ABSTRACT
Ethics has always been a happy hunting-ground for sceptics and relativists alike. Genuine scepticism is incompatible with relativism, however (Chapter II, 15);1 and, since relativists and Sceptics both appeal to precisely the same facts in order to ground their different conclusions, it is important not to confound the two stances. This chapter, then, seeks to limn the distinctive outlines of ethical Pyrrhonism. There are three principal texts: the Tenth Mode2 of Scepticism, elaborated at PH 1 145-63, deferred from Chapter IX; the chapter entitled ‘Concerning things Good, Bad, and Indifferent’ (PH 3 168-238); and the parallel passage of M 11, 42-167.3
The Tenth Mode
(1) The Tenth Mode, which is particularly concerned with ethical matters, is that to do with ways of life, customs, laws, mythical beliefs and dogmatic suppositions. A way of life is a choice of lifestyle, or of some action, made by one person or many, as for instance by Diogenes or the Spartans. (2) A law is a written agreement between citizens, the transgressor of which is punished. (3) A custom or ordinary usage (sunetheia) (there is no difference between them), is the common acceptance by many people of some mode of conduct, the transgressor of which is not invariably punished: for example adultery is illegal, but it is merely the custom among us not to have sex with a woman in public. (4) Mythical belief is the acceptance of things that did not happen and which are fictional, like the stories told of Cronus, among others, which many people are led to believe. (5) Dogmatic supposition is the acceptance of something which seems to be established by analogism, or some demonstration, e.g. that the elements of things are atoms, or homoeomeries, or minimal parts, or something else. (6) We oppose each of these sometimes to itself, sometimes to each of the others. (313: PH 1 145-7,=72K LS [part])
Diogenes presents the same list of categories, albeit in more truncated form. Philo mentions only ‘ways of life, traditional customs, and ancient laws’ (Ebr. 193; cf. 195); but he refers to ‘discordant dogmas’ in ibid. 198, which presumably answers to (5). However, he makes a clear break between (1)–(3) and (5), as though they belonged to separate Modes (Philo does not number them). Moreover, the examples Sextus gives of (5), drawn as they are from natural science (cf. PH 1151: ‘some declare there is only one element, others that they are infinite in number’), seem out of place in an Ethical Mode; and one might speculate that the Tenth Mode was originally the home for some of the
material that later became incorporated into the Eight Modes against the Aetiologists. Sextus adheres closely to the programme of 313(6). First, items from each category
will be set in opposition to one another; then items from different sets will be opposed to each other in an exhaustive fashion, yielding in all fifteen possible opposition-types. He sets about discovering ethical discrepancies with a relish bordering on the salacious: ‘while the Indians have sex with their women in public, most other peoples regard this as shameful’ (PH 1 148); and
we oppose custom to other things, e.g. law, when we say that male homosexuality is the custom among the Persians, but is proscribed by law among the Romans; and that while among us adultery is forbidden, amongst the Massagetae it is customarily regarded as a matter of indifference…and that, while among us sex with one’s mother is forbidden, among the Persians it is the general custom to make such marriages; furthermore, among the Egyptians, they marry their sisters, something forbidden by law among ourselves. And custom is opposed to way of life when most people have sex with their women in private, whereas Crates did it in public with Hipparchia. (314: PH 1 152-3,= 72K LS [part])
Sextus concludes his case as follows:
we might have brought up many other examples of the aforementioned antitheses; but these will suffice for a concise account. Having shown by means of this Mode that so much divergence exists in things, we shall be unable to say how the object is in its nature, but only how it appears in connection with this way of life, or that law, or that custom (and so on with each of the others). And because of this Mode we are forced to suspend judgement about the nature of the external objects. (315: PH 1 163,=72K DL [part])
Diogenes’ treatment is sketchy-he makes no attempt to collect instances of all fifteen types of dispute, but merely mentions a few of the juicier cases, before concluding, baldly: ‘hence epochē as to what is true’ (DL 9 84). Philo is rather more interesting. He confines himself to generalities:
depending on country, or nation, or city, indeed even on village or particular home, men, women, and children have different views, for instance what is ignoble to us is noble to others, and similarly with what is becoming and unbecoming, just and unjust, impious and pious, legal and illegal; and further with what is blamed and praised, penalized and rewarded, and with other cases where they hold opposing views. (316: Philo, Ebr. 193-4)
Indeed, if one were to attempt to compile an exhaustive comparative anthropology of differing ways of life, customs, and laws,
he would waste not just a day or two, or even a month or a year, but his whole
life, even if it were a long one; and even so he would unwittingly leave many matters unexamined, unconsidered, and unmentioned. (317: Philo, Ebr. 195)
Moreover,
since among these different people these things are not just slightly different but utterly discordant, so as to compete and conflict, necessarily the appearances experienced will differ and judgements conflict. This being the case, who is so senseless and idiotic as to maintain steadfastly that such-and-such is just, or sensible, or fine, or advantageous? Whatever one person determines to be such will be nullified by someone else whose practice from infancy has been the opposite. (318: Philo, Ebr. 196-7)
Philo implicitly adopts the basic argument-form [A] (Chapter XI, 156). But he adds a further argument which shows that he is sensitive to the objection that not all opinions are to be given equal weight. After all, a believer in moral progress might take evaluative disagreement simply to show that some people were more ethically advanced than others. But
I myself am not at all surprised if the unstable and diverse mob… should believe whatever has been handed down to them, or if, having left their minds unexercised, they should come out with assertions and denials which are unexamined and untested. But I am surprised that the majority of the so-called philosophers, who profess to track down the clarity and truth in things, are divided into different armies and camps, and propound dogmas that are discordant…not on some trivial point, but on virtually everything, important or otherwise, with which their investigations are concerned. (319: Philo, Ebr. 198)
Disputes and disagreements are only to be expected among the ignorant and unreflective-but when they are endemic even among the alleged experts we may infer that no agreement is possible (or, more modestly, that there is no current prospect for agreement). Philo is surely onto something here-if ‘experts’ are at loggerheads even about decision procedures for their disputes, the prospects for arriving at the truth seem dim indeed.
