- E5/P1: Video Lecture by Kavan Limbasiya (Rank-198/UPSC-2014)
- Ancient Greek Thinkers
- Method of dialectic: Plato and Socrates
- Socrates (469-399 BC)
- Plato (427-347 BC)
- Aristotle (384-322 BC)
E4/P1: Lecture by Kavan Limbasiya (Rank-198/UPSC-2014)
First we start with Western Moral thinkers, then we’ll look at Indian/Eastern moral thinkers.
Youtube Link: youtube.com/watch?v=oBFCWJ3ZLwU
Ancient Greek Thinkers
Socrates, Aristotle, Plato. All three of them advocated Virtue Ethics-Temperance, Justice, Character.
Method of dialectic: Plato and Socrates
- How does knowledge come out? One way: Guru to give sermons to his disciples.
- But Plato and Socrates adopted the “Method of dialectic”- doing Question and answer session with the audience, and thus knowledge came out.
- Also known as mid-wifery method. Just like Mid-wife facilitates the birth of a child from mother. Same way knowledge is inside, you just need to search and bring it out.
- Socrates called up a slave and with dialectic method, he brought out a theorem of mathematics, thereby proving all men are equal whether slave or aristocrat.
- Dialectic method is a mature method to elicit knowledge.
- Sophists used rhetoric method / propaganda to gain emotional response from the audience, instead of moral reasoning. Â They had degraded the culture of dialogue in Greek.
- Similarly, today twitter and Facebook has degraded the culture of dialogue among youth.
- Both Socrates and Plato were against democracy, because in their times, Junta was unaware, due to lack of quality-public dialogue.
Socrates (469-399 BC)
Anti-Sophist
- “Sophists” was a philosophical school in the Greek society.
- They promoted a corrupted society, namesake democracy, might is right, full of moral corruption.
- So, Socrates promoted ideas of Moral virtues against ideas of Sophism. Subsequently, he fell out from the eyes of the government.
- People might have considered him a threat because of he associated with Aristocratic Youth like Plato. Similar groups of Aristocratic Youths had played a pivotal role in befalling the Democracy in 411 BC & 404 BC in Athens.
- Socrates was charged with âCorrupting the youth of the cityâ.
- He was given a chance to defend himself, but he didn’t. (In the contemporary Athens, people were tried before a court of fellow citizens numbering hundreds. This made the skill of Rhetoric very important)
- He was sent to jail, and chance to escape from there, but he didn’t.
- He was given desi liquor poison in the jail, he drank it and died. Naturally, Plato reacted to it by terming it as a wicked & shameful act & since then, he is believed to be martyr for reason & truth.
- John Stuart Mill compared it with Christâs Crucifixion.
Before Socrates | Socrates | Sophists |
Thales, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus etc. they focused on fundamental nature of the universe; something similar to present day cosmologists & physicists. | fundamentals of âVirtueâ â e.g. love, justice, morality, courage, friendship etc. | Method of rhetoric & persuasion |
Coaching method of Socrates
Did not give handouts |
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Did not take fees |
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Did not claim to be omniscient |
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Did not dictate model-answers |
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Gave personal coaching |
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To sum up, Socratesâ philosophy remained totally centered around Values.
âIf you will take my advice, you will think little of Socrates, and a great deal more of truthâ – Socrates
Moral Heroism. Socrates is regarded as the founder of Moral Philosophy. He founded the method of trying to reach truth by persistent questioning.
To Quote Mill : Socrates was…
- âAcknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have since livedâ
- âthe man who probably of all then born had deserved least of mankind to be put to death as a criminalâ
Plato (427-347 BC)
- He was a disciple of Socrates and propagated his ideas further.
- He was the first western thinker who wrote his works & whose works remained intact.
- Socrates only discussed about moral problems whereas Plato discussed Moral as well as worldly philosophical problems with equal importance. These also included Mathematics, nature etc.
- But Plato always agreed with Socrates that the real harm possible to a person is the harm to the soul and therefore it is preferable to suffer wrong than commit it.
- Just like Socrates, Plato taught people to âto think of oneself (and any question) independently & to be ready to question everybody & everything.â
- To quote Plato – âPhilosophy begins in wonderâ
- He also rejected the idea that âvirtue is solely a matter of knowing what is rightâ. Thus, he gave practice of truth more important than preaching/knowing.
Form, ideas and realms
- Plato gave a theory of Form & Idea â Everything in this world is a decaying copy of something whose ideal form exists outside space & time.
- real reality as it is stable â and the visible world only offers glimpses of that real reality.
- Visible world where everything is always becoming something but nothing is permanent – âEverything is becoming, nothing isâ â Plato.
- physical world exemplified mathematical order expressible in mathematical formulas.
- This was further developed into the philosophy of Body & Soul â known as Platonism & became source for Christian Philosophies as well.
- Thus, Socrates & Plato were also referred by later Christians as â âChristians before Christ.â
Plato Hated BA/MA Arts graduates
- Plato advocated austerity and self-abnegation. Soul should remain aloof from bodily pleasures.
