Philosophy 190: Plato
Fall, 2014
Prof. Peter Hadreas
Course website:
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/peter.hadreas
/courses/Plato
PLATO:
HIPPARCHUS
1
HIPPARCHUS
FIRST DIALECTICAL ARGUMENT
“SOCRATES: What is greed? What can it be, and who are
greedy people?
FRIEND: In my opinion, they’re the ones who think it’s a
good idea to profit from thing of no value.
SOCRATES: Do you think they know these things are of no value, or do
they not know. For if they don’t know, you mean greedy people are
stupid.
FRIEND: No, I don’t know they’re stupid. What I mean is this: they’re
unscrupulous and wicked people who are overcome by profit, knowing
that the things which they dare to profit are of no value;1 yet their
shamelessness makes them dare to be greedy.
_______________
1. have no use value, but recognize they have exchange value?
2
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: So, then, do you mean that the greedy person is,
for example, like a farmer who plants, knowing that his plant
is of no value, and thinks it’s a good idea to profit from the
plant when fully grown?2
FRIEND: The greedy person, at any rate, Socrates, thinks he ought to profit
from everything.
SOCRATES: Don’t let me make you give in like that, as if you had somehow
been tricked by something; pay attention and answer as if I were asking
again from the beginning. Don’t you agree that the greedy person knows
about the value of the thing from which he thinks it is a good idea to profit?
FRIEND: I do.
__________________
2. Perhaps Socrates is presuming that seedling has no or little exchange value but will
have exchange value when fully grown.
3
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: So who knows about the value of plants, in what
seasons and soils it’s a good idea to plant them – if we may
throw in one of those clever phrases with which legal experts
beautify their speeches?1
FRIEND: The farmer, I think.
SOCRATES: By “thinking it’s a good idea to profit” do you mean anything
but thinking one ought to profit?”2
FRIEND: That’s what I mean.
__________________
1. The Greek words for ‘seasons and soils’ rhyme.
2. Socrates ahs not captured the friend’s meaning. Socrates has said, “the greedy
person knows about the value of the thing from which he thinks it is a good idea to
profit?” This must mean the greedy person know the exchange value of what he
thinks it is a good idea to profit. D/he doesn’t care about its use value
4
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: Well then, don’t try to deceive me – I’m already
an old man and you’re so very young – by answering as you
did just right now, saying what you yourself don’t think; tell
the truth.1 Do you think there is any man who takes up
farming, and expects to profit from planting crops that he
know to be of no value?
FRIEND: By, Zeus, I don’t!
SOCRATES: Well then, do you think that a horseman who knowingly gives
his horse food that is of no value2 is unaware that he is harming his horse?
FRIEND: I don’t.
SOCRATES: So he doesn’t expect to profit from food that has no value.
FRIEND: No.
__________________
1. In a sense Socrates, it right to caution the friend to say what he thinks. The friend,
however, isn’t intentionally deceiving Socrates, he’s just led to conclusions he doesn’t
believe by confusing use and exchange value.
2. The food has use value for the horse and but negligible exchange value since the
horse consumes it.
5
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: Well then, do you think a ship’s captain who has
rigged his ship with sails and rudders that are of no value1 is
unaware that he will suffer loss, and risks being lost himself
and losing and all it carries?
FRIEND: No, I don’t.
SOCRATES: So he doesn’t expect to profit2 from equipment that has no
value.
FRIEND: Not at all.
__________________
1.” . . . sails and rudders that are of no value” means here have no use value and as a
result the cargo in effect has no exchange value.
2. A somewhat more complicated case than farming and horse-raising because the
exchange value of the cargo depends upon the use value of the ship’s equipment.
Before it was just a simple confusion of use value with exchange value.
6
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: Or does a general who knows that his army has
arms that are of no value expect to profit, or expect it’s a good
idea to profit from them?1
FRIEND: Certainly not
SOCRATES: Or does a flute-player who has flutes that are of no value, or a
lyre-player with a lyre, or an archer with a bow, or, in short, does any other
craftsman, or any other sensible man who has worthless tools,2 or any other
sort of equipment, expect to profit from them?
FRIEND: Obviously not.
__________________
1. Yet a more complicated case. Here the use value of the army is dependent upon the
use value of its arms. Socrates stretches the use of the term ‘profit.’ Only makes sense
if it is a army whose victory is easily understood as money-making.
