Notes on Ethics: Ancient Greek Morality, Hedonism
Ethics (or moral philosophy) is the study of moral goodness,
duties, obligations, values--for example, whether they are absolute or
relative--and the reason to be moral at all.
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Ancient Greek Morality: For most Greeks the question "Why be moral?''
is at the heart of morality: one is moral because of the good it yields.
However, Socrates and Plato change the focus of the question to "What is
moral?'' and then assume that if we know what is good that will be enough
to indicate that we should act morally.
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Thrasymachus: morality is the rules or conventions imposed on others
by those in power for their own benefit. Being immoral is to one's
advantage. That is, being immoral does not necessarily make one unhappy.
Glaucon and Adeimantus: Being moral is beneficial to one; but if one could
be immoral without suffering, one would be a fool not to be immoral (Gyges
ring). Even giving the appearance of morality is better than actually
acting morally.
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Socrates and Plato: the good consequences of being moral
are not what make actions good; rather, actions have good consequences
because they are good in themselves (and ought to be done for that reason
alone). Immorality is due to ignorance of the good.
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Egoism: Every act is motivated by self-interest.
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Plato: no one ever acts knowingly against his/her self-interest.
In this regard, he is like Thrasymachus, except Thrasymachus believed that
it is not in one's self-interest to act morally. For Socrates, this
creates an opposition between the interests of the individual and society.
The purpose of Plato's Republic is to show how the two can be reconciled.
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Thomas Hobbes argues that no one ever acts other than to promote
his/her own self-interest. [This rules out the possibility of sacrificing
our own interests in the name of the interests of others (altruism).]
If altruism is impossible, then it cannot be a moral duty.
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This last point invokes a particular rule noted by Hume: "ought implies
can." No one can be under a moral obligation to do something which
he or she cannot be able to do. Morality presumes freedom.
Objection: Is there any way to show that Hobbes' egoism (and
dismissal of the possibility of altruism) is false? That is, he does
not seem to allow for the possibility of refuting his theory, and in that
sense his theory fails Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion of what makes
a theory scientific. A better response on Hobbes' part might be to
note how self-interest drives behavior more often than is admitted, and
then to give empirical evidence to back that claim up.