- Subordination of individual wishes/aims for communal life.
Because of above ideas, Plato was hostile to arts stream, claiming that
- Arts is a danger to soul.
- Theyâre doubly deceptive, who glamorized & bejeweled emotional attachment towards the worldly things;
- They keep a person away from grasping the other realm.
Plato Hated Democracy also
- Plato was even more critical of democracy than Socrates, because his guru (Socrates) was hanged in Democracy.
- Plato said typical âDemocratic Characterâ is superficial, feckless & easily led (due to too much liberty & idea that all are equal).
- Such âdemocraticâ people are easy prey for manipulative, power-hungry which gradually turns democracy into tyranny.
- Therefore, quality of the leadership is too important else entire institution (Democracy) gets maligned and people will loose faith.
- In Greek times, Democracy had become Mobocracy. No one had fundamental rights; Justice was done in open-amphitheater, where people decided the punishment.
- Plato is the warning sign for our democracy- there is a limit beyond which you shouldn’t stretch it.
Conflicts & classes
- Human is a mixture of three conflicting elements: âPassion, Intellect & Willâ.
- Therefore âintellectâ must use âwillâ to control âpassionâ.
- He extrapolated this idea on society as well, that
- We need auxiliaries (intermediate police class) to keep the masses in order
- We need âguardiansâ / âphilosophical rulersâ to give philosophical direction to society as whole.
- This was Somewhere similar to the Communist societies of the 20th century.
- The classes were in this ideal society were to be divided tripartite on the base of Meritocracy.
- Women were also to be involved unlike the contemporary society.
Books / contribution
Book-Republic |
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Book-Symposium |
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Term-Academy |
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To end, it must thus be noted that Plato was highly interested in âInstitutionâ apart from being mainly concerned with Values.
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Plato | Aristotle |
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He was Aristotleâs teacher. | He was Platoâs best, most gifted & most famous student |
Books; republic, symposium | âThe Politicsâ & âThe Nicomachean Ethicsâ (named after his son, Nicomachus). |
Focused on values and institutions | Apart from values, ethics, politics, he also focused on many optional subjects like zoology, logic, psychology, botany, astronomy, physics, poetry, meteorology, economy, metaphysics, rhetoric etc. |
Invented the word âacademyâ |
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Plato and Aristotle had disagreement over many topics. | âPlato is dear to me, but dearer still is truthâ â Aristotle. |
He wrote a zoology book âThe History of Animalsâ- even Charles Darwin bowed to it. |
- Aristotle systematized âlogicâ wherein he worked out valid & invalid form of inferences.
- Aristotle is termed as a great observer. In Philosophy and all other fields of work, he approaches his subjects by recording & systematizing numerous observations. Thus, his method is more âempiricalâ. Â âWhat is Being?â and âAll man by virtue desire to knowâ are his famous quotes.
- Aristotle derived the four causes namely â Material cause, Efficient cause, Formal cause & Final cause for anything to be the thing it is.
- Aristotle gave emphasis to Teleology in Philosophy & Politics. (Teleology is a method to study & direct the actions based on the final purpose or end result of any being or action.)
- In Philosophy â Rationality is the final goal, all the virtues & wisdom prepare us for good life & this good life must consist of Rational Contemplation.
- In Politics â the objective of a city-state is to maximize the opportunities for its citizens to pursue the good life.
- Aristotle gave primacy to Substance to be the binding agent for the cosmos instead of Time & Location. Substance is something whose definition does not rely on existence of any other thing besides the substance itself.
- For Change & Motion, he emphasized that all changes & motions must have a cause & all causes must themselves be caused. This Philosophy of his leads to an infinite regress that there would be no first cause as there must be an antecedent cause for all the causes.
- To answer this he says that there must be a First, unmoved, Perfect Cause & mover. Here Aristotle comes to associate with God.
Virtue, Ethics & golden mean
- Virtue is a disposition to act in certain ways and not others. Ethics is the highest goal.
- We can develop Virtue by practicing it, as a skill.
- So, if you live a good life, then youâve developed the skill(/s) of acting virtuously.
