“Solon of Athens and the
Ethics of Good Business,” Journal of Business Ethics
DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9989-4.
The ancient lawgiver Solon of Athens left norms of
proper conduct that carry important ethical implications
for all manner of human affairs, including commercial
activities and the pursuit of wealth. In his extant
poetry he emphasizes the strong connections between
individual virtue and its consequences in the social and
political sphere. In considering the proper means of
obtaining material wealth he describes multiple ways to
earn a living, and connects them to proper intellectual
and ethical dispositions through a concept of justice.
This focus on virtue establishes a long-range ethics
that is based on a principle of justice, demands
rational intellectual activity, and carries implications
for everyone’s self-interest. Solon’s concern for
matters of virtue, the proper means of attaining wealth,
and the need for long-range awareness of consequences,
offers a valuable point of historical focus for our own
examinations of business ethics today.
"Oh Mist! Science,
Religion and History in Aristophanes’ Clouds"
in
Themes in European
History: Essays from the 2nd
International Conference on European History
ed. Michael Aradas & Nicholas C.J. Pappas (Athens:
ATINER, 2005). ISBN: 960-88672-7-4
In 399 BC the men of
Athens committed the greatest crime against philosophy
in history: they condemned Socrates, and demanded that
he either renounce his life in Athens by going into
exile, or drink the hemlock. How was it that Athens, the
home of the intellect in the ancient Greek world, the
place where philosophers would gather for the
wholesomeness of mind that only free, rational inquiry
can provide, could do this to the best among them? Was
Athens a haven for free thought, or a nest of orthodoxy
and persecution? Aristophanes Clouds offers clues
to how Athens received, and reacted to, the ideas of the
philosophers, especially the sophists, who taught that
moral and legal standards were human creations, and the
Ionian physicists, who favored natural explanations for
physical phenomena. The sophists and the physicists were
united in their rejection of the traditional gods as
sources of knowledge, and each could be seen as a threat
to the city.
The culmination of this
conflict was the charges leveled against Socrates. They
were first and foremost failing to believe in the city’s
gods, and corrupting the youth through teaching. But
there was also his investigations into matters in the
earth and the sky, a charge that bears the imprint of
minds not open to rational inquiry into the unknown.
Socrates’ break with the gods of the city was his turn
to new gods—the foundation of his moral thinking—which
was itself connected to the “new physics”—the ideas of
the Ionian intellectual revolution that were sweeping
Athens. As presented in Aristophanes’ Clouds,
this was a conflict between philosophy and religion,
played out in the mind of a student of Socrates who does
not understand the intricacies of either, who is drawn
unthinkingly into the orbit of the sophists, and who
reacts against those teachings with violence.
Aristophanes’ Clouds—like
the death of Socrates—was an expression of such a
struggle, between this-worldly “science” and traditional
“religion.” But both words must be in quotations;
scientific understanding was not Baconian, and religious
belief was not Augustinian. Scientists and religious
seers were united in their purposes; each purported to
understand those things that were not available to
immediate sight, which lay hidden either in the future
or on a level of wisdom that was beyond the reach of
most people. The Greek sophia—wisdom—encompassed
conclusions derived both from belief in the gods, and
from philosophical thought and investigations into
natural events. The war between reason and religion,
which led to a series of prosecutions, persecution,
exiles and even executions, was fought in a context in
which religious truths were not distinguished from
scientific truths. Therefore, the very nature of the
conflict was unknown in the fifth century, precisely
because faith and reason were not clearly
differentiated.
“Slavery and Lawlessness in Solonian Athens,” in Dike
7:2004
Scholars who use institutional and legal terminology to
analyze the Athenian lawgiver Solon’s attempts to end
civil strife in Athens may be relying on anachronistic
modern categories that distort both the true condition
of Attica and Solon’s actions. Rather than reforming
existing legal institutions, his extant verses rather
demonstrate that Solon had to deal with unrestrained
lawlessness throughout archaic Attica, including rampant
slavery that occurred without the decision of a
magistrate or a formal sale. The intimidation and
hands-on violence of strong-men in the countryside
placed their victims into positions of personal bondage,
debt-slavery, exile or life in the underground. Although
Solon understands several forms of such slavery, he sees
a common root—hubris—and common cure: Eunomia,
a condition of good order both in the polis and
in each man. The problems in Athens could not be
corrected by reforming the laws and institutions, but
only by creating the cultural climate in which his
fellows would subordinate their personal and traditional
prerogatives to just, written laws.
It is
vital to recognize the presence of non-institutionalized
slavery in wild and wooly Attica. Regardless of whether
a magistrate had offered a decision or ownership had
been established, many men had to do what Solon
describes in lines 29-31 of poem 13: “One man gets what
he deserves right away, another later; some themselves
flee and escape the onrushing fate of the
immortals, it comes surely sometime.” Any analysis that
considers slavery only in legal terms is suspect, as is
any overly formalized view of institutional authorities
in Attica. Solon’s problem was not only to change the
terms of the laws, but also to rein in those who were
enforcing their prerogatives in outlying areas apart
from a formal decision, in defiance of dikē and
proper standards of life in the polis. This would
require some very unpleasant encounters, when the
polis began to impose (or re-impose) its authority
over Attica, and to make the idea of law real to those
outside of Athens. Someone had to enforce these
decisions—a vital step towards bringing—or
re-establishing—institutionalized justice in Attica.
