Moral philosophy is so connected with psychology that Miskawaih begins his big treatise on ethics Tahdhib al-Akhlaq, by stating his doctrine of the soul. Here his expose is less philosophical but richer in detail.
The point of transition from psychology to ethics is given on pages 18 to 21 where, following Plato, be draws a parallel between the faculties of the soul and the corresponding virtues.20 The soul has three faculties: rational, coura¬geous, and appetitive, and correspondingly three virtues: wisdom, courage, and temperance. By the harmony of these three virtues, we have a fourth one, namely, justice. The Greek temperament being theoretical and speculative,21 Plato could go no farther than this.
Equipped with a personal code of moral conduct, Miskawaih determined seven species of wisdom, viz., acuteness of intelligence, quickness of intellect, clearness of understanding, facility of acquirement, precision of discrimination, retention, and recollection; eleven species of courage, viz., magnanimity, collectedness, loftiness of purpose, firmness, coolness, stateliness, boldness, endurance, condescension, zeal, and mercy; twelve species of temperance, viz., shame, affability, righteousness, conciliatoriness, continence, patience, contentment, sedateness, piety, regulari¬ty, integrity, and liberality (which is further divided into six sub-species) ; and nineteen species of justice, viz., friendship, union, faithfulness, compassion, brotherhood, recompense, good partnership, fair-dealing, cordiality, sub¬mission, resignation, devotion to God, forgetting of enmity, abstention from speaking ill of others, discussing the character of the just, ignoring the account of the unjust, and abstention from trusting the ignoble, the mischief¬-monger, and the flatterer.22
We, however, cannot determine exactly whether these sub-divisions and distinctions are all Miskawaih's own. Surely he bene¬fited himself much from his predecessors, and especially from the school of Abu Sulaiman al-Sijistani al-Mantiqi, the echo of whose works we find in Tauhidi's Muqabasat.
So far Miskawaih has been Platonic, but from page 29 onward he begins to be Aristotelian, and takes virtue as a mean between two vices. He applies this doctrine of the mean to the four cardinal virtues, and with this he ends the first chapter.
In the second chapter, Miskawaih goes on to discuss the question of human nature and its original state: whether it is born good or bad. He states the opinion of the early Greeks who say that nature can never be changed, but rejects it. Then he takes up the view of the Stoics who think that men are created good but become bad by their inclination to bad appetites and by keeping bad company. There is also a third opinion that men are created bad and they become good only by education. Galen rejects the last two views and says that men are of three kinds: some are good by nature, others are bad by nature, and a third class is intermediate between the two.
Finally, Miskawaih states the opinion of Aristotle as given in the Nicomachean Ethics, and gives his own view that “the existence of the human substance depends on God's will, but the amelioration of it is left to man and depends on man's will” (p. 46).
Perfection attainable by man is of two kinds: the first is theoretical and the second practical. By the first he attains perfect science, by the second perfect character. Human faculties are three; the highest is reason, the lowest is appetite, and between the two lies courage. Man is man by the first. There¬fore, perfection belongs especially to the rational soul. In each faculty there are many degrees, which Miskawaih enumerates in detail. Here (pp. 67-78) we find a long chapter on the education of children and youth.
The essential part of Miskawaih's ethics begins from the third chapter (pp. 90 et sqq.). In the first place he follows Aristotle as commented upon by Porphyry. It seems that he depends entirely on the commentary of Porphyry on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, which was translated into Arabic by Ishaq ibn Hunain, in twelve books.23 Unfortunately, this commentary is lost both in Greek and its Arabic translation. But we can gather something of its form from Miskawaih's Tahdhib al-Akhlaq.
Following Aristotle, Miskawaih says (p. 90) that the good is that at which all things aim. This definition, which is supposed to be perhaps that of Eudoxus (c. 25 B. C.), is given in the very beginning of the Nichomachean Ethics.24 Miskawaih goes on then to say that what is useful to this end may also be called good, i. e., the means as well as the end can be called good. But happiness or well-being is a relative good - good for an individual person. It is only a kind of good and has no distinctive and autonomous essence.
Miskawaih, like Aristotle,25 gives a classification of happiness but adds more details, perhaps taken from Porphyry's commentary. This classification com¬prises (1) health, (2) wealth, (3) fame and honour, (4) success, and (5) good thinking.
