Buce on Plutarch on Kindness

Buce writes:

Underbelly: Plutarch on Kindness: Plutarch’s... discussion of Cato the Elder. Cato was the archetypical “old republican”—hard-working, thrifty, honest and just. Plutarch thought Cato a good man in so many ways, but he does notice one odd or unexpected quirk. When Cato’s slaves “became too old to work,” Plutarch says, “he felt it his duty to sell them rather than feed so many useless mouths.” Plutarch sees fit to pause and reflect on the point:

For my own part I regard his conduct towards his slaves in treating them like beasts of burden, exploiting them to the limits of their strength, and then, when they were old, driving them off and selling them, as the mark of a thoroughly ungenerous nature, which cannot recognize any bond between man and man but that of necessity. And yet we see that kindness possesses a far wider sphere of action than justice, for it is in the nature of things that law and justice are confined to our dealings with our fellow men, whereas kindness and charity, which often flow from a gentle nature like water form an abundant spring, may be extended even to dumb animals. A kindly man will take good care of his horses even when they are worn out in his service, and will look after his dogs not only when they are puppies, but when they need special treatment.

For my part, I would not sell even my draught ox simply because of his age, far less turn out an old man from the home and the way of life to which he has grown accustomed for the sake of a few paltry coins, especially since he would be of no more use to the buyer than he was to the seller...

Comments

[gaddeswarup]

Reminded of the Kerala govt. decision to pension elephants:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3093857.stm
I think that West Bengal govt. did ir earlier. Interestingly both are communist.

[P.M.Lawrence]

It was for just such reasons that many slave codes had provisions against freeing slaves against their wills - so that they wouldn't be turned out to starve once they could no longer even look after themselves. Indeed, there was even a slave revolt against emancipation in the British West Indies, before it was made clear that full emancipation would be preceded by a period of tutelage during which freedmen could save and otherwise prepare themselves for independent living. How very different from Lincoln's letting them root like hogs.

[Buce]

There's a great chapter in Eric Foner's history of the reconstruction--on the issue of "what shall we do with them now?"

[Ponzi Q. Globalization]

How does such kindness fit into modern economic theory? Kindness of this type causes a misallocation of resources and thus reduces human happiness in the long run. Such kindness is to be discouraged.

[Anderson]

What is Plutarch's Greek word for "kindness"? and "kindly"?

[rea]

Cato the Censor and kindness? The man was a genocide, quite apart from his brutal treatment of slaves.

[demisod]

Plutarch's future would be dim in today's corporate HR world, I fear, although to be fair I suppose we are talking about more than a few coins there.

[demisod]

Plutarch's future would be dim in today's corporate HR world, I fear, although to be fair I suppose we are talking about more than a few coins there.

[Harold]

We would do well to read more Plutarch. There are many surprising things there -- as when he says the purpose of the state is to redistribute resources -- as the purpose of the stomach is to send food to all parts of the body (I think in his life of Coriolanus).

Plutarch greatly influenced the founding fathers -- via the enlightenment generally, if not directly. He represents stoicism at its most attractive.

According to Wikipedia: "Emerson called the Lives 'a bible for heroes' in his glowing introduction to the five volume 19th century edition of his Moralia.[15] Emerson also wrote that 'We cannot read Plutarch without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: 'A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering, determined.' "[16]

Of course as Underbelly points out, Plutarch didn't go so far as saying we should free the slaves. But his was a critical step in the direction of human equality.

[Anderson]

Plutarch calls him a "kind husband" (Waterfield tr.), and recounts this:

"After the birth of Cato's son no business, unless it was for the state, was urgent enough to keep him away frim his wife when she was bathing the baby and wrapping it in swaddling clothes."

He also deplored anyone's hitting their wife or child.

[buce]

"What is Plutarch's Greek word for "kindness"?

Interesting question.

