The Greek Philosophers, Vol. 1 (of 2)Benn, Alfred William
Philosophy
The Greek Philosophers, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Benn, Alfred William
Philosophy, Ancient
utilitarianism, as constituted by John Stuart Mill, although avowedly
based on the paramount value of pleasure, in admitting qualitative
differences among enjoyments, and in subordinating individual to
social good, introduces principles of action which are not, properly
speaking, hedonistic. Neither is the idea of the whole by any means
free from ambiguity. We have party, church, nation, order, progress,
race, humanity, and the sum total of sensitive beings, all putting in
their claims to figure as that entity. Where the pursuit of any single
end gives rise to conflicting pretensions, a wise man will check them
by reference to the other accredited standards, and will cherish a not
unreasonable expectation that the evolution of life is tending to bring
them all into ultimate agreement.
Returning to Socrates, we must further note that his identification
of virtue with science, though it does not express the whole truth,
expresses a considerable part of it, especially as to him conduct was
a much more complex problem than it is to some modern teachers. Only
those who believe in the existence of intuitive and infallible moral
perceptions can consistently maintain that nothing is easier than
to know our duty, and nothing harder than to do it. Even then, the
intuitions must extend beyond general principles, and also inform us
how and where to apply them. That no such inward illumination exists
is sufficiently shown by experience; so much so that the mischief done
by foolish people with good intentions has become proverbial. Modern
casuists have, indeed, drawn a distinction between the intention and
the act, making us responsible for the purity of the former, not for
the consequences of the latter. Though based on the Socratic division
between mind and body, this distinction would not have commended itself
to Socrates. His object was not to save souls from sin, but to save
individuals, families, and states from the ruin which ignorance of fact
entails.
If we enlarge our point of view so as to cover the moral influence of
knowledge on society taken collectively, its relative importance will
be vastly increased. When Auguste Comte assigns the supreme direction
of progress to advancing science, and when Buckle, following Fichte,
makes the totality of human action depend on the totality of human
knowledge, they are virtually attributing to intellectual education an
even more decisive part than it played in the Socratic ethics. Even
those who reject the theory, when pushed to such an extreme, will admit
that the same quantity of self-devotion must produce a far greater
effect when it is guided by deeper insight into the conditions of
existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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