"You have often heard that the greatest thing to learn is the idea of good (τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα) by reference to which just things and all the rest become useful and beneficial" (Republic VI.505a).

"[T]hose who have survived the tests and approved themselves altogether the best in every task and form of knowledge must be brought at last to the goal. We shall require them to turn upwards the vision of their souls and fix their gaze on that which sheds light on all, and when they have thus beheld the good itself (τὸ ἀγαθὸν αὐτό) they shall use it as a pattern (παραδείγματι) for the right ordering of the state and the citizens and themselves throughout the remainder of their lives..." (Republic VII.539d-540a).

"Every art and every investigation, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good (ἀγαθοῦ). Hence the good is well describes as that which all things aim. ... Will not a knowledge of this good be of great importance for the conduct of life? Will it not better enable us to attain our end, like archers having a target to aim at? If so, we ought to make an attempt to determine at least in outline what the good is, and of which the sciences (ἐπιστημῶν) or capacities it is the object. Now this good seems to be the object of the most authoritative science, the one that, more than any other, is the ruling science. And the science of politics (ἡ πολιτικὴ) seems to be this science. For this science ordains which of the sciences are to exist in cities, and which ones each class in the city should learn, and how far. Again, we see that even the most highly esteemed of the capacities, such as generalship, household management, and oratory, are all subordinate to the science of politics. Further, it uses the other sciences concerned with action, and moreover lays down laws as to what people shall do and what things they shall refrain from doing" (Nicomachean Ethics I.1.1094a-b).

"Let us, then, begin again. Since all every sort of knowledge and choice is directed to the attainment of some good, what is the good which we say the aim of political science? That is, what is the highest of all the goods pursued in action? As far as the name goes, we may say that the great majority of mankind agree, since the multitude and persons of refinement say it is happiness (εὐδαιμονίαν), and suppose that living well and doing well are the same thing as being happy. What they disagree about is what happiness is" (Nicomachean Ethics I.1.1095a).

Two Perspectives on Ethics

Plato and Aristotle share what one might call a "teleological" perspective on ethics.

For Plato and Aristotle, very broadly speaking, the good is primary and defined independently of the right. The right is secondary. It is understood in terms the good. An alternative to the teleological perspective on ethics is what one might call the "deontological" perspective. On this perspective, the relationship between the good and the right is reversed. The right is prior to the good. The deontological perspective has the important consequence that it allows for pluralism about the good. It frees individuals to pursue any life that make sense to them as long as this pursuit is permitted by the right, where the right consists in principles minimally necessary to give individuals the freedom to pursue lives that they themselves understand to be good lives.

Given these two perspectives on ethics, two questions arise. One is which perspective is correct. This is a philosophical question. It is the question of the appropriateness of a single determinate conception of the good life as a basis for formulating moral and political principles, given the existence of substantive diversity and conflict about how to live.

The other question is a historical question. It is the question why the teleological perspective seems so natural to Plato and Aristotle.

An Answer to the Historical Question

The answer to the historical question is difficult to know, but in part the answer seems to turn on the ancient idea that the explanation for regularity of behavior always involves intellect and intelligence. If something displays regularity in its behavior but is not itself intelligent, its behavior is thought to be a matter of design by an intellect.

Philosophers in the Presocratic Period tried to identify principles of reality and to explain whatever there is in terms of these principles. Plato and Aristotle thought that an explanation just in terms of material constituents was inadequate to explain the existence of objects and their behavior. They thought that an object behaves in its characteristic way because its constituents have a certain organization and order. Further, as part of the project of identifying the principles of reality, they thought that this order results from an agent who determines and providentially governs reality.

Plato's "demiurge" (δημιουργὸς) is an example of this sort of principle (Timaeus 29a).

"[The δημιουργὸς] was good, and in him that is good no envy can arise. So, being without envy, he wished that all should be so far as possible like himself. This principle (ἀρχὴν) we shall be wholly right in accepting from men of wisdom as the supreme principle of becoming and the cosmos (κόσμου). Wishing, then, that as far as possible that all things should be good and nothing imperfect, the god (ὁ θεὸς) took over all that was visible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, He brought it into order out of disorder..." (Timaeus 29e-30a).

(Timaeus refers to demiurge as the "the maker and father of this universe (ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς)" (Timaeus 28c), "the best of causes (ὁ δ᾽ ἄριστος τῶν αἰτίων)" (Timaeus 29a), and says that the cosmos has "come to be through the providence of god (διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ γενέσθαι πρόνοιαν)" (Timaeus 30b).)

