
92. See LS 18 C (= Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 85-8), 18 D (= Lucretius 5. 509-33), taken with LS, vol. 1, pp. 94-6.
93. Nussbaum, M. C., ‘Therapeutic Arguments: Epicurus and Aristotle’, in Schofield, and Striker, , edd., Norms of Nature, pp. 31–74 Google Scholar, esp. pp. 32-53; The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, 1994), ch. 4. An important source for her views is Philodemus, Peri Parrhēsias (On Frankness).
94. On ‘internalization’ in ethics, see Ch. III, text to n. 24.
95. I propose to argue for this view of Epicurean thinking elsewhere. On the two versions of this idea that we find in Greek thought, see n. 59 above.
96. A key source is Cic. ND 1, esp. 49-50, 103-7; see LS 23; the idea that the gods live in the spaces between the worlds (intermundia) seems to be an innovation of the 1st c. B.C., designed to clarify what was left unclear by Epicurus; see LS, vol. 1, p. 149.
97. See LS, vol. 1, pp. 144-9; for refs. to other views, see LS, vol. 2, p. 490, esp. Festugière, A. J., Epicurus and his Gods (Eng. tr. Oxford, 1955; 2nd French rev. edn., Paris, 1968)Google Scholar; Kleve, K., Gnosis Theon, in Symbohe Osloenses suppl. vol. 19 (Oslo, 1963)Google Scholar; Lemke, D., Die Theologie Epikurs (Munich, 1973)Google Scholar.
98. See Lucretius 5. 1198-203 (=LS 23 A(4)); also 6.68-79, esp. 75-8 (= LS 23D); LS 23 B, C(3), E(5), F(3), JK.
99. See text to nn. 8-11 above.
100. In this respect, Greek theory seems to them more plausible than some modern theories (both Kantian and Utilitarian) which do make this claim. See nn. 6-9 above, and see further Gill, Personality, 6.4-6.
101. Broadly speaking, Plato in R., Aristotle, and the Stoics emphasize the role of practical and social life in developing the necessary type of character (though Plato and Aristotle also think that philosophy can legitimately reshape the character so developed), whereas the Presocratics and Epicurus lay stress rather on the role of philosophy in shaping character; see n. 59 above. For analogous issues in Greek thinking about ethical motivation and about politics (and for further complexities in the positions of Plato and the Stoics), see text to nn. 47-53 above, and Ch. III, text to nn. 38, 67-71, Ch. IV, text to nn. 88-94.
102. On Williams’s view, see text to n. 11 above. On the complex outcome of full development for Plato, in R., and Aristotle, see Ch. III, text to nn. 67-81. On the different position reached by the Stoics on this point, see text to n. 85 above.