The Beginnings

Abstract

The Greeks are the only philosophical moralists commonly studied by the Western world who were not influenced by Christianity, for the compelling reason that all their major ethical systems were developed long before the birth of Christ. We have to remember that their basic moral and religious outlook was different from ours, and that what they valued and admired was sometimes very different from what we value and admire. At the same time these differences must not be over-emphasised; the Greeks, like us, were human beings, and shared the common lot of humanity, which must provide the raw material for all ethical systems. Further, in some ways their views have greatly affected Christian thinking; their tradition is not so much an alien as an ancestral one, which shows differences from our own only because the latter contains other elements as well. We can usually enjoy a Greek tragedy in a straightforward way, and understand the passions and the moral issues involved; the attitudes of an Orestes, an Antigone, or an Oedipus, are comprehensible to us even when we do not share them, and equally we are seldom really puzzled by the outlook of the historians or the orators.