2. In the case of flutes, lyres, bows, etc., exchange and use of flute-playing, lyreplaying, archery is dependent upon the use value of the flutes, lyre, bows, etc.
7
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: Then who do you say the greedy people are? For
surely the ones just mentioned are not the ones who expect to
profit from what they know has no value. But in that case, my
wonderful friend, there aren’t any greedy people at all,
according to what you say.1
SECOND DIALECTICAL ARGUMENT
FRIEND: What I mean, Socrates, is this: greedy people are
those whose greed gives them an insatiable desire2 to profit even
even from things that are actually quite petty, and of little value.
_________________
1. Socrates conclusion is correct but only insofar as the friend has failed to see the
dependency of exchange value, in the cases Socrates introduces, upon use value.
Socrates has succeeded in showing that his friend doesn’t know how to define greedy
people.
2. Note how the friend’s definition has moved from the value of things to human
desires.
8
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: Not, of course knowing that they are of no value,
my very good friend; for we have just proved to ourselves in
our argument that this is impossible.
FRIEND: I believe so.
SOCRATES: And if they don’t know this, plainly they’re ignorant of it,
thinking instead that the things of no value are very valuable.
FRIEND: Apparently.
SOCRATES: Now, of course, greedy people love to make a profit.
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And by profit, you mean the opposite of loss?
FRIEND: I do.
SOCRATES: Is there anyone for whom it is a good thing to suffer loss?
FRIEND: No one.
SOCRATES: It’s a bad thing?
9
HIPPARCHUS
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: So people are harmed by loss?
FRIEND: Yes, harmed
SOCRATES: So loss is bad?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And profit is the opposite of loss.1
FRIEND: Yes, the opposite.
SOCRATES: So, profit is good?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: So it is those who love the good whom, you call greedy.
FRIEND: So it seems.
SOCRATES: Well, my friend, at least you don’t call greedy people lunatics.2 But you
yourself, do you or don’t you love what’s good?
_________________________
1. Socrates has gotten the friend to confuse, ‘loss’ in the sense of a monetary, or at
least material loss, with losses in general. There are ‘personal losses,’ losses of a loved
one, losses of reputation, losses of health, whose opposite is surely not profit.
2. Socrates points to the previous argument in which the friend has been led to the
view that greedy people want something that has no value.
11
HIPPARCHUS
FRIEND: I do.
SOCRATES: Is there something good that you don’t love? Or
something bad that you do?
FRIEND: By Zeus, no!
SOCRATES: So presumably you love all good things?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And you can ask me, too, if I’m not the same; for I will also
agree with you that I love good things. But besides you and me, don’t you
believe that all other people love what’s good and hate what’s bad?
FRIEND: So it appears to me.
SOCRATES: And we agreed that profit is good.1
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And you can ask me, too, if I’m not the same; for I will also agree with
you that I love good things. Bu besides you and me, don’t you believe that all other
people love what’s good and hate what’s bad?
FRIEND: So it appears to me.
1. Recall the truth of ‘profit is good’ depends on the confusion of different kinds of
losses [See previous slide]. But let’s not let the irony escape that at least, to those of
questionable morals, any or most profits are good.
12
HIPPARCHUS
SOCRATES: And we agreed that profit is good?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, then, in this way of looking at it, everyone
appears to be greedy; whereas, according to what we said
earlier, no one was greedy. So which of these approaches
would it be safe to rely on?
FRIEND: I think, Socrates, we have to get the right conception of the greedy
person. The right conception is that the greedy person is the one who is
concerned with and thinks it’s a good idea to profit from things which
virtuous people1 would never dare to profit from.
SOCRATES: But you see, my dear sweet fellow, that we have already agree
that to profit is to be benefited.
1. Note how the friend now introduces ‘virtuous people’ His definitions have good
from material goods, to personal desires, to virtuous people.
10
HIPPARCHUS
[Socrates proceeds to trap the friend in the previous elenchus:
whereby he confutes monetary loss with all types of loss and
gets the friend to agree that profit in general is good.]
....
SOCRATES: So you see, you’re trying to deceive me, deliberately saying the opposite
of what we just agreed to.1
FRIEND: No, by Zeus, Socrates! Quite the opposite: it’s you who’s deceiving me,2 and
turning me upside down in these argument – I don’t know how you do it!
1. Of course the friend is not intentionally deceiving anybody, except perhaps himself
because he’s not clear on what greed is.
