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

CHAPTER II: THE ETHICS OF
SOCRATES AND PLATO
The Double Problem of Ethics. In order to answer
the question with which the last chapter concluded and
the answer, as always in Plato's thought, is, broadly speaking,
the same for the individual as it is for the community
we must again retrace our steps and give some account
of Socrates's ethical theory, of which Plato's is a developed
version. Socrates's ethical position is summed up in a
celebrated aphorism which asserts simply that virtue is
knowledge, or is a form of knowledge. A man, in Socrates's
in order to desire
view, had only to know what was good
it and to pursue it. Hence evil is a form of ignorance; the
bad man is he who does not know what the good is.
Now ethics, as I shall have occasion in the course of
subsequent discussions to point out, is not an exact science.
There are no experts in ethics to whom to refer for instruction
and information, no precise standards by which to
measure good and bad. For an answer to ethical questions
our best course is to refer to the moral consciousness of
ordinary men and women in order to find what its deliverances
are, and 'then to reflect upon their implications.
With a view to throwing into relief the peculiarity of
Socrates's position, it will be useful to adopt this course now.
The moral consciousness of mankind seems to have been
fairly unanimous in reporting that the ethical problem
which confronts human beings is a double one. There is
the problem, first, of knowing what your duty is, and the
problem, secondly, of doing what you know to be your
duty* The first may be called the problem of insight,
the second, the problem of will. Now there cannot, I
think, be any doubt that in the ordinary course of daily
life both these problems do in fact frequently arise.