After giving Aristotle's doctrine of happiness, Miskawaih states the views of Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Plato, the Stoics, and some physicians who believed that body is a part and not an instrument of man, and so held that happiness of the soul is incomplete if it is not accompanied by happiness of the body.
Miskawaih discusses these different doctrines and concludes by saying that we should reject the doctrine according to which happiness can come only after death and affirm that it is possible also in this world. No happiness is possible except by searching for the good in this world and the world to come. Here he affirms anew his two-fold Anschauung. But as a true religious man he gives preference to the next world.
In support of this, he refers to the translation by Abu `Uthman al-Dimashqi of a treatise called “Virtues of the Soul” attributed to Aristotle. We find this treatise attributed to Aristotle nowhere else. There are two kinds of happiness, one according to this world, the other according to the next, but no one can have the second without passing through the first (p. 111), because, as Aristotle said, divine happiness, notwithstanding being higher and nobler, is yet in need of worldly happi¬ness; otherwise, it would remain hidden.
The fourth chapter deals mainly with justice and explains in detail what is meant by it. Here again he follows the corresponding parts in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.26
In the fifth chapter he goes on to speak about friendship and love. A striking passage in this part is about two kinds of love: (a) love of man for God, and (b) love of disciple for master. The first is too high to be attained by mortal beings, and is reserved only for a few. As to the second kind of love, Miskawaih draws a parallel between the son's love for his parents and the disciple's love for his master, and says that the latter is nobler and more generous, because masters educate our souls and by their guidance we obtain real happiness. The master is a “spiritual father and a human lord; his goodness for the disciple is divine goodness, because he brings him up on virtues, feeds him with high wisdom, and conducts him to everlasting life in eternal blessing” (p. 175).
Friendship, in general, is most sacred and useful to all human beings. He who betrays it is more wicked than a counterfeiter of coins. A good man is a friend to himself and other people are also friends to him; he has no enemy except the bad. The happy man is he who gains friends and tries his best to be of use to them.
Miskawaih quotes Aristotle saying that man is in need of friends in good as well as in bad circumstances. Even a king is in need of friends because he cannot know his people's needs except through sincere friends, especially because they supply him information and help in execution of his orders. Man should do his best to please his friends and to be always on good terms with them without hypocrisy and flattery.
Miskawaih's treatment of justice ('adl) is largely Aristotelian, although for him this virtue is a shadow of divine unity,27 the true equipoise. The knowledge of the mean or the limit that moderation would set in each particular case is a prerequisite of justice, but, unlike Aristotle, he assigns this function to the divine code rather than to reason or prudence.28 The king as the deputy of God can exercise royal discretion in minor details according to the exigencies of time and place, without violating the spirit of the divine code.
Aristotle recognized benevolence vaguely in the imperfect form of liberality which for him meant giving to “proper persons, in right proportion, at right times.” With Ibn Miskawaih, it is such an excess over the just award as would eliminate all possibility of under-estimation in justice, provided that its prejudicial effects are confined to the rights of the benevolent person himself only and the recipient himself is a worthy choice for it. Charity, thus, is a form of justice which is safe from disturbance.29
Similarly, love, according to him, is not an extension of self-love, as held by Aristotle, but a limitation of it and love for another. He regards affection (mahabbah) as an inborn capacity for associating with mankind in general, but confines friendship (sadaqah) to a few individuals, basing it on the considerations of profit, pleasure, or good as conceived by Aristotle. Love (`ishq) being the excessive desire for pleasure or good - the consideration of profit is alien to love - cannot extend beyond two individuals.30
The object of animal love is pleasure and that of the spiritual love is virtue or goodness. The former is condemnable, the latter praiseworthy. He makes a specific mention of the love of man for God, of disciple for teacher, and of son for his parents in a graded series, as pointed out earlier. Justice, he concludes, is brought about through fear and force, but affection is a natural source of unity, so that justice is not required where affection reigns supreme. Affection, thus, is the sovereign; justice is the vicegerent.
As in al-Fauz al-Asghar, so in Tahdhib al-Akhlaq (pp. 195-96) Miskawaih is against all forms of ascetic life, because ascetics “sever themselves from all the moral virtues mentioned above. How can he who retires from men and lives in isolation be temperate, just, generous, or courageous? Is he anything other than something inorganic and dead?” 31 Divine happiness is the ultimate goal and the good of man. It belongs to man's divine part. It is pure good, while reason is the first good.
Sabtu, 02 November 2024