Case No.; 1:98 CV 897
HON. David W. McKeague
U.S. District Judge
MEGAN DAUGHERTY AND DONALD SWEENY,
JEFFREY AND CATHY SEAVER,
individually and as next friends
of their minor children,
Plaintiffs,
V.
VANGUARD CHARTER SCHOOL ACADEMY,
GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY and
NATIONAL HERITAGE ACADEMIES, a
Michigan Corporation,
Defendants.
AFFIDAVIT OF SARA RAPPE, Ph.D.
SARA RAPPE, pursuant to 28 USC § 1746, declares under penalty of perjury that the following is true and correct, excepting those matters stated to be on information or belief, and as to those matters I declare that same are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information and belief:
1. I am an Associate Professor of Greek and Latin, Department of Classical Studies, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. My field of expertise is Ancient Greek Philosophy, and this is my function within the Department, I teach classes on ancient ethics, especially. I have attached a copy of my Curriculum Vitae (see; Exhibit A) which is a true and accurate statement of my educational and experiential background demonstrating my expertise in the areas concerning which I currently teach at the University level.
2. I have reviewed the portions of Plaintiff’s Brief, pages 12 and 13 regarding the Moral Focus Curriculum at Vanguard Charter School. I understand the Defendants in this case contend that the Moral Focus Curriculum (“MFC” below) is based on, and consistent with, four cardinal greek virtues: “prudence; temperance;
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fortitude; justice.” Based on the materials reviewed, I have the following professional opinion of the Moral Focus Curriculum. I have not been paid or promised anything of value in consideration of this Affidavit, but make this Affidavit solely as a professional teacher and life-long student of Greek Philosophy,
3. The MFC claims to be based on, the four cardinal greek virtues: “prudence; temperance; fortitude; justice.” In what follows I discuss the history and meaning of these virtues. I also discuss the definition, applications, and keywords that are used to teach these virtues in the Moral Focus Curriculum, paying attention to the question of whether or not these applications are consistent with the claim that the MFC is based on Ancient Greek Ethics.
4. History of Creek Ethics.
a. Sources: to speak about traditional ethical concepts among the ancient Greeks, one must be aware of the sources for our information. What writings had moral authority for the Greeks? How did the Greeks learn to be moral? How did these sources change over time?
i. Traditional Greek poetry by Homer, Hesiod, and Theognis had moral authority for the Greeks through the Fifth Century. These poems gave examples of Praiseworthy people, cited instances of improper conduct, and delineated the features of acceptable versus unacceptable character traits.
ii. In the fourth century and late fifth century, the poetry of Greek tragedy reflected changes in traditional (Archaic) values. Often the tragic poets use traditional terms of ethical valuation to test extreme cases, show weaknesses in traditional practices, and redefine the boundaries of a given ethical concept.
iii. Finally the technical writings of the fourth century, including the Dialogues of Plato and the Treatises of Aristotle, as well as writings from greek oratory (which tell us about legal practice) give us a theoretical model for understanding Greek ethics.
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b. Problems: to what extent did the ordinary Greek citizen take into account the theoretical models offered by Plato, Aristotle, and later philosophical schools? To what extent did these models reflect actual practice among ordinary Greek citizens. Again, to what extent is the religious system of ancient Greek polytheism implied in the poetry that formed the basis of the Greek moral viewpoint? Finally, how can we distinguish among all these sources and definitely say what constituted Greek ethics? These are some of the basic facts and problems confronting us as we examine the question of the virtues.
5. The Four Cardinal Virtues. Plato talks about traditional Greek virtues of courage, temperance, wisdom and justice in his dialogues, Laches, Meno, Charmides, and especially the Republic. In the Republic, he makes each virtue the specialty of a different part of the state: courage belongs to the warrior class; wisdom belongs to the ruling class, and temperance belongs to the lower class. Justice is the adherence of each class to its proper role. Thus, much of what is said about these cardinal virtues really comes from a reading of Plato’s dialogues. However, theme dialogues are not necessarily consonant with what the Greeks practiced in every day life. Still, they are the most important source for this doctrine in the Classical period.
6. Virtue Defined: What then were these virtues in the Classical period? In order to imitate his critique of traditional Greek virtues, Plato first defines these virtues from what he takes to be an ordinary point of view.
a. Virtue is what makes a person happy. Happiness is the goal of human life. Therefore, the Greeks were primarily interested in what makes human life worth living; what makes an individual well off and productive.
b. Justice is returning what belongs to the owner. Justice is rendering to each his due.
c. Courage is knowledge of what is to be feared. Courage is defending one’s fellow citizens in battle. Courage is
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wise endurance.
d. Temperance is self-control, moderation in pleasure, self-knowledge.
e. Wisdom is successful deliberation about the means to achieve happiness.