2. Socrates is deceiving the friend and perhaps the reader who does not follow the
clues out of the puzzle. But Plato will offer clues in the section that follows as to why
deception on this matter is the norm and the way out of the labyrinth of social
prejudices requires one overturn popular beliefs in general. In particular, Plato
invites the reader to overturn popular beliefs by an absurd retelling of the origins of
Athenian democracy.
The Story of the Assassination of Hipparchus by
Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Harmodius and Aristogeiton or Aristogeíton (both died 514
BC) were two men from ancient Athens. They became
known as the Tyrannicides after they killed the Peisistratid
tyrant Hipparchus, and were the preeminent symbol of
democracy to ancient Athenians.1
1. downloaded on September 22, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
Harmodius_and_Aristogeiton
Assassination of Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Roman copies of
Harmodius and
Aristogeiton by Critios
and Nesiotes,
Naples, Museo
Archeologico Nazionale
Hymn To Aristogeiton And Harmodius*
by Edgar Allan Poe (1827)
I
Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.
II
Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home
Where Achilles and Diomed rest.
III
In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny's blood.
IV
Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!
* Translation from probably from
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Book 15,
Kaibel paragraph 50, lines 38-79.
The History of the Peloponnesian War,
by Thucydides, Richard Crawley translation
From Sixth Book, Chapter XIX.
“[§54] Indeed, the daring action of Aristogiton and Harmodius was
undertaken in consequence of a love affair, which I shall relate at some
length, to show that the Athenians are not more accurate than the rest of the
world in their accounts of their own tyrants and of the facts of their own
history. Pisistratus dying at an advanced age in possession of the tyranny,
was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias, and not Hipparchus, as is vulgarly
believed. Harmodius was then in the flower of youthful beauty, and
Aristogiton, a citizen in the middle rank of life, was his lover and possessed
him. Solicited without success by Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, Harmodius
told Aristogiton, and the enraged lover, afraid that the powerful Hipparchus
might take Harmodius by force, immediately formed a design, such as his
condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny. In the meantime
Hipparchus, after a second solicitation of Harmodius, attended with no
better success, unwilling to use violence, arranged to insult him in some
covert way.
The History of the Peloponnesian War,
by Thucydides, Richard Crawley translation
From Sixth Book, Chapter XIX.
. . . . [§56] To return to Harmodius; Hipparchus having been repulsed in
his solicitations insulted him as he had resolved, by first inviting a sister of
his, a young girl, to come and bear a basket in a certain procession, and then
rejecting her, on the plea that she had never been invited at all owing to her
unworthiness. If Harmodius was indignant at this, Aristogiton for his sake
now became more exasperated than ever; and having arranged everything
with those who were to join them in the enterprise, they only waited for the
great feast of the Panathenaea, the sole day upon which the citizens forming
part of the procession could meet together in arms without suspicion.
Aristogiton and Harmodius were to begin, but were to be supported
immediately by their accomplices against the bodyguard. The conspirators
were not many, for better security, besides which they hoped that those not
in the plot would be carried away by the example of a few daring spirits,
and use the arms in their hands to recover their liberty.
The History of the Peloponnesian War,
by Thucydides, Richard Crawley translation
From Sixth Book, Chapter XIX.
[§57] “At last the festival arrived; and Hippias with his bodyguard was
outside the city in the Ceramicus, arranging how the different parts of the
procession were to proceed. Harmodius and Aristogiton had already their
daggers and were getting ready to act, when seeing one of their accomplices
talking familiarly with Hippias, who was easy of access to every one, they
took fright, and concluded that they were discovered and on the point of
being taken; and eager if possible to be revenged first upon the man who
had wronged them and for whom they had undertaken all this risk, they
rushed, as they were, within the gates, and meeting with Hipparchus by the
Leocorium recklessly fell upon him at once, infuriated, Aristogiton by love,
and Harmodius by insult, and smote him and slew him. Aristogiton escaped
the guards at the moment, through the crowd running up, but was
afterwards taken and dispatched in no merciful way: Harmodius was killed
on the spot.”
from The Athenian Tyrannicides: Icons of a Democratic Society
by E. Kent Webb, University of Washington1
“It is then clear that the tyrant in the Athenian conscience was not a real
figure but a construction, or a product of a discourse which characterized
the tyrant as the antithesis of many of the most important Athenian values.
