Practical Wisdom

“The justice that seeks nature’s goal is a utilitarian pledge of men not to harm each other or be harmed.

Nothing is either just or unjust in the eyes of those animals that have been unable to make agreements not to harm each other or be harmed. …

Justice was never an entity in itself. It is a kind of agreement not to harm or be harmed.

It is impossible for a person who underhandedly breaks the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel sure that he will escape punishment, even though he manages to do so time after time; for up to the very end of his life he cannot be sure that he will actually escape.

In its general meaning, justice is the same for all because of its utility in the relations of men to each other, but in its specific application to countries and various other circumstances it does not follow that the same thing is just for all.

If somebody lays down a law and it does not prove to be of advantage in human relations, then such a law no longer has the true character of justice.”

(Leading Doctrines, 31-38)

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“Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole man, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.

It is the same judgment that has made us feel confident that nothing fearful is of long duration or everlasting, and that has seen personal security during our limited span of life most nearly perfected by friendship.”

(Leading Doctrines, 27-28)

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“It is necessary to take into account both the actual goal of life and the whole body of clear and distinct perceptions to which we refer our judgments. If we fail to do this, everything will be in disorder and confusion.

If you reject all sensations, you will not have any point of reference by which to judge even the ones you claim are false. …

If at any time you fail to refer each of your acts to nature’s standard, and turn off instead in some other direction when making a choice to avoid or pursue, your actions will not be consistent with your creed.”

(Leading Doctrines, 22-25)

“Bodily pleasure is not enlarged once the pains brought on by need have been done away with; it is only diversified. And the limit of mental pleasure is established by rational reflection on pleasures themselves and those kindred emotions that once instilled extreme fear in human minds.

Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than does finite time, if one determines the limits of pleasure rationally. …

One who understands the limits of the good life knows that what eliminates the pains brought on by need and what makes the whole of life perfect is easily obtained, so that there is no need for enterprises that entail the struggle for success.”

(Leading Doctrines, 18-21)

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“The pleasure or pain that accompanies someone’s deeds ought to be taken as a sign of his characteristics: he who abstains from bodily pleasures and enjoys this very abstention is moderate, but he who is vexed in doing so is licentious; he who endures terrifying things and enjoys doing so, or at any rate is not pained by it, is courageous, but he who is pained thereby is a coward. …

For moral virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains: it is on account of the pleasure involved that we do base things, and it is on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. Thus one must be brought up in a certain way straight from childhood, as Plato asserts, so as to enjoy as well as to be pained by what one ought, for this is correct education. …

That [virtue and vice] are concerned with the same things might become manifest to us also from these considerations: there being three objects of choice and three of avoidance—the noble, the advantageous, and the pleasant together with their three contraries, the shameful, the harmful, and the painful—in all these the good person is apt to be correct, the bad person to err, but especially as regards pleasure.”

(Nicomachean Ethics, 2.3)

“Ever since I was a boy I’ve always desired to acquire a certain thing. You know how different people desire different things: for example one man desires to acquire horses; another, to acquire dogs; another, gold; another, honors. I’m quite indifferent to those things, but I do passionately love acquiring friends. I’d rather get a good friend than the best quail or cock in the world. …

When I see you two, you and Lysis, I’m amazed, and think you must be very happy because, though you are so young, you’ve been able to acquire that possession quickly and easily: you’ve acquired Lysis as a friend so quickly and firmly; and he, you. Whereas I’m so far from acquiring one that I don’t even know how one man becomes the friend of another. That’s what I want to ask you about, in view of your experience.

Tell me, when a man loves someone, which is the friend of which? Is it the one who loves who is the friend of the one who is loved? Or is it the one who is loved who is the friend of the one who loves? Or is there no difference?

