Among the ideas explored in Aristotle's Politics and Plato's Republic is the claim that by and by the person in the grip of undue passions comes around to wielding unjust methods for fulfilling them. Consequently, when an entire people's character has been shaped from, on the one hand, inculcation in agitating music, or, on the other hand, from the absence of emotion-quelling music, they venture down the path toward widespread injustice, which in turn incites strife amongst a citizenry, which ultimately ushers in a proliferation of law—what we would today call overregulation—in a doomed essay to cure such maladies.
Secondly, the ancient's reflections on character development through music are related to the promotion of human excellence, therefore to human well-being as well. This is significant, since the kind of musical instruction that is endorsed mediates the passions but not with rigid restraints; rather, one's study of music is prompting yearnings for philosophical illumination and moral decency. These proclivities reside at the very heart of our human nature. For Aristotle our true self inheres in the intellect through which we are able to contemplate and also to undertake action with an eye toward what is noble and true. However, the true self requires the aid of music in order to actualize itself. Consequently ancient thought sees music as vital to one's realization as a complete human, to achieving full happiness.
It may be objected that there are people with no musical training and no interest or talent in music who nevertheless are capable of rendering sound moral decisions, sizing up other people according to their character, and acting virtuously. From the other side, there are certainly cases of gifted musicians who pass through life as evil psychopaths. Such considerations may prompt a skeptic to doubt the legitimacy of any connections we might claim between music and the cultivation of moral virtue.
By way of response, it is crucial to understand just what Aristotle and Plato are saying. They are not contending that music will, in any facile and direct manner, impel us to behave in some particular fashion. Instead, their view amounts to the twofold contention that (1) music influences human passions, and (2) such an influence will either make it harder or easier for reason to grasp and the will to select the right things in life.
These ideas acquire further illumination from the stress that ancient thought places on human flourishing as an attainment surpassing bare public stability. If you were to go around today asking what it means for human flourishing to take place, you would doubtless receive all sorts of answers, ranging from “spending more time with the kids” to “having enough money to play golf” to “getting in touch with my spiritual side.” According to the ancient Greek mind, though, the utmost happiness arises out of the engagement of our intellect in leisure. Aristotle instructs that leisure is the objective of human life. Many people consider their work as simply a means to acquiring goods that they will be able to enjoy once they are away from work. By comparison, leisure is a state during which we are able to relish whatever we have chosen for its own intrinsic value. Leisure is what most of us prize and where we look to gain fulfillment.
A key issue for Aristotle and Plato, though is this: Is what we are enjoying in leisure genuinely the kind of thing deserving of a rational being, and is it fostering the kind of well-being that is fitting for that sort of being?
Another response, of a more general nature, is that we ought not to demand too much from music, as if it can supply something of a sinecure that even a modern legal order and religion are not equipped to do. What is more important to grasp from the enlightened ancient reflections is the idea that music imparts, even in the midst of our obvious moral crises and social failings, a glimpse of something in humanity that is higher, immutable, and most worthy. The ancient philosophers' insights into virtuosity help us to gain a greater awareness of our potential for fostering human excellence, whether in music, in the arts, or in business.
Assuming the vantage point of ancient philosophy, the importance that today's culture attaches to material wealth and hedonism, together with its acceptance of moral relativism and a general apathy regarding the pursuit of human excellence is utterly unsatisfactory. Early thinkers maintained that this sort of society attends to the lowest features of humanity. Consequently, the soul comes around to pine for sustenance that is absent in the culture at large. According to the classical account, the type of “society of pigs” rejected by Glaucon fosters irrational and disorderly passions that disfigure the soul while imperiling the foundations upon which society rests—an imperilment that is in fact mirrored in much of the turmoil and disorder transpiring within the global economic crisis.
My contention is that it is vital that people incline themselves toward the uppermost human ends singled out by ancient philosophers. Only out of the pursuit of human excellence—virtuosity—can a respectable social order and an ecology of the market materialize as a consequence. The early philosophers instruct as to why music stands indispensable to cultivating an adoration of the highest things, and thus to safeguarding civilization.
Raising Awareness
According to Aristotle, a person in possession of good character sees circumstances in the right way, discerning their relevant moral dimensions. Among other things, this explains, for instance, why we “punish those who are ignorant of anything in the laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult, and so too in the case of anything else that they are thought to be ignorant of through carelessness; we assume that it is in their power not to be ignorant, since they have the power of taking care.”103 It is by means of our imagination (phantasia), that we can comprehend the ethical features of our conduct, and our inability to grasp the morally significant aspects of a state of affairs is a mark of poor character. If we are a person of good character, we will see a given action, say, the racist comment of a client, as requiring us to exemplify courage in standing up to challenge the remark. In fact, being morally spineless, lacking the will to stand up for what is right, can be a symptom of incorrect moral awareness. “For [although] both the man who has knowledge but is not using it and he who is using it are said to know, it will make a difference whether, when a man does what he should not, he has the knowledge but is not exercising it, or is exercising it; for the latter seems strange, but not the former.”104
Businesspeople enter judgment and chose how to behave based on the way they model complex phenomena—like the financial crisis. In Chapter 7 we shall consider how contemporary thinking about business has developed around different mental models. In particular we will discuss how various mental models have portrayed the global financial crisis differently, and we will suggest how those models need to be expanded.
Thus, for economists, issues surrounding the financial crisis are framed as technical problems, not moral issues. Typically the language used is descriptive, centering around raw sets of values fed into systems instead of normative analysis of obligations, rights, and fairness. Such an econometric language-game can be commanding and alluring, creating an illusion that considerations of morality, of the human side of things are somehow off-message for business culture. To the extent that a moral-cultural mental model can be brought to bear on business and economics, it will assist us in gaining fluency in the language of virtue, character, human dignity, and the common good. Such a way of thinking enhances our moral imagination and raises the likelihood that we will be able to provide a more comprehensive account of morally important states of affairs.
It is precisely to this end that I am endeavoring to weave into our tour of ethics in contemporary business a fair measure of allusions to artistic excellence. Here is why. Excellence in any human endeavor, be it in music, art, literature, science, or athletics, in the end points to our higher nature. Paradoxically, we may only be able to come