GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

104 ETHICS AND POLITICS*. THE GREEKS
as the result of his own conscious choice, but by training
and education, and habitual obedience to law. Admittedly,
it is left for him to choose to what extent the rule by
which the mean is determined applies in any particular
case, whether, for example, in the smoking instance given
above, it is four or five or six pipes a day that the doctrine
of the mean enjoins. But it is fairly clear that, the more
closely the individual's behaviour is regulated by law
and opinion and in both Plato's and Aristotle's States
it is regulated very closely indeed the more invariably
does his adherence to the mean, not only as a precept
which lays down a general line of conduct, but as a rule
which prescribes such and such particular conduct in
such and such particular circumstances, proceed not from
the individual's free judgment, but from the wisdom of
the legislator which has received embodiment in the laws.
III. THAT THE GOOD LIFE FOR
THE CITIZEN MUST BE PRESCRIBED
BY THE LEGISLATOR
Virtues of Character and Virtues of Intellect. We
are now in a position to give Aristotle's answer to the
second of our questions, namely, how is the happy life,
that is to say, the life which is lived in accordance with
the mean, to be achieved? Once again the answer is
strongly reminiscent of Plato. It begins by introducing
a distinction between two sorts of virtues, or excellences,
namely, virtues of character and virtues of intellect.
Aristotle's distinction brings us back to the discussion on
an earlier page of the two problems which ethics is called
upon to consider, the problem, namely, of finding
what our duty is, and the problem of doing it. In
out
the
course of that discussion I pointed out 1 that Socrates's
doctrine that virtue is
only
knowledge takes into account
the first of these problems, and it is with the
deliberate intention of correcting Socrates's somewhat
1 See Chapter II, pp. 46 and 51.