In this regard Hipparchos is an example of one of the most common topoi of
this discourse: the sexually wanton despot indexing his authority on the
bodies of women, daughters and boys. The individual examples are too
numerous, and perhaps too lurid, to recount here. Nevertheless, in the
tyrannicide tradition the representation of Hipparchos is perfectly
consistent with this discourse, for he not only tries to gratify his erotic
desires in spite of Harmodios' relationship with another man.”
1. delivered at conference: All for One or One for All? (Re)constructing Identity in the Ancient World,
Graduate Student Symposium, Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr
College October 17 - 18, 1997
from The Athenian Tyrannicides: Icons of a Democratic Society
by E. Kent Webb, University of Washington [continued from previous
slide]1
“But when Hipparchos is thwarted, he exercises his authority to exact a
measure of petty revenge. Thus, like all tyrants, the tyrannicide
narrative represents Hipparchos as above the laws and norms of the
polis which protected against this type of insult. To Athenians the
Peisistratid's lack of self-restraint was nothing less than a symbol of
moral and legal anarchy by virtue of the threat his absolute authority
posed to all. In effect, Hipparchos represented in sexual terms Aristotle's
later theoretical distinction between monarchy and tyranny, in that while
a king reigns to protect individual property and honor, a tyrant rules in
order to gratify his own desires.
1. delivered at conference: All for One or One for All? (Re)constructing Identity in the
Ancient World, Graduate Student Symposium, Department of Classical and Near Eastern
Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College October 17 - 18, 1997
Plato’s Absurd Retelling of the Story of the Assassination of Hipparchus
as recounted in the dialogue Hipparchus.
1. Socrates’ story miscasts Hipparchus as the older brother of Hippias.
This is in disagreement with Aristotle and Thucydides. It is extremely
unlikely that Plato had not read Thucydides’ History, available in Athens
already when Plato was in his twenties.
2. Plato makes the motivation for the assassination absurd: Aristogeiton
kills Hipparchus out of pedagogical jealousy. Hipparchus was a better
teacher than Aristogeiton. A fourth party, whose name Socrates’
strangely has forgotten, loses interest in the wisdom of Aristogeiton and
prefers Hipparchus. This somehow leads Aristogeiton and Harmodius to
be overcome by ‘this disqualification’ and to kill Hipparchus.
4. No one, except Plato in this comical account, makes the tyrant
Hipparchus into the soul of wisdom
Can We Believe that Plato Would Intentionally Misrepresent a Historical
Event?
1. In dialogues such as the Protagoras, Socrates falsely, and ridiculously,
proposes that Sparta and Crete are “the most ancient and fertile homes
of philosophy” (Protagoras, 342B,) and the Spartans “the best educated
in philosophy,” (Protagoras, 342D).
2. Socrates in the Protagoras, as suggested last week, sets up blatant
inconsistencies to shake the credulity of the reader. Recall Plato has
Socrates say, p. 767, 334D:
“Protagoras, I tend to be a forgetful sort of person, and if someone
speaks to me at length I tend to forget the subject of the speech. . . . you
will have to cut your answer short if I am to follow you.”
But this claim of Socrates is inconsistent with the frame of the dialogue.
Socrates remembers the whole of the morning’s conversation with
Protagoras. The dialogue is Socrates’ recounting the whole of the goingson between the various sophists, beginning with: “Well, here’s the
story.” p. 748, 310B
Return to Socratic Dialectic.
Socrates asks ‘the friend’ if he wants to take back anything that has been
said before:
SOCRATES: Very well, just like in a friendly game of checkers, I’m willing to let
you take back anything you want of what’s been said in the discussion, so you
won’t think you’re being deceived. So should I take this back for you, that all
men desire good things?
FRIEND: No, not that.
SOCRATES: Well, how about that profit and profiting are opposite to loss and
suffering loss.1
FRIEND: Not that either.
SOCRATES: Well, how about that profiting, as the opposite of bad, is good?
FRIEND: It’s not always good; take that back for me.2
1. This proposition clearly should be retracted, but the friend doesn’t seem to
notice. This is the proposition that Socrates will use repeatedly to arrive at what
is profitable is good. See 232A, p. 616.
2. Yes. This proposition is glaringly overreaching. But it’s for the friend to see
what’s wrong with it.
Return to Socratic Dialectic.
Socrates asks ‘the friend’ if he wants to take back anything that has been
said before:
SOCRATES: So you believe, it seems, that some profit is good and some
bad.
FRIEND: I do.
SOCRATES: All right, I’ll take this back for you; let’s say that some
profit is good and some other profit is bad. And neither one is more
profit, the good or bad. Right?
