ABSTRACT
One function of the concept of the spirited element of the soul in Plato’s theory is to isolate a type of motivation held to underly common moral attitudes. Now it has been usual for societies to give considerable importance to considerations of justice, truthfulness, loyalty, courage and the like, and to speak of the combination of these as constituting human excellence and making a good man. There have, to be sure, been variations between society and society. Some give more emphasis to one virtue than another, and they vary in the details of the behaviour commended. Still it is plausible to suppose both that there is a similar general pattern and that it reflects a single recurrent ideal. We seem, then, to have a phenomenon to discuss. Further, there are various possible ‘accounts’ which can be persuasively presented to explain our admiration of the good man, or why we do/should accept the standards of morality, which confirm our hunch that we have a single complex ideal, not a set. It can, for instance, plausibly be made out that the observance of standards of truthfulness, kindness, justice, honesty and the rest make for a happier community, and that we all tend to become doubtful about a practice if it becomes clear that it does not have this tendency, or has the opposite one. Thus we have become doubtful about many norms concerning both sexual matters and punishment as evidence has accumulated that the observance of these norms either has no tendency to further happiness or a tendency to lessen it. This particular example seems to offer a principle underlying moral dispute and argument, and it comes up against the difficulty that moral standards seem to be looked upon as in some way absolute. It seems objectionable to suggest that they are hypothetical, that we should be honest only if honesty leads to general happiness. We should surely be honest not because of the consequences, but because it is right to be honest. Now this can only be a problem for someone who is hoping that his utilitar-ian principle will yield the same results as common morality, even if it also brings order into what otherwise seems chaotic. Granted someone has that hope, then he has to explain the apparent absoluteness of moral rules in a way that allows that their ‘point’ is still utilitarian. Thus Nowell-Smith (1954) appeals to the fact that the purpose of the rules has a very complex relationship to the rules, but that it is nevertheless important that the rules be taught at an age when people do not have the intellectual ability to understand how they serve their point, or even in any detail what the point is. They have therefore to be taught dogmatically, and consequently ‘it is wrong to kick people who have kicked you’ will not be accompanied by any explanation and will be viewed as having some special authority, as being categorical rather than hypothetical.
