Luck and ethics

Abstract

‘But human excellence grows like a vine tree, fed by the green dew, raised up, among wise men and just, to the liquid sky.’ So Pindar displays a problem that lies at the heart of Greek thought about the good life for a human being. He is a poet who has dedicated his career to writing lyric odes in praise of human excellence. This career presupposes, on the part of both poet and audience, the belief that the excellence of a good person is something of that person's own, for whose possession and exercise that person can appropriately be held accountable. He has just been praying to die as he had lived, as one ‘who praised what deserves praise and sowed blame for wrong-doers’. His ‘but’, which might equally well be translated ‘and’, both continues and qualifies that prayer. The excellence of the good person, he writes, is like a young plant: something growing in the world, slender, fragile, in constant need of food from without. A vine tree must be of good stock if it is to grow well. And even if it has a good heritage, it needs fostering weather (gentle dew and rain, the absence of sudden frosts and harsh winds), as well as the care of concerned and intelligent keepers, for its continued health and full perfection. So, the poet suggests, do we. We need to be born with adequate capacities, to live in fostering natural and social circumstances, to stay clear of abrupt catastrophe, to develop confirming associations with other human beings.

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