Plutarch shares the view of
Hellenistic philosophers that philosophy is a way of life. He is much concerned
to advocate the life according to Plato, and to show that such life is possible
and indeed happy (Adv. Col. 1107E, Non posse suaviter vivi 1086C-D). He
criticizes Stoics and Epicureans for proposing misguided ethical ideals (e.g.
An recte dictum sit latenter esse vivendum 1129F-1130E). Plutarch's strong
concern with ethics is reflected also in his Lives, which focus on the
character of a historical figure. Central to these is how man's nature (physis)
can be educated so that a certain state of character is formed (êthos; Pericles
38, Alcibiades 2.1, De sera 551E-F, 552C-D; Russell 1973, 105-106, 117).
Plutarch's especially strong interest in ethics among the sub-fields of
philosophy is characteristic of his age. The two most prominent of Plutarch's
Stoic contemporaries or near-contemporaries, Epictetus and Seneca, devote most
of their attention in their writings to ethics, and this is the case also with
the Peripatetic Aristocles of Messene (1st c. CE?), the author of some eight
books on ethics (Suda s.v. Aristocles). To some extent, this especially strong
interest in ethics goes back to Antiochus (1st c. BCE). Plutarch and the
Peripatetic Aristocles identify ethical formation as the ultimate goal of
philosophy, yet Plutarch at least differs from Antiochus in that he founds his
ethics on metaphysics, largely based on his interpretation of the Timaeus
outlined above (sect. 4.1). It is because Plutarch maintains the existence of
an intelligible world, which has shaped the sensible world including humans,
that he rejects the ethics of both Stoics and Epicureans. On the basis of the
Phaedrus and the Timaeus, Plutarch maintains that both the human intellect and
the human soul stem from the intelligible realm, the indivisible and the
divisible being respectively, which shapes our human nature accordingly (cf.
Plat. Quest. 1001C).
Plutarch argues that the
crucial difference between the Platonic and the Stoic understanding of virtue
is grounded in their different conceptions of soul as the source of human
agency (De virtute morali 441C-E). While for the Stoics soul is reason only, Plutarch
defends the conception of soul outlined in the Republic (esp. book 4), which
presents the soul as consisting of rational and non-rational parts. As
explained above (sect. 4), this fits well with Plutarch's interpretation of the
creation of the world, according to which the pre-cosmic non-rational world
soul is informed by the reason (logos) of the divine demiurge, yet this is not
sufficient to eliminate its natural non-rationality. The non-rational aspect of
the human soul accounts for emotions and bodily desires (Opsomer 1994, 41). In
fact, however, Plutarch does not lump together bodily desires and emotions as
constituting an undifferentiated non-rational part. Given the theory of
Republic 4, Plutarch distinguishes spirit, as responsible for emotions, from
appetite, which is responsible for bodily desires. But he classes them together
to the extent that both are dependent upon reason, sensitive to, and nurtured
by, it (De virtute morali 443C-D; Plat. Quest. 1008A-B). Plutarch describes
virtue (without mentioning appetite) as the state in which reason succeeds in
managing emotion and drives it in the right direction (De virtute morali
443B-D, 444B-C, 451C-E), while vice arises when emotion is not properly
informed by reason (443D). Plutarch defines virtue as the state in which
emotion is present as matter and reason as form (440D), a definition inspired
by Nicomachean Ethics 1104b13–30 (cf. Aspasius, In Ethica Nicomachea 42.20–25).
Plutarch's definition of virtue matches his account of how the world came into
being, when matter was informed by reason. As with the world soul, similarly
with the human soul in Plutarch's view, the impact of reason is possible
because the soul, or part thereof, can heed what reason dictates.
Interestingly, Plutarch does
not refer to the Timaeus to support his theory of the tripartite soul, but
rather to Aristotle (De virtute morali 442B-C), whom Plutarch, like most
ancient and modern commentators, recognizes as adopting essential aspects of
Plato's doctrine. The essential feature that Aristotle shares with Plato is the
belief in rational and non-rational aspects of the soul. This accounts for
unself-controlled actions that, Plutarch thinks, prove how mistaken is the
Stoic conception of human agency as deriving from reason alone. Plutarch also
relies largely on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics with regard to the nature of
virtue. He describes virtue as being an extreme of excellence (akrotês), which
however lies in a mean, determined by reason, between two opposite emotions (De
virtute morali 443D-444D; Nicomachean Ethics 1107a6-8). Plutarch argues that
there can be no virtue without some emotion. Without some amount of fear,
Plutarch contends, there can be no courage, for instance (De virtute morali
451E-452A); courage, he claims, is the virtue that one acquires when, in a
state of fear, one manages to subordinate fear to a goal set by reason, such as
fighting for one's country; in this sense, emotion is an ally to reason in
constituting virtue (cf. De tranq. animi 471D). Plutarch suggests this
specifically in the case of anger becoming bravery (De ira fr. 148 Sandbach).