[Socrates proceeds to lead the friend to assent to profit, like food, drink,
people, may be good or bad, but they still are profit, food, drink and
people. Interesting Socrates does not take the course of saying that we
have shown that profit itself, as the opposite of loss is good. He is in a
sense playing fair. Rather he supplies a suitable definition of profit,
which, unlike before, would distinguish it from other gains which might
be thought of as opposite to loss.]
Socrates Defines Profit – Something The Friend Hasn’t Been Able to Do
SOCRATES: . . . . If you yourself are again unable to answer, consider
what I say: do you call a profit every possession that one has acquired
either by spending nothing, or by spending less and receiving more?
FRIEND: Yes, I believe I’d call that profit.
SOCRATES: Do you mean cases like this – when you are giving a feast,
spending nothing but eating your filling and getting sick?
FRIEND: By Zeus, I do not!
SOCRATES: If you become healthy from the feast, would you be
profiting or losing?
FRIEND: Profiting1
SOCRATES: So this, at least is not profit, acquiring just any possession
at all.
1. So the friend and Socrates have only a partially complete definition. It has
necessary condition of profit: “acquiring a possession by spending nothing or by
spending less and receiving more.” But as Socrates suggests it needs more
specification. It’s not about “any possession at all.” We would say it applies to
what we call ‘capital goods.’
The friend says he’s utterly stumped. Socrates curiously says yet the
friend is not unjust in his speechlessness
FRIEND: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Not if it’s bad right? But if one acquires anything good at
all, doesn’t one acquire a profit?
FRIEND: Apparently if it’s good.
SOCRATES: And if it’s bad, won’t one suffer a loss?
FRIEND: I believe so,
SOCRATES: Do you see that you are coming back again to the same
place? Profit appears to be good and loss bad.1
FRIEND: I’m a loss for what to say.2
SOCRATES: At least you’re not at an unfair loss.3 But answer this:
when one acquires more than one has spent, do you say it’s profit?
1. Socrates uses this turn of reasoning repeatedly in the Hipparchus to stump the
friend and, so we may assume, think more clearly about the subject.
2. Literally: I am in an ‘aporia’ state about what I might say. ‘Aporia’ means
impasse, difficulty of passing, lack of resources, puzzlement.
3. Literally: Not unfairly [or unjustly] are you in an ‘aporia’ state.
The Friend Hits Upon a Suitable Definition for Profit
FRIEND: And least I don’t mean when it’s bad, but if one acquires more
gold or silver than one has spent.1
SOCRATES: I’m just about to ask you that: if someone spends a half a
measure of gold and gets double that in silver, has he profited or lost?2
FRIEND: Lost, surely, Socrates, for then his gold is worth only double,
instead of twelve times as much as silver.2
SOCRATES: But still he’s acquired more; or isn’t double more than
half?
FRIEND: Not in value, at least, with silver and gold.
1. The friend has finally arrived as a workable definition of ‘profit’. Notice how
there’s been a descent from intrinsically valuable goods, to use-value goods, to
exchange-value goods, to valuable currency.
2. A standard reckoning in Plato’s day was that gold was worth twelve times as
much as silver. Since the ratio is around 68:1 today, it would suggest that either
the availability of silver has increased or gold decreased considerably.
The Friend Hits Upon a Suitable Definition for Profit but
Loses Hold of It
SOCRATES: So it looks as if we must add the notion of value to profit.
At least, now you say that silver, though there is more of it than gold, is
not as valuable, and that of gold, although there’s less is of equal value.
FRIEND: Of course for indeed that is the case.
SOCRATES: Value, then, is what brings profit, whether it’s small or
large and what has no value bring no profit.1
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And by “value,” do you mean anything other than
“valuable to possess.”
FRIEND: Yes, “valuable to possess.”
SOCRATES: Moreover, by “valuable to possess,” do you mean the
unbeneficial or the beneficial?
1. True as long as one adheres to ‘value’ as meaning ‘currency value.’ But the
friend is not clear on the distinguishing between types of goods so Socrates can
easily lead him back to his main argumentative dodge: confusing kinds of goods:
intrinsic, use, exchange and denominational.
The Friend Hits Upon a Suitable Definition for Profit but
Loses Hold of It
FRIEND: The beneficial, surely.
SOCRATES: Well, isn’t the beneficial good?
FRIEND: Yes.
