The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason

How can rationally self-interested individuals make decisions that not only benefit themselves but also promote the welfare of others? How can people form social groups and establish government institutions that will enable them to live fulfilling lives as individuals and community members? In The Greeks and the Rational, Josiah Ober explores the ancient Greeks’ discussions of these perennial questions and argues that they still have much to teach us.Ober identifies what he calls the “ancient Greek folk theory of practical reason”—the idea that rationally self-interested individuals will choose (among available options) the alternative that they believe will be most beneficial to themselves. Ober does not claim that the ancient Greeks were the only people to “discover” this theory, but he does maintain that they developed it in original and interesting ways. Ober calls it a “folk theory” because it was widely accepted by ancient Greek thinkers who wrote in a wide range of genres (e.g., epic, lyric poetry, history, oratory, and tragedy) but it was not formally expressed until the Sophists articulated it in the late fifth century BCE. These Sophists (itinerant teachers working mainly in Athens who taught aristocratic youths how to be successful in political life) not only articulated this folk theory but also explored several different versions of it as well as each version’s political implications. For example, when several individuals live together in a community, each person must subordinate their own needs and wants to the desires of others. But why should rational, egocentric actors place others’ needs before their own, particularly if they have the strength and intelligence to dominate other people and force them to do their bidding? If they can successfully control other people and get everything they desire, why shouldn’t they do so? The Greeks and the Rational explores the ancient Greeks’ considerations of these and related questions and shows that we have much to learn from their discussions.Ober’s title is a nod to the groundbreaking book, The Greeks and the Irrational, published by the classical scholar E. R. Dodds in 1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press). Drawing on the fields of psychology and cultural anthropology, Dodds sought to expand the traditional view of the ancient Greeks as representing the “classical ideals” of reason, balance, and proportion by discussing some of the wilder and more mysterious aspects of ancient Greek culture, such as shamanism, bacchic ecstasy, and inherited guilt (as portrayed in Greek tragedies). Although Dodds’s Freudian explanations for Greek religious phenomena and his rigid distinctions between shame and guilt cultures have since been superseded, The Greeks and the Irrational is still influential today, as can be seen from articles such as “E. R. Dodds and the Irrational: ‘Agamemnon’s Apology’ Revisited,” or those in the recent volume Rediscovering E. R. Dodds.1 While not denying the importance of Dodds’s work, Ober aims to direct our attention back to the Greeks’ unique contributions to logical thought and rational decision-making.Ober argues that the late fifth-century Sophists articulated several versions of the Greek folk theory of practical reason (the idea that rationally self-interested individuals will choose to do what they perceive as being in their own best interest) and explored the political implications of each variation. As far as we can tell from the fragmentary remains of the Sophists’ essays and the (admittedly hostile) portrayals of the Sophists in Plato’s dialogues, some Sophists (although certainly not all) argued that anyone with the strength and intelligence to control other people for their own benefit would be justified in doing so. Ober calls this the “Thrasymachean” version of the folk theory, after Thrasymachus, the Sophist who appears as a character in Book 1 of Plato’s Republic arguing for this point of view. Ober explains that in response to this and other versions of the folk theory, the fourth century Socratic philosophers (Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle) developed deeper and more ethical versions of this theory, arguing that reason can guide self-interested decision-makers to favor more choiceworthy ends. Such ends can include the goal of living in a well-ordered community in which all individuals can thrive. Ober explores how the issues of justice and rational choice were treated by a wide range of ancient Greek authors (including Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aeschylus, Plato, and Xenophon), as well as how these values were reflected in Athenian democratic institutions. Ober also makes the case that while the ancient Greeks did not anticipate modern rational choice theory, they shared many of its assumptions. When ancient Greek discussions of practical reasoning are reframed in terms of modern choice theory, Ober contends, the results can provide valuable insights, not only for classicists and philosophers but also for political theorists.While it would be impossible to summarize all the examples of rational decision-making that Ober discusses in his more than 400-page volume, it will be helpful to briefly discuss two of them: the Thrasymachean version of the folk theory mentioned above along with Plato’s response; and the historical example of the disastrous decision made by the Melians during the Peloponnesian War. As Thucydides presents it in his Histories, the Melians’ decision to fight the more powerful Athenians rather than surrender on generous terms resulted in the slaughter of the entire population and the obliteration of their city.As mentioned above, the Sophist Thrasymachus appears as a character in the first book of Plato’s Republic, making the case that anyone who could successfully dominate others should not hesitate to do so. As Ober points out (59), this viewpoint was traditionally equated by the Greeks with the desire to become a tyrant—an autocrat with complete control over his city, with all its wealth and power at his disposal, unfettered by irksome rules and regulations. In Book 1 of the Republic, Socrates easily silences Thrasymachus by catching him in a verbal self-contradiction, but in Book 2, Glaucon (another of Socrates’ interlocutors) reframes Thrasymachus’ argument by telling the story of the Ring of Gyges. In this story (which Plato adapted from the historian Herodotus, as Ober explains), an ordinary (and presumably law-abiding) Lydian shepherd named Gyges finds a ring that, when he puts it on, makes him invisible. Quickly taking advantage of his new power, Gyges enters the royal palace, seduces the