Anger, when moderated and guided by reason, can also motivate reasonable and
due vengeance (De sera 551A-B).
Since virtue is the state
(hexis 443D) in which emotion is guided by reason, it follows that virtue
requires training in how to make emotion right. Plutarch devotes an entire
treatise to that subject (De profectibus in virtute). He defends, against the
Stoics, the view that progress in virtue is possible (ignoring the relevant
views of Epictetus, Dissertations I.4 and Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 75.8).
Education in virtue can be provided by parents and teachers, by the example of
the virtuous actions of the people around us (De communibus notitiis 1069A), by
the law of the cities (De virtute morali 452D), and also by philosophy, poetry
and history (De profectibus 79B-80B). Plutarch tries indeed to offer such an
education in virtue through his writings that have practical orientation, such
as On the Control of Anger, On Curiosity, How Could you Tell a Flatterer from a
Friend, Precepts of Marriage, To an Uneducated Ruler (see Van Hoof 2010), which
are similar in spirit with the works of Philodemus On Property Management, On
the Good Ruler according to Homer and Seneca's Letters to Lucilius. Plutarch
maintains that the pervasion of emotion by reason should be thorough, which is
why he claims that the temperate person is less virtuous than the practically
wise one (phronimos), who does the good without wavering (De virtute morali
445C-D; cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1151b23–1152a3), as a temperate person might. To
the extent that virtue reflects the operation of reason in the human soul,
which is capable of following reason, virtue, Plutarch argues, is natural to
us. He argues that nature itself attracts us (oikeiousa) to things which are
natural for us to strive for, but these include also life, health, beauty,
which Plutarch considers as completing happiness (symplêrotika, De communibus
notitiis 1060B-E). Plutarch censures the Stoics because they argue that the
final human end is to live in accordance with nature, but, he claims, they
contradict themselves when they admit only virtue as being good, neglecting all
other things which are, by everyone's admission, good for us, such as health.
Plutarch, like Antiochus, maintains that the human final end includes the
satisfaction of primary demands of the body, a doctrine Plutarch finds in
Aristotle, Xenocrates and Polemo (De communibus notitiis 1069E-F).
This, however, is not the only
conception of happiness that Plutarch advocates. While he argues against the
Stoics that a life of thinking only, devoid of all affection, cannot be happy
(De tranq. animi 468D), he also defends an alternative end for human life,
which consists in a life of theoria (an Aristotelian term meaning contemplative
knowing) or, in Plutarch's words, epopteia (a religious term referring to the
final vision achieved in initation ceremonies for mystery religions; De Iside
382D-E; cf. Quaestiones Convivales 718d). Formally, the end that Plutarch
advocates for human beings is, as he says, a life similar to god (De sera
550D-E). This end is suggested in the several eschatological stories found in
Plutarch's work, which suggest that a human being can transcend the sensible
world and become united with the divine (see Alt 1993, 185–204). This doctrine,
which has its roots in the Phaedo, the Theaetetus and Republic X, is again to
be understood against Plutarch's interpretation of the cosmogony of the
Timaeus. The “younger gods” of the Timaeus imitate the demiurge in constructing
human beings' and the other animals' bodies and souls (40b-d, 42e), and this is
also the case with nature, which strives to imitate the creator and become like
him (De facie 944; Helmig 2005, 21–23). This assimilation with god (homoiôsis)
amounts to the complete domination of the intelligible aspect of humans over
the sensible one. Humans are invited to follow the cosmic example and in this
sense to live in accordance with nature too. To achieve this, one should let
his intellect rule and get beyond having any emotions. This amounts to having
and exercising theoretical virtue alone, which pertains to the intellect (Non
posse suaviter vivi 1092E). The practical virtues that pertain to the embodied
soul are achieved, according to Plutarch, through the subordination of emotion
to reason (Tyrwitt frs. p. 68 Sandbach). Plutarch's distinction between a life
of happiness through theorizing or contemplation and a practical life of
happiness is made in his On Moral Virtue, apparently inspired by the relevant
Aristotelian distinction in Nicomachean Ethics. Plutarch suggests that his
theoretical ideal does not only require a distinct kind of virtue but also
determines a distinct kind of happiness. In this Plutarch anticipates Plotinus'
distinction of two kinds of ethical life, a political and a theoretical one.
For Plutarch, however, the theoretical ideal of the philosopher involves a
political dimension too, which is to help their fellow citizens and the city
with his reasoning, as is suggested in the Republic, and he criticizes both
Stoics and Epicureans for refusing to engage in politics (De Stoic. rep.
1033A–1034C, Adv. Col. 1126B–1127E, Ad Princ. Inerud. 780C–F).
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