SOCRATES: And so, my valiant warrior, haven’t we once again, for the
third or fourth time, come to agreement that what’s profitable is good?
FRIEND: So it seems.
SOCRATES: Do you remember the point from which this discussion
arose?
FRIEND: I think so.
SOCRATES: If not, I’ll remind you. You disagreed with me, claiming
good people do not want to make just any sort of profit, but only those
that are good ones and the wicked ones.1
1. The friend has argued as Socrates’ says at 232C6, p. 616, “Οὐκ ἀδίκως”, that
means literally ‘not unjustly.’ The friend’s original moral feeling is felt surely
‘not unjustly.’ The friend has failed to build a pathway of concepts that
illuminates why he feels outrage ‘not justly.’
Socrates Turns the Friend’s Outrage of Profit-making Back on Himself
FRIEND: Yes indeed.
SOCRATES: And doesn’t the argument now force us to agree that all
gains, small and large, are good.
FRIEND: I forces me. Socrates, rather than persuades me.1
SOCRATES: Well, perhaps later it will persuade you. But for now,
whatever condition you’re in – persuaded or not – do you at least agree
with us2 that all profits are good, both small and large.
FRIEND: I do agree.
SOCRATES: And you you agree that all virtuous people what all good
things, or not?
FRIEND: I agree.
1. But Socrates/Plato does not want to persuade. That’s the goal of rhetoric.
Socrates/Plato wants the interlocutor and reader to think as critically as possible
and ideally arrive at the most sound argument.
2. Why ‘us’? Is Socrates hinting that this is a common belief?
Socrates Turns the Friend’s Outrage about Profit-making Back on
Himself
SOCRATES: Well, now, you yourself said that wicked people love profits
both small and large.
FRIEND: I did.
SOCRATES: So according to your argument, all people would be
greedy, both the virtuous and the wicked.
FRIEND: Apparently.
SOCRATES: So, therefore, it is not a correct approach, if someone
reproaches another as being greedy – for it turns out that he who makes
this approach is greedy himself.1
1. So Socrates has turned the conversation back on to the friend, making him
greedy. Ironically, if one allows ‘greediness’ to apply not to money, but to
knowledge and truth as well – and philosophical questioning – then Socrates too
is greedy. The problem is the lack of determination of types of gain, loss, and
goods.
From Goodness to Profit
Goodness
In the Socratic Dialogues, a part of each virtue
Intrinsic goods
goods that have use-value
goods that have exchange-value
valuable currency
e. g., gold & silver
Profit: Spending nothing or spending less and receiving more of valuable
currency
Baruch de Spinoza (1632 -1677)
The philosopher, Spinoza, on confusing value in general
with the value of money.
The body and mind have a multitude of various needs and
desires. A great variety of aids are needed to satisfy these needs
and desires.
“But money has provided a convenient instrument for acquiring
all these aids. This why its image usually occupies the mind of the
multitude more than anything else. For they can hardly imagine
any species of joy without the accompanying idea of money as its
cause.”1
1. Spinoza, Benedict de, Ethics, Part IV, Appendix, XXVIII, translation by Edwin Curley.
Contemporary Practice of Thinking Ethical Issues by CostBenefit Analyses
“Attempts to reduce complex decision making to quantitative terms aren’t
uncommon, especially in a highly competitive business environment. In this
way, complex decisions can be simplified – apparently, an advantage. Today,
insurance companies and many government agencies still assign a value to
human life as they attempt to calculate the costs and benefits of new
regulations. . . .What is a life worth? Are some people’s lives “worth” more
than others because they would have had more earning potential had they
lived? Unfortunately, this kind of decision making is a part of our modern
lives. Decisions like this are made in courtrooms and by insurance companies
every day. But the potential disadvantages of reducing the value of human life
to quantitative terms should be clear. Such simplification can remove moral
criteria from the decision-making process and reduce ethical awareness.”1
1. Trevino, Linda K., and Nelson, Katherine A., Managing Business Ethics, Sixth
Edition, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), p. 103.
References to pictures used in this powerpoint
slide #2, bust of Plato: http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Plato/
slide #3, vase painting of the assassination of Hipparchos,
http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/images/05/tyrannocides.jpg
slide #4, sculpture of Harmodius and Aristogeiton: and ff., bust of Pythagoras:
http://www.quotecollection.com/image-view.php?img=protagoras-3.jpg
slide #37, portrait of Spinoza:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#mediaviewer/File:Spinoza.jpg