Popular Morality and Unpopular Philosophy

Abstract The reader of K.J. Dover‘s magisterial Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (hereafter GPM) cannot but be struck by the fact that, while the names of Plato and Aristotle appear in the title as an indication of the temporal scope of the work, reference to their writings in the book itself is comparatively sparse. This comparative neglect stems directly from his conception of the project. In his preface (pp. xi-xii) he distinguishes the subject of the work, viz. ‘the data relevant to popular morality‘, from ‘systematic ethical thought‘ (i.e. the ethical theories of Plato and Aristotle), and points out that he has not attempted (in GPM) to investigate the relation between the two. The existence of the distinction between popular morality and ethical theory I take as self evident, and I have no quarrel with Dover‘s decision not to undertake the complex task of investigating the relations between the two in the Greece of the fourth century BC; he rightly sees GPM as devoted to the prior task of providing part of the data for such an investigation. But the writings of Plato and Aristotle may themselves be expected to provide, in addition to their authors‘ theoretical views, some evidence of current moral attitudes. Any author writing on morality must take some interest in, and therefore provide evidence for, views current at the time of writing. Moreover, the character of the works of Plato and Aristotle gives special reasons for expecting them to be fruitful sources of such evidence. Plato writes dialogues in which some characters express, not Plato‘s own beliefs, but views which Plato presumably believed to be current at the time; Aristotle‘s ethical method explicitly counts current moral beliefs as among the ϕ α iν ó μ ϵ ν α which it is the task of ethical theory to systematize and harmonize (EN 1095a28-30, EE 1216b26-35, 1235b13-18).