queen, kills the king, and soon becomes the next king of Lydia.The moral of the story, Glaucon contends, is that although everyone openly praises justice, no one would hesitate to act unjustly if he could do so with impunity. In other words, each person would willingly become a tyrant and satisfy his every desire if only he were strong enough to do so without the fear of punishment. Glaucon then asks Socrates to prove him wrong: Is there any reason why a person should act justly for its own sake, without regard for external rewards or punishments? Glaucon’s challenge to Socrates in Book 2 of Plato’s Republic (which Ober calls “Glaucon’s Dilemma”) sets up the discussion for the rest of the dialogue.Socrates’ answer ranges over the rest of the Republic, during which Socrates and his interlocutors establish an ideal city in speech and decide (among other things) that it should be governed by philosopher kings (Book 5). But Socrates’ simplest and most direct answer to Glaucon’s dilemma comes in Books 8 and 9, in which Socrates shows that the tyrant—far from being the freest and happiest of all men—is in fact the most miserable, since he has no friends and cannot trust anyone, even those who are closest to him. Living in constant fear of being killed and overthrown, and a slave to his most brutish desires, the tyrant turns out to be the most slavish of slaves (364). As Ober explains, Plato’s point is twofold: first, that human happiness involves living in harmony with others; and second, that human reason can guide us to choose healthier and more happiness-inducing goals than the immediate fulfillment of our most basic desires for sex, money, and power. Thus, the Greek folk theory that rationally self-interested individuals will choose to do what they perceive is in their own best interest remains valid in Plato’s philosophical reformulation, with the caveat that a person’s perception of self-interest should be based on knowledge and reason rather than irrational desire.Ober also discusses the historical example of the decision made by the inhabitants of the island of Melos not to capitulate to the Athenians in 416 BCE during the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the Athenians and the Spartans, each supported by their respective allies. As told by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War (and retold by Ober), the Melians were ethnically related to the Spartans but had chosen to remain neutral in the war. The Athenians, however, surrounded the island with their powerful navy and threatened to annihilate the Melians if they did not capitulate to them. When the Melians protested that they had not harmed the Athenians in any way and preferred to remain neutral and thus preserve their freedom, the Athenians responded that by remaining independent, the Melians made the Athenians look weak. The Athenians offered the Melians very favorable terms: if they paid a moderate tax and agreed to submit to Athenian rule, they could keep their city intact. If the Melians refused, however, the Athenians would destroy them. As noted above, the Melians chose to fight the more powerful Athenians, with catastrophic results.Why did the Melians make the irrational choice to fight a battle they had almost no chance of winning, when the alternative penalty was relatively mild? Ober suggests that the Melians were suffering from what the rational choice theorists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have called “loss aversion.” Briefly, when the choice is between (a) a very small chance of keeping the status quo with a substantial risk of losing everything and (b) a certain but limited loss, Kahneman and Tversky found that most people will choose to risk everything for a very small chance of keeping what they have, rather than accept a limited but certain loss. As Ober notes (247, quoting Kahneman), “risk taking of this kind often turns manageable failures into disasters.” Ober argues that the Melians’ refusal to accept the Athenians’ reasonable terms can be explained by “loss aversion,” and he cites this as a good example of how modern rational choice theory can provide new insights into ancient texts (and vice versa).Ober’s book is a masterful synthesis of ancient Greek thought and contemporary theory that well repays serious study. Its two greatest strengths are the comparative analysis of ancient Greek history, literature, and philosophy, and the author’s conviction that the ancient Greeks’ discussions of justice and practical reason have relevance for us today. Regarding the first point, ancient Greek writers spoke to one another without regard for the genre in which they were writing, and we need to read their works across generic boundaries if we want to truly understand their conversation. Too often, however, modern disciplinary silos prevent philosophers from reading literature, and historians and literary scholars from studying philosophy. Regarding the second point, it is all too easy for contemporary thinkers to write off ancient studies, while classicists are frequently content to speak only to one another. But the ancient Greeks had valuable insights that could benefit us if more classicists were willing, as Ober is, to open up a dialogue.The book’s greatest (and perhaps only) weakness is that Ober too frequently lapses into the same rational/irrational binary that plagued Dodds and his contemporaries. I do not mean that Ober ignores the role of emotions in the decision-making process, but rather that he frequently fails to appreciate the positive contribution that emotions can bring. The ancient Greeks understood that emotions influence rational thought in both positive and negative ways. Thucydides portrays the Melians’ decision as due (at least in part) to their love of freedom and their trust in the Athenians not to annihilate a Greek city that had caused them no harm. Thucydides shows that the Melians’ trust was misplaced, and he implies that the Athenians’ actions were cruel and inhumane (Thuc. 5.85–113). The Melians may well have been suffering from “loss aversion” as Ober claims, but that is not a complete explanation of why they decided to fight for their freedom.Plato, too, understood the positive role that emotions can play in the decision-making process. He ends the Republic not with a rational argument, but with a myth about the afterlife (the Myth of Er) that raises the same question posed by the Ring of Gyges story in Book 2: “Why be moral?” The Myth of Er, coming as it does after all of the rational arguments have already been made, presents an answer in emotional and inspirational terms, suggesting that, in Plato’s view, emotions can play both a positive and a negative role in human thought and action.