- In the book Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle has given âTable of Virtues & Vicesâ
FEELING | EXCESS | MEAN | DEFICIENCY |
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Fear and Confidence | Rashness | Courage | Cowardice |
Pleasure and Pain | Licentiousness/Self-indulgence | Temperance | Insensibility |
Getting and Spending (minor) |
Prodigality | Liberality | Illiberality/Meanness |
Getting and Spending (major) |
Vulgarity/Tastelessness | Magnificence | Pettiness/Niggardliness |
Honour and Dishonour (major) |
Vanity | Magnanimity | Pusillanimity |
Honour and Dishonour (minor) |
Ambition/empty vanity | Proper ambition/pride | Unambitiousness/undue humility |
Anger | Irascibility | Patience/Good temper | Lack of spirit/unirascibility |
Self-expression | Boastfulness | Truthfulness | Understatement/mock modesty |
Conversation | Buffoonery | Wittiness | Boorishness |
Social Conduct | Obsequiousness | Friendliness | Cantankerousness |
Shame | Shyness | Modesty | Shamelessness |
Indignation | Envy | Righteous indignation | Malicious enjoyment/Spitefulness |
e.g. excess confidence = rashness. Excess fear = cowrdice. So golden mean is âcourageâ â the best virtue. This is also famously known as Aristotleâs âdoctrine of the meanâ
Happiness
Utilitarianism (J.S.Mills) | Aristotle |
Happiness is a state of mind. happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. | Happiness is a matter of âliving well or doing wellâ. |
based on the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” | âwe always choose happiness for itself and never for any other reasonâ |
virtuous living, should be counted as part of personâs happiness. | Happiness is an evaluative term, a concept in terms of which you assess the course of a life.Therefore, true happiness means living as a rational being. |
Politics
- Aristotle is also considered as the first âPolitical Scientistâ.
- Aristotle applied the âScientific Methodsâ & rational analysis with politics.
- He defined human to be a âPolitical Animal by natureâ apart from being a social one.
- because humans alone have the power of speech which serves to signal useful & harmful â just & unjust apart.
- Human alone have a perception of good & evil, just & unjust, etc.
- âState is an association of persons whose aim is the best life possibleâ â Aristotle â The Politics
- a stateless person cannot practice virtue i.e. cannot live well, develop & flourish like a human. Thus, happiness is exercise of virtue and only within the context of state (polis) can one find happiness.
Vagueness of Practical Sciences
- Aristotle considered practical sciences such as Ethics, Politics etc. much more vague & compartmentalized. I.e. Ethics & Politics are far less accurate in methods & procedures than âLogicâ.
- This is because these sciences deal with people. Now people are quite variable in their behaviour.
- Thus Aristotle never laid down hard & fast rules in Ethics & Politics. He even didnât declare any one type of Constitution as best.
- This is developed from his view that âdifferent forms of study requires different approachesâ.
Unequal Society
Aristotle considered
- male superior than female
- citizen (elite) superior than slaves. He supported democracy over oligarchy because that was the better decision procedure for ruling group of citizens to a make.
Aristotle did not believe in modern ideas of Equality or Freedom for all. (But then again, we canât expect such modern political correctness in a person living in ancient times.)
Visit Mrunal.org/Ethics for more study material on Ethics.
waiting eagerly for remaining chapters on ETHICS
Sir please post the remaining part.
Sir, Please upload Video lecture of E1/P1…I didn’t found in the playlist.
Is pdf after E5/p1 available ?
If not,
Hello mrunal sir,plz upload since we could revise it without going through video again..
If yes,
Can any body provide me the Link of ethics after E5/p1 pdf form ?
Yes plz provide the pdfs after E5-P1…..
Revision need pdfs therefore humble request to upload other pdfs of ethics…..
Thank You
thank you sir ,it is very essential for us because our pocket doesn’t permit to buy study material from reputed study centers…thanks again for your social work to give us (poor) chance to compete with other students of higher class
Sir, Can you please post the Notes from E5-P2 TO E8-P1, The Notes is much Easier to revise and helps in referring the terminology, Please Update Notes for Mains Other Classes Also if possible.
Thank You Sir,
Arif Moahmmed
Mrunal bhai…please upload notes for the rest of topics of ethics as you’ve done from E1/P1 till E5/P1…please it’s very useful for us
Sir could u please upload detail lecture after Ethics E5/P1…m writing mains i find your lectures upto Ethics E5/P1quite useful.
regards aisha
Sir please upload detail lectures of ethics from E5-P2 to E8.
Regards
Aisha
sir
Thank you for the uploaded lectures. This is the only best material available for ethics. Please upload remaining lectures E5-P2 to E8. I am eagerly waiting for the upload.
Sir please upload E5/P2 to E-8 eagerly waiting
I am stuck after E4 please help urgent
Mrunal jee can you please upload the post-version of the subsequent videos on ethics viz E5 onwards. I will be going through the videos of them anyway, but ‘Post’ versions of these videos have been a lot more useful, being less time consuming and very importantly less data consuming :) and these are particularly good for revision, and hence a lot more useful. If you can do this for all your videos, though I understand it could be time consuming for u, but it will be a great value addition to this already Socrate-ious work you have been doing.
And sir u can embed audio on different portions in a post, which a reader can play himself as s/he is reading through that part of the post.
These are some of the suggestion as per the needs i feel.
Thanks again for all the help. I wish ki aap mera after-selection interview lo kabhi :)
Mrunal Sir….There is no Articles updated after this . Are you going to do that in near future???
Sir plz upload further lectures .
Sir kindly let me know for current affairs in UPSC we have to prepare just for that year or of past year also means for 6 month or 1.5 year????????
Any one knows, when will remaining lectures on ethics, be uploaded?
Sir please.. Complete the ethics series..sir I’m from non Hindi background I couldn’t understand ethics from yours YouTube videos..
Sir please upload the remaining part