Читать книгу Ethics - Джон Дьюи - Страница 53

Convention versus Nature.—The Hebrew moral life was developed under the relation, first of the people, then of the individuals, to God—a relation at once of union and of conflict. It was out of the relation of the individual to social traditions and political order that the Greek came to full consciousness of moral law on the one hand, and a moral personality on the other. And just as in Jewish life the law and the prophets (or, later, the "law and the gospel") stood for the conflicting forces, so in Greek life the opposition between the authority of the group, embodied in custom and institutions, on the one hand, and the urging claims of developing personality, manifest in both intelligence and desire, on the other, found expression in contrasted terms. The authority of the group embodied in customs and institutions, came to be regarded by the radicals as relatively external, artificial, and rigid. It was dubbed "convention," or "institution" (thesis, what is set up). The rapidly developing intelligence challenged the merely customary and traditional; the increasing individuality challenged the superior authority of the group, especially when this manifested itself apparently in a government of force. Personal intelligence and personal feeling asserted a more elemental claim, felt themselves rooted in a more original source, and called this source "nature" (physis). Social tradition and authority, individual reason and feeling, thus confronted each other as "convention" and "nature." It was a struggle which has its analogy in the development of many a young man or young woman who is emerging from parental control to self-direction. But in Greek life more distinctly than elsewhere we see the steps of the process as a civic and not merely an individual development. Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides presented this conflict of the individual with law or destiny as the great, oft-repeated tragedy of human life. Aristophanes mocked with bitter satire the "new" views. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cynics, Cyrenaics, Epicureans, and Stoics took part in the theoretical discussions.

Measure.—The fundamental note of all Greek life, before, during, and after this development, was Measure, Order, Proportion. This note found expression in religion, science, art, and conduct. Among their gods, the Greeks set Moira, "Destiny," and Themis, "Custom," "Law," "Right." They found order in the universe, which on this account they called the "cosmos." They expressed it in their arts, especially in architecture, sculpture, the choral dance, and the more highly developed tragedy or lyric:

"And all life is full of them [of form and measure]," says Plato, "as well as every constructive and creative art. And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them—weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable—in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace; and if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim?"

The best people, the "gentlemen," were styled kaloika-gathoi—"fair and good." The motto at the Delphic shrine was, "Nothing in excess." Insolent disregard of propriety, "hybris," was the quality most denounced by the early moralizing poets. Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, the three special subjects of divine punishment, suffered the penalty of insatiate desire, or limits overstepped. And after criticism and individualism had done their work, Plato's conception of justice, Aristotle's doctrine of the "mean," the Stoic maxim of "life according to nature," have but discovered a deeper significance for the fundamental law of Greek life.

The Good and the Just.—The conceptions of the Good and the Just are developed from the two notes just presented. The motive for challenge to established institutions was the awakening desire of the individual to seek his own good and to live his own life. Commerce was bringing a great variety of rewards to the shrewd merchant and a great variety of goods to evoke and gratify wants. Slavery set free the citizen from the need of manual labor and gave him leisure to cultivate his tastes. The forces of individualism, described in Chapter V., were all at work to bring the process and object of desire to consciousness. Moreover, the term "good" was also in use to mark the popular ideal. It was applied to what we should call the "successful" men of the day. In present life our term "good" has become so definitely moral that probably most young persons would hesitate to say that they have it as their ideal to become good, although few would hesitate to say that they wish to be capable and successful. For social and political recognition seems to be based rather on achievement of striking results than upon what is technically called "goodness." But in Greece moral goodness was not used to designate "character" as contrasted with "results." The "good man" was like the "good lawyer" or "good athlete" or "good soldier," the man who was efficient and conspicuous. It was in the process which we are to trace that the ambiguities and deeper meanings of the term came to definition.

The terms Just and Justice were not of course merely synonyms for order and measure. They had likewise the social significance coming from the courts and the assembly. They stood for the control side of life, as Good stood for its aspect of valuation and desire. But as compared with the Hebrew conception of righteousness, they meant much less a conformity to a law divine or human which had been already set up as standard, and much more, an ordering, a regulating, a harmonizing. The rational element of measure or order was more prominent than the personal note of authority. Hence we shall find Plato passing easily back and forth between justice or order in the individual and justice or order in the State. On the other hand, the radicals of the day could seize upon the legal usage and declare that Justice or the Law was purely a matter of self-interest or class interest.