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

CHAPTER I: THE PROBLEM STATED
SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
The Common Conclusion of Greek Thought. For
the Greeks, ethics and politics were two aspects of a
single enquiry. It was the business of ethics to prescribe
the good life. for the individual; it was the business of
politics to detenfcinc the nature of the community in which
the good life as prescribed by ethics could be lived. The
raison d'ftrt of politics, in other words, was to be found in an
end beyond itself, an end which was ethical. The end was,
however, one which could only be realized in an environment
whose nature it was the purpose of politics to discover.
This conclusion was common to Plato1 and to Aristotle1 . It
at once the common and distinctive conclusion
is,- indeed,
of all the Greek philosophers who concerned themselves
with these questions. The purpose of this and the following
chapters is to indicate the reasoning which led to it.
That Society is Based on a Compact Our most
convenient starting point is afforded by the speeches
delivered by Glaucon and Adeimantus in die second book
of Plato's Republic. Their avowed is purpose to show that
what is called morality is in no way intrinsically superior to
immorality. People, they affirm, are moral as a result not of
conviction, but of convention. They act morally, that is to
say, either because they fear the consequences of acting
immorally, or because they desire the esteem with which the
community has taken care to reward those who behave in
a manner which is conducive to its advantage. In other
words, it is the reputation not the reality ofgoodness that is
desired, for nobody ever does right simply because it is right.
1 4^7-346 B.C. '384-382 B.C.