Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Lust als neues Prinzip (Epikuräer, Lukrez/Lucretius); Plato: Materialismus als Wurzel des Konventionalismus; Unterschied: Gerechtigkeit - andere Tugenden

Kurzinhalt: The natural good thus appears to be pleasure. Orientation by pleasure becomes the first substitute for the orientation by the ancestral ... Epicureanism is certainly that form of conventionalism which has exercised the greatest influence ...

Textausschnitt: 108a When Plato attempts to establish the existence of natural right, he reduces the conventionalist thesis to the premise that the good is identical with the pleasant. Conversely, we see that classical hedonism led to the most uncompromising depreciation of the whole political sphere. It would not be surprising if the primeval equation of the good with the ancestral had been replaced, first of all, by the equation of the good with the pleasant. For when the primeval equation is rejected on the basis of the distinction between nature and convention, the things forbidden by ancestral custom or the divine law present themselves as emphatically natural and hence intrinsically good. The things forbidden by ancestral custom are forbidden because they are desired; and the fact that they are forbidden by convention shows that they are not desired on the basis of convention; they are then desired by nature. Now what induces man to deviate from the narrow path of ancestral custom or divine law appears to be the desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain. The natural good thus appears to be pleasure. Orientation by pleasure becomes the first substitute for the orientation by the ancestral.1 (Fs) (notabene)

109a The most developed form of classical hedonism is Epicureanism. Epicureanism is certainly that form of conventionalism which has exercised the greatest influence throughout the ages. Epicureanism is unambiguously materialistic. And it was in materialism that Plato found the root of conventionalism.1 The Epicurean argument runs as follows: To find what is by nature good, we have to see what kind of thing it is whose goodness is guaranteed by nature or whose goodness is felt independently of any opinion, and hence, in particular, independently of any convention. What is good by nature shows itself in what we seek from the moment of birth, prior to all reasoning, calculation, discipline, restraint, or compulsion. Good, in this sense, is only the pleasant. Pleasure is the only good that is immediately felt or sensibly perceived as good. Therefore, the primary pleasure is the pleasure of the body, and this means, of course, the pleasure of one's own body; everyone seeks by nature only his own good; all concern with other people's good is derivative. Opinion, which comprises both right and wrong reasoning, leads men toward three kinds of objects of choice: toward the greatest pleasure, toward the useful, and toward the noble. As for the first, since we observe that various kinds of pleasure are connected with pain, we are induced to distinguish between more or less preferable pleasures. Thus we notice the difference between those natural pleasures which are necessary and those which are not necessary. Furthermore, we realize that there are pleasures which are free of any admixture of pain, and others which are not. Finally, we are led to see that there is a term of pleasure, a complete pleasure, and this pleasure proves to be the end toward which we are tending by nature and to be accessible only through philosophy. As for the useful, it is not in itself pleasant, but is conducive to pleasure, to genuine pleasure. The noble, on the other hand, is neither genuinely pleasant nor conducive to genuine pleasure. The noble is that which is praised, which is pleasant only because it is praised or because it is regarded as honorable; the noble is good only because people call it good or say that it is good; it is good only by convention. The noble reflects in a distorted manner the substantial good for the sake of which men made the fundamental convention or the social compact. Virtue belongs to the class of the useful things. Virtue is, indeed, desirable, but it is not desirable for its own sake. It becomes desirable only on the basis of calculation, and it contains an element of compulsion and therefore of pain. It is, however, productive of pleasure.2 Yet there is a crucial difference between justice and the other virtues. Prudence, temperance, and courage bring about pleasure through their natural consequences, whereas justice produces the pleasure which is expected from it--a sense of security--only on the basis of convention. The other virtues have a salutary effect regardless of whether or not other people know of one's being prudent, temperate, or courageous. But one's justice has a salutary effect only if one is thought to be just. The other vices are evils independently of whether they are detected or detectable by others or not. But injustice is an evil only with a view to the hardly avoidable danger of detection. The tension between justice and what is by nature good comes out most clearly if one compares justice with friendship. Both justice and friendship originate in calculation, but friendship comes to be intrinsically pleasant or desirable for its own sake. Friendship is at any rate incompatible with compulsion. But justice and the association that is concerned with justice--the city--stand or fall by compulsion. And compulsion is unpleasant.3 (Fs)