Moral Science; a Compendium of EthicsBain, Alexander
Philosophy
Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics
Bain, Alexander
Ethics; Ethics -- History
If it be now asked, what and where is Justice? the answer is--'every
man to attend to his own business.' Injustice occurs when any one
abandons his post, or meddles with what does not belong to him; and
more especially when any one of a lower division aspires to the
function of a higher. Such is Justice for the city, and such is it in
the individual; the higher faculty--Reason, must control the two
lower--Courage and Appetite. Justice is thus a sort of harmony or
balance of the mental powers; it is to the mind what health is to the
body. Health is the greatest good, sickness the greatest evil, of the
body; so is Justice of the mind.
It is an essential of the Platonic Republic that, among the guardians
at least, the sexual arrangements should be under public regulation,
and the monopoly of one woman by one man forbidden: a regard to the
breed of the higher caste of citizens requires the magistrate to see
that the best couples are brought together, and to refuse to rear the
inferior offspring of ill-assorted connexions. The number of births is
also to be regulated.
In carrying on war, special maxims of clemency are to be observed
towards Hellenic enemies.
The education of the Guardians must be philosophical; it is for them
to rise to the Idea of the good, to master the science of Good and
Evil; they must be emancipated from the notion that Pleasure is the
good. To indicate the route to this attainment Plato gives his theory
of cognition generally--the theory of Ideas;--and indicates (darkly)
how these sublime generalities are to be reached.
The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation
and decay; passing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to
Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness. The same
varieties may be traced in the Individual; the 'despotized' mind is
the acme of Injustice and consequent misery.
The comparative value of Pleasures is discussed. The pleasures of
philosophy, or wisdom (those of Reason), are alone true and pure; the
pleasures corresponding to the two other parts of the mind are
inferior; Love of Honour (from Courage or Energy), and Love of Money
(Appetite). The well-ordered mind--Justice--is above all things the
source of happiness. Apart from all consequences of Justice, this is
true; the addition of the natural results only enhances the strength
of the position.
In TIMAEUS, Plato repeats the doctrine that wickedness is to the mind
what disease is to the body. The soul suffers from two distempers,
madness and ignorance; the man under passionate heat is not wicked
voluntarily. No man is bad willingly; but only from some evil habit of
body, the effect of bad bringing-up [very much the view of Robert
Owen].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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