Table Of ContentMORALITY AND SELF-INTEREST
IN PROTAGORAS
ANTIPHON AND DEMOCRITUS
PHILOSOPHIA ANTIQUA
A SERIES OF MONOGRAPHS
ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
EDITED BY
W. J. VERDENIUS AND J. C. M. VAN WINDE N
VOLUME XLIII
M. NILL
MORALITY AND SELF-INTEREST
IN PROTAGORAS
ANTIPHON AND DEMOCRITUS
LEIDEN
E. J. BRILL
1985
MORALITY AND SELF-INTEREST
IN PROTA GORAS
ANTIPHON AND DEMOCRITUS
BY
MICHAEL NILL
LEIDEN
E. J. BRILL
1985
ISBN 90 04 07319 1
Copyright 1985 by E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche
or any other means without written permission from the publisher
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS BY E.J. BRILL
CONTENTS
I. Introduction ....................................... .
II. Protagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part I: Overall Moral Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Part II: The Grounding of Moral Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Part Ill: Reasons to be Moral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Ill. Antiphon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
IV. Democritus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5
Notes to Chapter One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Notes to Chapter Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Notes to Chapter Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Notes to Chapter Four. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Index Locorum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
To my Mother
and the memory of my ~Father
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am in the enviable position of having benefited from far too many teachers to
mention individually. I trust, however, that they will recognize themselves in this, a
general statement of my gratitude for the members of the faculty who contributed
so much to my intellectual development at Fordham College, Johns Hopkins
University, and The University of Texas. My only hope is that on occasion I similarly
inspire my own students. This present study represents a reworking of my disserta-
tion written at The University of Texas at Austin. It would not be possible to
express adequate thanks to the chairman of my dissertation committee, Michael
Gagarin. Without his continuing help, encouragement, and direction this book
would simply not exist. Richard Rodewald, also a member of the committee, has
been a friend and mentor with whom I spent many hours discussing modern philo-
sophical views relevant to the issues raised in this study. Special thanks are also
owed to the remaining members of the committee: Douglass Parker, David Arm-
strong, and Paul Woodruff. In regard to stylistic and editing matters, Kevin Toon
worked tirelessly and selflessly, well beyond what anyone could expect from a
friend. And finally, I must express my gratitude for the support and patience of my
wife Lisa Roberts.
M.N.
Dallas, Texas
July 1984
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
One of Plato's major concerns in his moral theory was to show that acting morally
benefits agents and promotes their self-interest.1 The issue of whether morality and
self-interest are compatible is one which Plato inherited from his predecessors. And
indeed, it is an issue which has been important throughout the history of moral
theory. The reason for its importance is the plausibility of the view that an action is
rational only if it can be justified on grounds of self-interest, that is, on egoistic
grounds.
According to this view - and it is a commonly-held one - altruistic acts are not
rational and agents have no reason to perform them. This, of course, raises a serious
problem for the moral philosopher since morality requires other-regarding behavior;
that is, it requires that one regard the interests and claims of others. Moral theorists
who subscribe to the above notion of rationality and who have an interest in show-
ing that there are reasons to be moral need to argue that moral action is, in fact,
instrumental in promoting one's own good. If this view can be successfully defend-
ed, agents would have egoistic, self-interested reasons to be moral.2
Whether or not agents do have such reasons to be moral was a question of im-
portance for Protagoras, Antiphon, and Democritus; and the aim of this present
study is to provide a detailed analysis and evaluation of what these three pre-
decessors of Plato had to say about the compatibility of morality and self-interest.
Such an analysis has not been undertaken before3 and is clearly needed since their
views are both of philosophical importance in themselves and almost certainly
influenced Plato.
What I shall mean by 'morality' in this study is other-regarding behavior involv-
ing regard for the interests and welfare of others. It is my view that the Greeks of
the fifth century did, in effect, have such a notion of morality, despite the fact that
they did not have words for 'morality' or 'moral requirements'. As I argue, the
theorists to be discussed thought that the laws of a political community prescribe
cooperative, other-regarding behavior consisting of regard for the interests of others
and that the laws spell out the specific interests of others which one is to regard.
In effect, then, laws embody moral requirements; and in obeying them, one is acting
in accord with the moral (disinterested) point of view. Since these moral require-
ments prescribe other-regarding behavior, they could easily be seen to conflict - at
the very least - with one's apparent self-interest. It is thus not surprising that the
early Greek moral theorists were concerned with the issue of whether morality (the
moral point of view) is compatible with self-interest (the prudential point of view).
By modern standards, of course, these theorists did not have an adequate under-
standing of the concept of morality. At any rate, in discussing their theories, I will
have to adopt terminology which they themselves did not use.
2 CHAPTER ONE
The views of Protagoras, Antiphon, and Democritus will be discussed respectively
in that order since there is a logical progression in their views and a steady advance
in their understanding of the issue of the compatibility of morality and a person's
own good. Further, Antiphon's theory presupposes the views of Protagoras; and
Democritus' theory presupposes the views of both Protagoras and Antiphon. That
there is a logical progression in their theories provides, I think, a good reason for
supposing that their theories were, in fact, formulated in the order in which I dis-
cuss them; and such a view accords well with the generally accepted belief that
Antiphon was a younger contemporary of Protagoras and an older contemporary
of Democritus. However, I shall not be concerned in this study with questions of
dating. These theorists were, roughly speaking, contemporaries; for the most part
their dates cannot be fixed with certainty, nor is certainty possible in determining
when they formulated and publicized their theories. My thesis that there is a logical
progression in their views does not require that they were directly aware of and
directly responding to each other. The ideas they were discussing were current in
the second half of the fifth century; and it is quite possible, for example, that there
were others who held views similar to Antiphon's and that Democritus was directly
responding to their views. For convenience, however, I shall write as if these theo-
rists were directly responding to each other.
In summary form, the progression of their thought as I see it is as follows: Prota-
goras defended the view that moral requirements always ought to be obeyed by
arguing that they are a necessary condition for a political community and hence for
each person's survival and that in a well-functioning political community, one's
moral actions will be reciprocated .4 There are, however, two major weaknesses in
his moral theory: (1) it does not adequately ground the content of morality- or,
in other words, it does not provide a satisfactory account of what actions are to
count as moral or immoral - and (2) it presents seriously inadequate arguments for
the view that acting morally benefits the agent. The second weakness turned out to
be the crucial one; but Protagoras may have been, at most, only dimly aware of this
weakness in his theory: the nature of his arguments in defense of moral action
suggests that he was not aware of the complex issues raised by the question of
whether morality and a person's good are compatible.
Antiphon, on the other hand, was well aware of these issues. He pointed out the
two weaknesses in Protagoras' theory, collapsed the first weakness into the second,
and argued that acting in accord with moral requirements does not always contribute
to an agent's good. Hence he rejected the view that these requirements always ought
to be obeyed. Antiphon's role was an important one: he shifted the focus of moral
theory to the issue of what is good for persons (agents) and prepared the way for
others to see how they might go about arguing that moral actions do, in fact, con-
tribute to an agent's good.
Democritus' view of what constitutes true self-interest differed markedly from
Antiphon's. He adopted a refined, largely inner conception of the good for persons
and argued that acting morally promotes that inner good. Hence it was his view that
moral requirements always ought to be obeyed. Democritus anticipated the approach
Plato used to defend the view that moral action benefits the agent.
