Professor Robert M. Berchman of Dowling College wrote on this subject for the Neusner-Chilton conference and volume of papers. He identifies two immediate issues facing the classicist:
-
“There are no words in Greek or Latin that translate into English as reciprocity”, and
-
“The general definition of the Golden Rule …treat others as we want, and would want, others to treat us…is lacking in Archaic, Classical and Greco-Roman sources.”
Given these issues, Berchman notes that it is not surprising that “the ethics of reciprocity in Greek, Hellenistic and Roman religion and philosophy has more than one sense.”
He writes:
“If the Golden Rule appears in Socrates and Plato it would approximate:
‘The Good always benefits, it does not harm. Be good unto others’.”
As an idea of reciprocity emerges from this source, Berchman writes that:” It refers to a person’s virtue as a member of a community.” (emphasis added)
In classical Athens “reciprocity is based on justice”. But this can be approached in either an intellectual or sociocentric sense. “Homer’s physical particularity of reciprocity – as kinship and household obligations; is challenged by Socrates’ intellectual universality of reciprocity – as rational and political obligations.”
In either case, though, even given the “universality” of Socrates’ view, the relationships under consideration are of limited scope. That is, even if not limited to kinship, for example, the universal idea here is the universal of the city, state or nation. Universal within a known affinity group.
Berchman writes that “Plato wants to argue that justice is the fundamental reciprocal virtue for a community”. (emphasis added)
“If there is a Golden Rule in Aristotle” Berchman writes, “it would approximate:
‘Love the other as another self’.”
If we are virtuous we care about the friend in the way we care about ourselves.
“The type of friendship which Aristotle has in mind is that which embodies several goods. It is this sharing which is essential and primary to the constitution of any form of self and community, whether household or city.”
“This sort of concern for others not only promotes one’s own good, but the good of others – as another self.”
So, for Aristotle, the good that arises from concern for another is reflexive; that is, of itself, even without being reciprocated, it produces a good for the one having concern. But the expectation of reciprocation is real and so the good done is multiplied. Each one who cares for another receives both the reflexive good of his own altruism and the expected reciprocal good from the object of his concern.
“If there is a Golden Rule among Neoplatonists”, Berchman writes,” it would read:
‘Do unto others what by God’s grace and love is done unto you.’”
So, now we begin to see a shift from simply human virtue to an idea that incorporates the divine, and a shift from the simply philosophical to the religious.
“At the close of Roman antiquity another reading of reciprocity emerges to muddy the waters further. On the basis of distinction made between state and community, a theology develops to support a new understanding…the source and activity of reciprocity is grounded in divine will, not human reason.”
In the later Neoplatonists Berchman finds “the need for divine grace, combined with a new human receptiveness toward such grace. Here, we encounter for the first time the notion of a divine, nonreflective, selfless reciprocity, of giving as a form of charity.”
But as much as the Neoplatonists’ view of reciprocity had shifted toward a more religious one it “was not directed to members of society in general but to members of a specific religious-philosophical community, an ecclesia Neoplatonica or Neoplatonic church.”
Critically, while the example of divine altruism is apparently universal the practice promoted at the human level is contained within an affinity group!
While the waters might be muddy for the classicist studying this topic, for our purposes one important issue is clear,
Even though the Aristotelian idea of seeing the other as “another self” might have a universal ring to it, Berchman does not bring any argument that suggests the fundamental concern of those in the societies he studies actually extended beyond those societies or even, in some cases, beyond the sub-groups within those societies that represented an individual’s kinship or other affinity group.
The ideas of reciprocity, justice and virtue were of concern not universally but particularly.
©Charles R. Lightner