(The noun κόσμος transliterates as 'cosmos' and means "order." The corresponding verb κοσμέω (which 'cosmos' lacks) means "to order, arrange, rule." The cosmos is thus the order of the universe.)

Given this understanding of the order in things, it is possible to think that the orderly and regular behavior that characterizes human beings is somehow imposed by an intellect for an end. In the Timaeus, the demiurge "wished that all should be so far as possible like himself" (Timaeus 29a). This, then, determines which life above all others is best for a human being.

The Life of Contemplation (θεωρία)

The demiurge is an intellect. He imposed order on things according to a pattern "comprehensible by reason (λόγῳ) and thought" (Timaeus 29a).

It is part of this order that the demiurge that the cosmos is a living thing and, like all living things, has a soul. The demiurge makes the world-soul and places it in the body of the world so that the whole rotates in a circle and is a blessed god (Timaeus 34b-36d). It is somehow part of the cosmos that the fixed stars, the earth, and the planets exist. The fixed stars are part of the outer sphere of the heaven, earth is at the center, and the planets in between (Timaeus 37c-40d). Further, it is part of the cosmos that human beings have their senses and in particular their sense of sight so that they can become like the world-soul. In this way, human beings also become like the demiurge since creates the cosmos to make things as much like him as possible.


The Demiurge versus the Unmovable First Mover

Aristotle does not accept the demiurge, but his disagreement with Plato is not with the teleology. Aristotle argues that there can be no first or last moment of time, that time is a function of motion, and that the ultimate cause of this everlasting motion must itself be completely free from change. This understanding seems to rule out the craftsmanship model for teleology in nature.

"It is impossible that movement should come into being or cease to be; for it must always have existed. Nor can time come into being or cease to be; for there could not be a before or after if time did not exist. It follows that movement is continuous in the way time is; for time is the same thing as movement or an attribute of movement. And there is no continuous movement except movement in place, and of movement in place only that which is circular is continuous. ... If something acts, this will not be enough if its substance is potentiality; for there will not be eternal movement; for that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must be a starting point (ἀρχὴν) whose substance (οὐσία) is actuality (ἐνέργεια)" (Metaphysics XII.7.1071b). "There is, then, something which is always moved in an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. The first heaven (πρῶτος οὐρανός) must be eternal, and there is something which moves it. And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is a mover which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, actuality (ἀΐδιον καὶ οὐσία καὶ ἐνέργεια)" (Metaphysics XII.7.1072a).

Aristotle seems to think that the sphere of fixed stars continuously and eternally moves in a circle around the earth and that all other motion and change depends on the motion of this outermost sphere in the universe. (The fixed stars appear to rise and set. The wandering stars are the planets, which seem to change their position relative to the fixed stars.) There are unmoved movers for each of the planetary spheres below the sphere of the fixed stars. These unmoved movers move without themselves moving. They are teleological causes of motion and change. There is an unmoved mover for sphere of the fixed stars, and this unmoved mover is one in number (Metaphysics XII.8.1074a). It is the unmovable first mover. The order in the world derives from it.

Further, just as sight in the Timaeus is for an end of becoming like the demiurge, Aristotle seems to think that human beings have some of their specific behavior (the behavior that belongs to individuals as members of a species) for the sake of becoming like the unmovable first mover. This behavior makes their existence like that of the unmovable first mover.

This is part of the idea in Aristotle's view that human beings acquire reason through the process of "induction" (ἐπαγωγή).

"All animals have an inborn discriminatory capacity, called perception. In some animals retention of the percept comes about, but in others it does not. ... When many such things come about, a difference comes about, so that some come to have reason (λόγον) from the retention of such things, and others do not. From perception there comes memory, and from memory (when it occurs often in connection with the same thing), experience (ἐμπειρία); for memories many in number from a single experience. From experience, or from the whole universal (καθόλου) that has come to rest in the soul (the one apart from the many, whatever is one and the same in all those things), there comes a starting-point of art (τέχνης) and of knowledge (ἐπιστήμης), of art if it deals with coming to be, of knowledge if it deals with being. Thus the states neither belong in us in a determinate form, nor come about from other more cognitive (γνωστικωτέρων) states; but they come about from perception—as in a battle when a rout occurs, if one man makes a stand another does and then another, until a position of strength is reached. The soul is such as to be capable of undergoing this" (Posterior Analytics II.99b-100a).