“Kindness and charity” is “euergesias de kai charitas” (pardon my feeble transliteration). “Euergesias” is an interesting word that says a lot about Greek culture. It pops up in 1 Timothy 6:2 as meaning “benefit.” But it can also serve as a sly euphemism for “bribe”—I don’t have it handy, but I believe that Crito “euergetaied” the guards to get into prison to visit Socrates. Think “grease the palms,” or “another insult,” as in the Mikado.
David Sansone translates the phrase as “benevolence and charity.” Dryden says “kindness or humanity.” I’ll paste in a bit of Greek text here, no idea whether it will copy:
εὐεργεσίας
There, got that?

[Julian Elson]

Interesting that John Rawls also said that treatment of non-human animals was "outside the scope of the theory of justice," and that any duties we had toward them were those of "compassion and humanity" -- quite reminiscent of Plutarch's perspective. I saw the Rawls quote, though, in a Nussbaum essay ("Beyond 'Compassion and Humanity'") which quibbles with this view and puts animals within the realm of justice.

Of course, Plutarch himself seems to have regarded treatment of slaves *and* animals as issues of "kindness and charity," while "justice," I suppose, applies to free people. Rawls would undoubtedly say that "justice" applies to human slaves, but still keeps non-human animals in the sphere of "compassion and humanity." Nussbaum then attacks Rawls with the critique that "justice" also applies to non-human animals.

[buce]

I'm recalling the "Slaveship Zong" case, where Luke Collingwood had live slaves thrown overboard so he could collect the insurance. Some judge, and I think it might be Lord Mansfield, said that throwing a slave overboard could no more be murder than would be the throwing of a horse overboard.

[Gordon Gecko]

If one wanted to give Cato the benefit of the doubt:

If you accept slavery in principle, then this is not very different from layoffs or restructuring.

If he could sell his slaves, it would imply that there existed buyers who saw economic value in them (or the existence of (informal?) charity willing to provide for them). It's possible that the conditions of his household were particularly physically demanding on slaves and it would be economically rational (and not necessarily cruel to the slaves) to find them "employment" where they would be more useful. There's no mention of him forcibly freeing, mistreating or killing slaves he no longer had use for; perhaps he did "pension" those for whom there were no buyers.

[Anderson]

Thanks, Buce! Exactly what I needed.

[achilleas]

Buce: As i understand it, the word εὐεργεσίας literally means good-deed (or good-work ) and in some cases charity or bribe as well. You can decompose it to (εὐ=good + εργo=deed). I don't think the term benevolence is that accurate, although kindness is a good compromise in terms of meaning.

If anyone wants to read the entire chapter, you can find it online here:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cato_Major*.html

Nevertheless is a good analogy to the "bottom line" approach in modern business as opposed to "labour hoarding" during recessions. When things start to go a bit bad and profits drop you just fire the employees without worrying about the additional costs of rehiring, training costs etc... that's a problem that the next CEO will have to deal with.

[P.M.Lawrence]

I don't know if this will clarify or muddy the waters, but consider the role of temples in the ancient world. They did two things that may be relevant here:-

- They were financial institutions inter alia. Roman Law required that slaves be paid a peculium, a small amount all their own, and many deposited their peculia with temples, saving up to buy their freedom; I don't know if it happened, but the machinery was there for slaves to finish buying themselves off with what amounted to a temple mortgage.

- One common method of freeing slaves while remaining within the legal framework was for a temple to buy them; they became "slaves of the god", de facto free in most cases but with any continuing master-slave obligations remaining with the temple concerned (which also provided food used in sacrifices as relief for the poor, so presumably they had effectively free resources to feed slaves too).

It's entirely possible that Cato's sold off slaves ended up either freed or effectively pensioned off via this route or similar ones.

[Anderson]

"One common method of freeing slaves while remaining within the legal framework was for a temple to buy them; they became 'slaves of the god'"

Interesting, I did not know that. Puts some of Paul's remarks in a new perspective.

[JonF]

Re: I don't know if it happened, but the machinery was there for slaves to finish buying themselves off with what amounted to a temple mortgage.

As far as I know, ancient temples did not issue loans to individuals, though sometimes they did so to the state. They took in deposits like modern banks, but charged the depositor a nominal fee for safekeeping. Loans generally came from moneylenders, at exorbitant interest rates.