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vin. THE JAINA AND THE WESTERN TYPES OF ETHICAL DOCTRINES 257
general but only exclusive egoism is detrimental. Besides, the great value of the entire Sophistic movement consisted in this: it awakened thought and challenged philosophy, religion, customs, morals and the institutions based on them, to justify themselves to reason. Now the age in which Mahāvīra was born resembled that of the Sophists in a great measure. In contrast to Protagoras, Mahāvīra did not depreciate metaphysical speculation, but denounced absolutism. He reconstructed metaphysics with epistemological objectivism as its basis, and thus became an exponent of the multiple nature of reality, technically known as Anekāntavāda. This attitude exercised its influence on ethical enquiry too. The good is not subjective but objective, though it is realised by individuals. Thus according to Jainism, Ahimsā is the objective good, the complete realization of which is possible in the plenitude of mystical experience. This is the moral and the spiritual egoism which distinguishes itself from the narrow and the selfish egoism of Protagoras. The former gives an impétus to the formulation of an ethical theory, while the latter leads us only to a chaos.
SOCRATES: Socrates combated the intellectual and moral chaos of the age, and protested against the subjectivity and relativity of the Sophists who reduced all morality to a matter of private caprice. Socrates conformed with the view of Protagoras that the good we seek is human well-being, but differed from him by saying that it is independent of the fluctuating choice of the individuals. It is not subjective, but objective, because it is capable of being made intelligible by means of general conceptions, which are the products of reason, the universal element in man. Thus according to Socrates knowledge is the highest good, and it is further identified with goodness. The corollary of this view is that no one is voluntarily bad. "By this knowledge' he did not mean of course a purely theoretical knowledge which needed only to be learnt, but an unshakable conviction based on the deepest insight into and realization of what is really valuable in life, a conviction such as he himself possessed."3 Besides, the knowledge with which true goodness is to be identified is knowledge of what is good for the human soul.4 "The only real harm is spiritual and produced only by one's own wrong doing.”5
1 Short History of Ethics, p. 34. 2 History of Philosophy, pp. 61-62. 3 Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, p. 102. 4 Greek Philosophy, p. 176. 5 Outlines of History of Greek Philosophy, p. 102.
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