[After a spirited back and forth, Socrates concludes:]

Then, Menexenus, it would appear that what is loved is dear to what loves it whether it loves what loves it or whether it actually hates it. For example, some newly born children do not yet love, while others actually hate their mother or father when they are punished by them. None the less they are most dear to their parents at the time they actually hate them. …

That will mean, then, that we must allow exactly what we allowed earlier in our discussion, that a man is often the friend of what is not his friend, and often of what is actually his enemy, when he either loves what doesn’t love him, or loves what actually hates him; and that a man is often the enemy of what is not his enemy, or of what is actually his friend, when he either hates what does not hate him, or hates what actually loves him. …

‘Heavens, Socrates,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Can it be that we were not conducting our investigation properly at all, Menexenus?, I asked.”

(Lysis, 211d-213d)

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“The simplest means of procuring protection from other men (which is gained to a certain extent by deterrent force) is the security of quiet solitude and withdrawal from the mass of people. …

Nature’s wealth is restricted and easily won, while that of empty convention runs on to infinity. …

Bad luck strikes the sophisticated man in a few cases, but reason has directed the big, essential things, and for the duration of life it is and will be the guide.”

(Leading Doctrines, 14, 15, and 16)

“Who is it, then, that has fitted this to that and that to this? And who is it that has fitted the sword to the scabbard, and the scabbard to the sword? No one? Assuredly from the very structure of all made objects we are accustomed to prove that the work is certainly the product of some artificer, and has not been constructed at random. …

And the male and the female, and the passion of each for intercourse with the other, and the faculty which makes use of the organs which have been constructed for this purpose, do these things not reveal their artificer either? …

Else let them explain to us what it is that produces each of these results, or how it is possible that objects so wonderful and so workmanlike should come into being at random and spontaneously.”

(Discourses, 1.6)

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“This is the effect of philosophy, which is the medicine of our souls: it banishes all groundless apprehensions, frees us from desires, and drives away fears: but it has not the same influence over all people; it is of very great influence when it falls in with a disposition well adapted to it. …

For how few philosophers will you meet with, whose life and manners are conformable to the dictates of reason! who look on their profession, not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their own practice! who follow their own precepts, and comply with their own decrees. …

For just as if one who professed to teach grammar should speak with impropriety, or a master of music sing out of tune, such conduct has the worst appearance in these people, because they blunder in the very particular with which they profess that they are well acquainted. So philosophers who err in the conduct of their life are the more infamous because they are erring in the very thing which they pretend to teach, and, while they lay down rules to regulate life by, they are irregular in their own life.”

(Tusculan Disputations, 2.4)

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“Now, since the present subject is taken up, not for the sake of contemplation, as are others—for we are conducting an examination, not so that we may know what virtue is, but so that we may become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it—it is necessary to examine matters pertaining to actions, that is, how one ought to perform them. For these actions have authoritative control over what sorts of characteristics come into being, just as we have said. …

This, then, is the first thing that must be contemplated. Such things [as the virtues] are naturally destroyed through deficiency and excess, just as we see in the case of strength and health. …

Excessive as well as deficient gymnastic exercises destroy strength, and, similarly, both drink and food destroy health as they increase or decrease in quantity, whereas the proportionate amounts create, increase, and preserve health. So it is too with moderation, courage, and the other virtues: he who avoids and fears all things and endures nothing becomes a coward, and he who generally fears nothing but advances toward all things becomes reckless. Similarly, he who enjoys every pleasure and abstains from none becomes licentious; but he who avoids every pleasure, as the boorish do, is a sort of insensible person. Moderation and courage are indeed destroyed by excess and deficiency, but they are preserved by the mean.

Strength comes into being as a result of taking much nourishment and enduring many exertions, and he who is strong would especially be able to do just these things. So too in the case of the virtues, for as a result of abstaining from pleasures, we become moderate; and by so becoming, we are especially able to abstain from them. Similar is the case of courage as well: by being habituated to disdain frightening things and to endure them, we become courageous, and by so becoming, we will be especially able to endure frightening things.”

(Nicomachean Ethics, 2.2)