Aristotle, the Stoics, and the European conceptions of humanity

A paper presented at Europe 2050 – EU Presidency Seminar in Rome, September 7, 2006A draft

Juha Sihvola

Professor, director Helsinki Collegium for Advanced StudiesThe German sociologist Max Weber argued in his famous essay

Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism

(1905-06) that the development of modern market capitalism wasgreatly supported by certain features of Calvinist theology.

The Calvinists believed thatGod had predetermined that a group of sinful human beings would receive his savinggrace without any desert of their own, while all others were destined to an eternaldamnation. The strict doctrine of predestination of early Calvinism led to an experienceof deepest loneliness, since human beings were conceived to have no resources toinfluence or even certainly recognize God’s secret decisions, not to speak of the reasonsfor them. Accordingly, there was very much distress about the uncertainty of being saved.The later Calvinists of the 17

century found a convenient way out of this anxiety byclaiming that, even though God did not directly reveal his aims, he gave signs that moreor less reliably indicated the objects of his saving grace. Economic and financial successwas especially interpreted as the most important sign of God’s favorable attitude. Thesetheological beliefs, according to Weber, supported the emergence of ascetic mentalityand economic rationality, and moreover, the development of a capitalist society.I shall expand the Weberian thesis in my presentation in both synchronic and diachronicways. By synchronic expansion I mean the claim that theological doctrines are importantfor an understanding not only of Calvinist but also of Roman Catholic and Lutheran

Max Weber,

The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism

, London: Routledge 2001.

2attitudes to social ethics. By diachronic expansion I mean the claim that all these varietiesof theological ethics drew materials from the ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of moral psychology and combined them with the Christian doctrine of original sin.I shall explore the Aristotelian and the Stoic views of human capacities to moraldevelopment, and show how they influenced the development of Christian social ethics. Ishall show that the influence of Aristotle, as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas, is mostconspicuous in Roman Catholicism, while both Calvinism and Lutheranism developedStoic (and to a lesser degree Platonic) ideas, but each of them to very different directions.

From Aristotelian optimism to Catholic moral theology

Aristotle was rather optimist about the prospects of human development towards a happylife. Human beings have, according to him, a natural capacity to live together in acommunity in which its members cultivate moral and intellectual virtues and live a sociallife governed by reason. This natural capacity does not only involve an ability to reach,after reflection, an agreement with other members of the society about what kinds of elements a flourishing life consists in; it also involves an inclination to live in accordancewith this model of flourishing and realize the virtues central in it through one’s ownactivities. Aristotle did not exaggerate the amount of flourishing realized in existingsocieties. In fact, he held that virtuous human beings are rather rare, and expected thatmost of us have to struggle somewhere in between continence and incontinence in our lives. However, Aristotle was confident that human beings can naturally make somedevelopment towards a virtuous life, if they live under a just constitution, their materialconditions are sufficient, and they undergo a thorough moral and intellectual education.It should also be noticed that despite certain seemingly democratic features, theAristotelian ideal of human flourishing is by no means egalitarian. It is not “whoever”who could be expected to become virtuous. Human flourishing is only possible for thosefully rational – what women and natural slaves by definition are not – and with sufficient

3temporal and material resources and no sources of moral corruption in their environment – a condition which excludes farmers, manufacturers, wage-workers, and those involvedwith trade, among others. Even the contents of the virtuous life to a large extent consist inthe activities characteristic of the city-state’s male elite that was liberated from worryingand consuming time for the maintenance of material life.The Aristotelian conception of humanity became very influential in European intellectuallife from 13

century onwards; especially due to the excellent job Thomas Aquinas did inintegrating Aristotelian philosophy to Christian theology. The task was not particularlyeasy for many reasons, beginning from the difficulty of accommodating Aristotle’smetaphysics of matter and form to the Christian doctrines of the immortality of the soul.In ethics, Aristotle’s optimism about natural human sociability and the prospects of moraldevelopment was in some tension with the doctrine of original sin, interpreted in earlymedieval theology along the lines developed by the Church Father St. Augustine towhom we shall come back soon. In earlier theology it was usually thought that human beings are unable to act morally without God’s grace, but in Aquinas’ view, The Fall didnot indicate the complete loss of human moral capacities, and therefore, we can alsoregard human beings to some extent as responsible for the use of their capacities.The Thomistic interpretation of Aristotelianism was to become the main foundation for Roman Catholic social ethics in Europe, and it still has this role. The Aristotelian ideas of natural sociability and social hierarchies can be seen as figuring in the background whenmany Catholic countries even today rely on civil society instead of state authority, focuswelfare services for those in need instead of their universal distribution, and supporthierarchical family structures instead of gender equality in their social policies.

Stoic psychology

In the 16

and 17

century, Aristotelianism was under pressure from many directions.Criticisms from the direction of the emerging modern natural sciences are well known,