"All men naturally strive for knowledge (πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει)" (Metaphysics I.1.980a21).

"According to the Aristotelian view which is that of Greek philosophy generally, and has been widely taken in later times the primary subject of ethical investigation is all that is included under the notion of what is ultimately good or desirable for man ; all that is reasonably chosen or sought by him, not as a means to some ulterior end, but for itself" (Henry Sidwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers, 5th edition. (Macmillan and Company, 1902), 1-2).

The Rejected Conceptions of Justice

On the conceptions of justice that Plato makes Socrates reject, justice maintains social stability. There are ways to maintain social stability that intuitively do not seem just, and the rejected conceptions are not especially clear on how to determine which ways to maintain social stability are just and which are unjust. This is a serious problem, but unlike the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions, they seem to presuppose no very specific conception of what lives are good. Instead, the assumption seems to be that multiple conceptions are possible within the confines of justice.

"Thus far provided, men dwelt separately in the beginning, and cities (πόλεις) there were none; so that they were being destroyed by the wild beasts, since these were in all ways stronger than they; and although their skill in handiwork was a sufficient aid in respect of food, in their warfare with the beasts it was defective; for as yet they had no civic (πολιτικὴν) art, which includes the art of war. So they sought to band themselves together and secure their lives by founding cities. Now as often as they were banded together they did wrong to one another through the lack of civic art (ἠδίκουν ἀλλήλους ἅτε οὐκ ἔχοντες τὴν πολιτικὴν τέχνην), and thus they began to be scattered again and to perish. So Zeus, fearing that our race was in danger of utter destruction, sent Hermes to bring respect and right (αἰδῶ τε καὶ δίκην) among men, to the end that there should be regulation of cities and friendly ties to draw them together. Then Hermes asked Zeus in what manner then was he to give men right and respect: 'Am I to deal them out as the arts have been dealt? That dealing was done in such a way that one man possessing medical art is able to treat many ordinary men, and so with the other craftsmen. Am I to place among men right and respect in this way also, or deal them out to all?' 'To all,' replied Zeus; 'let all have their share: for cities cannot be formed if only a few have a share of these as of other arts. And make thereto a law of my ordaining, that he who cannot partake of respect and right shall die the death as a public pest.' Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in cities, and especially in Athens, consider it the concern of a few to advise on cases of artistic excellence or good craftsmanship, and if anyone outside the few gives advice they disallow it, as you say, and not without reason, as I think: but when they meet for a consultation on civic art, where they should be guided throughout by justice (δικαιοσύνης) and good sense (σωφροσύνης), they naturally allow advice from everybody, since it is held that everyone should partake of this excellence (ἀρετῆς), or else that states cannot be" (Protagoras 322a-323a).

"The makers of the laws (τοὺς νόμους) are the weaker sort of men, and the more numerous. So it is with a view to themselves and their own interest that they make their laws and distribute their praises and censures; and to terrorize the stronger sort of folk who are able to get an advantage (πλέον), and to prevent them from getting one over them, they tell them, that such aggrandizement is foul and unjust (αἰσχρὸν καὶ ἄδικον), and that wrongdoing is just this endeavor to get the advantage of one's neighbors: for I expect they are well content to see themselves on an equality, when they are so inferior. So this is why by convention (νόμῳ) it is termed unjust and foul to aim at an advantage over the majority, and why they call it wrongdoing: but nature (φύσις), in my opinion, herself proclaims the fact that it is right for the better to have advantage of the worse, and the abler of the feebler. It is obvious in many cases that this is so, not only in the animal world, but in the states and races, collectively, of men--that right has been decided to consist in the sway and advantage of the stronger over the weaker" (Gorigias 483b-d).

"They say that to do wrong is by nature good, to be wronged is bad, but the suffering of injury so far exceeds in badness the good of inflicting it that when men do wrong and are wronged by one another and taste of both, those who lack the power to avoid the one and take the other determine that it is for their profit to make a compact with one another neither to commit nor to suffer wrong; and that this is the beginning of legislation and covenants between men, and that they name the commandment of the law the lawful and the just, and that this is the genesis and being of justice (γένεσίν τε καὶ οὐσίαν δικαιοσύνης)" (Republic II.358e-359a). "Advantage (πλεονεξίαν) is what all of nature naturally pursues as good..." (Republic II.359c).