This post is based on the notes I made watching identically named Artur Holmes lecture in his excellent History of Philosophy course.
Table of Contents
Pre-Theology
Pre-Socratic thought demonstrates the gradual shift from a mechanical and chaotic universe to a moral and ordered one, which opens the door to theology. We can see similar questions, concepts, and a tendency towards a unified explanation of reality.
Anaximander (610-546 BC)
Anaximander provides the clearest early example of moral cosmology. He wrote that things “give justice and reparation to one another for their injustice according to the order of time,” which is a pretty convoluted way of saying that the cosmos is not morally neutral. No act of overstepping is left without consequences.
Things exist by arising from the apeiron (the boundless), and they eventually return, paying the penalty for their separation. This is basically a legal and moral framework applied to physics.
The universe, for Anaximander, has a built-in ethical structure. It is an impersonal cosmic justice that anticipates the later personified Dike of Greek tragedy and the Stoic Logos.
Pythagoras (570-495 BC)
The closest one to theology though is Pythagoras. He believed in immortality and transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis). The soul is punished or rewarded by being reincarnated into different life forms based on its conduct.
There is a moral order to the universe that governs the fate of individual souls. Justice is cosmic and personal. It introduces the idea of a moral universe that judges and cycles souls, which is a concept that later influences Plato and, indirectly, Christian theology.
Moira
In Homer and early Greek poetry (8th–7th century BC), the universe is far from being moral. It is governed by Moira, usually translated as “fate”, “portion”, or “share”. Even the heroes who are “good” suffer and die because their portion is suffering and death. There is no guarantee that virtue leads to happiness or any good outcome.
Beauty, wealth, status, and honor are what make a Greek hero. There is no interest in abstract morality.
The idea of cosmic justice is a radical departure from that status quo.
Cosmic Justice
The core of that idea is a belief that the universe is not morally neutral. It has a built-in ethical structure that ensures balance, proportion, and eventual punishment for any violation of its order. Sort of a moral thermodynamics.
Everything in the cosmos has its proper place, measure, or limit. The sun has a path it must follow, seasons have their duration, creatures have their lifespans. This is the “order” part.
To “overstep” these boundaries is an act of injustice (adikia). This applies to natural phenomena as much as to human actions.
Justice (dike) restores balance, it’s a reversion to the mean. The transgressor must pay penalty or give reparation. This is a built-in inescapable restoration of cosmic order.
Nature –> City State –> Moral Life
Since the natural world is believed to be ordered, and we are all tied to it, it becomes the foundation of being. Order is nature, and nature is order. It’s not something you can escape from.
Greek city-states were perceived as microcosms, so it’s a natural way to explain why city life needs a moral order and a justice system of some sort. Each city had distinct elements, such as classes and factions, which were considered key components that needed to exist in a certain balanced proportion.
Political philosophy is born from cosmology. The question “What is the best government?” is really asking “What form of human order best reflects the order of reality?”.
Logos
The Pre-Socratic concept of Logos (particularly in Heraclitus) is a rational principle that ensures cosmic order. It guarantees that, in the end, things work out justly. Wisdom, then, means speaking the truth and acting according to nature. Measure, balance, and harmony give order, value, and meaning to life.
The Opposition
The main opposition to the idea of a moral universe came from the Sophists, who were mostly traveling teachers active in the late 5th century BC (~450–400 BC). They were a loose group, but they shared certain tendencies: anthropocentrism, skepticism, and a focus on pragmatic tools such as rhetoric.
The most famous statement of Sophist philosophy comes from Protagoras (490-420 BC):
Man is the measure of all things: of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not.
This is quite a sceptical take, implying that values are human inventions and the truth is relative. In general, Sophists were very “real” and you can see their intuitions in modern and widely accepted concepts such as realpolitik.
Conclusion
The Pre-Socratic period created an ideological base and a set of key areas of focus for the whole Western philosophical project. The cool thing about philosophy is its “durability”, you can still make the same arguments people invoked during those early debates, and hardly anything has been settled.
Our society underwent radical change during the 20th century, but that doesn’t mean our worldview is that different from the people who lived thousands of years ago. People who say that philosophy is mostly useless should at least acknowledge its great work of distillation, separating the ephemeral from the eternal.