“Dike,
Moira, Bios and the Limits to Understanding in
Solon, 13 (West),” in Dike 4, 2001:113-135.
Prior
interpretations of Solon’s poetic fragments have failed
to recognize properly the dichotomy between Solon’s use
of dike, which he applies primarily to the
polis, and moira, which he applies primarily
to a person’s lot in life, including the individual
pursuit of material values. This article explains this
distinction by considering moira in poem 13, the
“Hymn to Muses,” in contrast to dike in the more
political poems, such as poem 4, the “Hymn to the City,”
and 36, the “Hymn to Himself . . .
. . .
To Solon an undesired
result in the polis must be the result of
corrupted human actions; this is Dike’s promise.
In a person's life such a calamity is due to Moira,
who brings good and evil arbitrarily, as she
wishes.
“The Intellectual Context of Solon’s
Dike,” in
Polis 18.1 and 2, 2001:3-26.
Solon is our only primary source for the intellectual
context of archaic Athenian political thought. Dike
is central to that context. The primary question of
dike is the degree of abstraction it denotes. To
Solon dike is neither an abstract principle with
metaphysical proportions, nor merely the concrete
procedures of dispute mediation.
Solon understands Dike in a polis
that is ordered by the thoughts and actions of
human beings, not by divine dispensations.
This re-alignment of political authority from vertical
authoritarianism to horizontal citizen relationships is
directly related to the views of nature found in the Milesian philosophers. Solon’s dike is immanent
from the thoughts and actions of the citizens; it is not
a divine power pushing down on the polis.
Solon’s dike has three distinct
functions. First, it is the inevitable result of unjust
thoughts and actions; this is “natural dike.”
Second, dike is a process of dispute mediation;
this is “procedural dike.” Third, dike is
a nascent ordering principle in the polis, found
in one passage in Solon as distinct from the consequent
retribution. Dike is an archaic concept standing
for a comprehensive inevitability in the interactions of
the citizens.
"Carving Liberty into Stone:
The
Greek and American Discovery of Fundamental Law" in
The Intellectual Activist 16.10. October, 2002.
Thucydides
claimed that during Perikles’ tenure, what was nominally
a democracy was in fact the rule of one. But Thucydides
was misled by the idea that politics is primarily a
matter of “how many shall rule.” He failed to see that
if limits to the actions of the Assembly are found not
in law but in a leader’s personal ability, then the
government is not one of laws but of men. This is true
even if the leader is wise. Perikles was followed by men
who were not of his caliber precisely because of his
success in eliminating opposition. The city was bled of
worthy successors; all that was left were rabble-rousers
eager to please the crowd.
The
constitutional aspects of this issue can be further
illustrated by considering the essential difference
between the Assembly and a Jury Court. Athenian jurors
were sworn to judge a case according to law. This oath
elevated a juror’s decision to demand compliance with
the laws and invited the retribution of the gods and his
ancestors if he deviated from them. The Assembly was not
limited by such an oath, and could, on principle, pass
any decree at any time. The lack of an authoritative law
over the Assembly is precisely the factor that Aristotle
identified as allowing a democratic assembly to become a
tyrant.
“Giving Way: Martha Nussbaum and the Morality of
Privation,” Review Essay: M. C. Nussbaum, Women and
Human Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University,
2000), for Roundtable, a Journal of the
University of Chicago Law School 8.1, 2001:215-237.
Martha C. Nussbaum has for decades studied and taught
philosophy with a view to its practical relevance.
Ancient philosophers were concerned most of all with
care for the soul and for beneficial effects upon human
life, and we can learn from them in addressing deep
problems faced by people today. In her present work,
Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach,
Nussbaum adds to her earlier attempts to formulate
practical feminist political principles by focusing on
the needs of women in developing countries, especially
India. Her approach to the problems she details is
moral, political and constitutional: “The aim of the
project as a whole is to provide the philosophical
underpinning for an account of basic constitutional
principles that should be respected and implemented by
governments of all nations, as a bare minimum of what
respect for human dignity requires.” Ultimately her
proposals are intended to serve as a moral core for a
set of “constitutional guarantees” acceptable to nations
with disparate customs and laws.
Nussbaum’s use of ancient philosophy to develop her
modern program leaves room for many levels of critique,
but this review will focus on one aspect of her project.
Given that she defines her proposals in political terms
and states that governments under various systems of law
should be concerned with the implementation of these
proposals, we must ask: what are the general political
and constitutional implications of her proposals? In
particular, what are the implications for
people whom Nussbaum does not talk about, who do not
have a voice in her consensus or her narrative? These
people are a substantial portion of the human race.
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John Lewis
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