INTRODUCTION

The Problem of Human Value in Ancient Philosophy

All of us have heard it said, at some time or another, that every man is
born with certain inalienable rights. Although the Declaration of Human
Rights is substantially flouted in most countries of the world, the majority
of governments still feel obliged to pay it at least lipservice. What rights
have we in mind? The right to life, to have enough to eat, to live without
fear of torture or degrading punishments, the right to work or to withhold
one's labour. The view that these, or any other, rights are the universal
property of men as such was virtually unknown in classical antiquity.
Frequently when it is presented even now, there is little comprehension of
the philosophical difficulties it entails. It is in many respects an ethical
survival whose first espousal depended on a now-abandoned theological
belief that man was formed in the image of God. That belief provided the
basis for maintaining, at least in theory, that all men are in some impor-
tant sense equal, and above all, that all men are endowed at birth (or
before) with a certain value. Classical antiquity had no such theory ofthe
value of man, though some of its philosophers took certain steps towards
a theory with certain resemblances to it. Let us also notice that since the
ancients did not possess such a theory, they could not abandon it.
Cicero, in the De Amicitia (14.13), provides a rare example in antiquity
of a distinction with which we ourselves are also very familiar: the
distinction between persons and things. What is so absurd, he asks, as to
delight in many empty things, like public office, glory, fine buildings, or
dress and bodily ornament, and not to delight a little in a sentient being,
endowed with virtue and capable of loving, and, to coin a phrase, of
"loving back"?l Cicero speaks as though everyone would be familiar
with the point he makes and the distinction he implies between persons
and things. It is persons, he is telling us, who are the objects of love.
Naturally one would treat persons and things differently; above all one
would feel love for them in a different way . Yet in a famous section of the
Symposium (208C-212A) Plato, apparently quite deliberately, refuses to
draw any such distinction. The ascent ofthe philosophic lover is from the
love of bodies to the love of souls to the love of institutions, forms of
government, and finally to the Form of Beauty itself. Certainly these
latter love-objects are not, for Plato, "merely abstractions", but he is
well aware that they are not persons either. And the thought that the
highest form of love, even though it begins with persons, surpasses the
love of persons does not disturb him.
2 INTRODUCTION

Consider two further examples, one from Aristotle, the other from
Plotinus. Aristotle devotes a good deal of space in the Politics to the ques-
tion of "natural" slaves, people who to all external appearances are
human beings, but who totally lack the power of practical decision-
making and are only suited to the recognition of the superior status of
others and to obedience to their orders. Since these natural slaves con-
tribute only their physical strength to the society to which they belong, it
might be supposed that they are no more important in that society than
domesticated animals. Indeed Aristotle reminds us that according to
Hesiod a primitive community consists of man, wife and ox, though the
poor man who cannot afford an ox may have a slave instead (Pol.
1252B12). Of course, females and children are less valuable too, and
since Aristotle thinks that the minimum requirements for citizenship
must include participation in the exercize of government and service in
the law-courts, it is clear that all those who cannot share in these activities
through lack of leisure, and are therefore in the strict sense not to be
classed as citizens, must be afforded a lower value in the eyes ofthe State.
Certainly even in a well-ordered city such as Aristotle envisages, they will
not necessarily enjoy what we referred to above as basic human rights.
Undoubtedly certain "rights" will be given them, but not as of right.
Our second example, of a quite different kind, is from Plotinus. In the
course of his denunciation and refutation of Gnosticism, he says much
which most of us would normally applaud. His treatise (Enn. 2.9) is
regularly described as a great defence of the Greek rationalist tradition
and a refusal to compromise with superstition, even when dressed up in
those Oriental robes which were often seductive to the Greek mind. But
one particular charge that Plotinus brings against the Gnostics we find
somewhat strange. They have too exalted a view of man, he says; they
place man higher in the scheme of things than the heavenly bodies, the
sun and the planets. What outrageous and unhellenic arrogance! Nor
should we delude ourselves with the thought that Plotinus' objection is
ecological. He is not reacting, as some of our contemporaries might,
against any kind of technological abuse of nature. The point he is making
is simply that man is not the highest, most valuable being in the physical
cosmos. Again we find good evidence ofa very different scheme of values
from our own.
Let us take one or two more examples, this time dealing with the tak-
ing of human life. Socrates, we recall, was condemned to death by a
larger number of jurymen than had originally voted him guilty. In other
words there were a number of jurymen who first voted him innocent and
then chose the death-penalty over the offensively low counterproposal he
himself made. 2 But even if Socrates' proposal was insulting, it is worthy