7. Traditional Virtues. The above are perhaps very moderate statements that would reflect pre-theoretical Greek values, as seen through the eyes of Plato in the fourth century. They are culled from Plato’s dialogues. In fact, traditional Greek ethics as reflected in the earlier poetic traditions is considerably different. Consider this declaration of Theognis, an archaic poet: “Fall on me, great broad heaven above.., if I fail in helping those who love me or fail to bring my enemies woe and pain.” (Theognis, 869-72) From this brief quotation we can see that justice is conceived as helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies. This basic idea, that the excellent person must have both competitive aggressive qualities that make this person a formidable opponent and a serious rival, as well as cooperative virtues which make this person an asset for his community, is the traditional Greek concept of virtue. Though it was modified in several ways, it remained central to the four cardinal virtues: courage is military valor, justice is helping one’ friends and harming one’s enemies, temperance is not transgressing the rights of others and respecting the limits imposed by law, and wisdom is the intelligent fostering of self-interest.
8. The Moral Focus Curriculum. Turning now to the definitions and applications offered by the MFC, it is important to examine the vocabulary used to see if it reflects the sources, concepts and traditions alluded to above or commonly recognized by those who work on ancient Greek moral theory. Again, since the MFC does not specify an ancient Greek Philosophical conception, but rather a traditional conception of virtue, it offers a fairly vague, tenuous picture of what is meant by virtue. Hence, guidance must be sought from the content of the key words and other
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explanatory material.
a. Justice: the MFC offers this gloss on Justice, “to do what is honorable, right and merciful.” But mercy is not a part of the Greek conception of justice. In the traditional senses, mercy is a quality that no Greek could afford to have. To spare one’s enemies, not to punish those who harm your interests or your family’s or community’s interests is a trait that is associated with cowardice, humiliation, lack of courage and injustice. Thus, the ghost of the fallen warrior, Patroclus, berates his living comrade, Achilles, for not avenging his death.
Later, Plato and the tragic poets attempted to soften this conception of justice as involving punishment of one’s enemies. One idea that supplanted vengeance as such was the legal administration of justice, according to which the state became the agent of appropriate punishment for transgression But this nascent legalism could not be equated with “mercy.” Even though Plato argued that it is never right to harm anyone, regardless of the harm inflicted by that person, in fact Plato also argued that the worst possible thing that can befall a person is to go unpunished once having violated an ethical principle or having harmed another person. Therefore, appropriate punishment, and not mercy, is central to even Plato’s reformed ethics.
b. Justice: The MFC offers these key words for April; compassion kindness, forgiveness, grace. We have just seen that compassion and kindness are foreign to the Greek notion of justice. But what about the word, “grace?” This is a problem because "grace” means several things in the modern English language, for which there is really no Classical Greek equivalent. But central to the archaic conception of “charis” a word that is translated as Grace, is the idea of returning favors. Thus Charis means that if someone benefits you, you in turn must benefit that person. If the MFC wants to maintain that justice consists in reciprocation of benefits conferred, then this is hardly what the word Grace connotes in the English language today.
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C. Justice. The MFC in May glosses Justice as being “faithful.” Again we have a problem of ambiguous language. The ancient Greeks definitely held that fulfilling one’s obligations was a part of justice. But fulfilling one’s obligations did not entail being kind, merciful, nor did it entail having a state of mind, faith, meaning belief in the benevolent intervention or presence of something not empirically available. Rather, faith in the Greek context, “pistis” meant abiding by one’s agreements. But is this what the word “faithful” conveys to the modern English speaker? i am not an expert on this and cannot say.
d. Temperance. The MFC glosses temperance as involving the concepts “generous,” “meekness” and “humility.” The question before us is, did the Ancient Greeks include these concepts in their notion of temperance? First, for the Greeks, generosity involved, not temperance, but rather pride, magnificence, public display. Generosity was a way to display one’s resources, to solidify one’s reputation, and to promote the common good through an act that revealed one’s power, influence, and general standing in the community. On the other hand, “humility” for the Greeks is a concept that does not exist at all. Humiliation meant that one was shamed before his peers, either because of physical failing, or because of a general lack of good character or both. Humiliation also occurred when acts of physical or moral outrage were perpetrated on one’s person. Thus, humiliation was not associated with virtue, nor with the virtue of temperance. Finally, “meekness” in the sense of affecting a weak or non-prepossessing exterior, was once more a concept simply unknown to the Greeks. They did have the concept of false modesty, which they called “dissimulation” or “irony.” But these were not elements of temperance.
9. Although the MFC promotes some very appealing ideas that ring true to our modern ears, as defined by the MFC, the moral curriculum Involved seems antithetical to ancient Greek ethics, both as conceived by traditional poets, and as reformed by Plato.
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Primarily the MFC does not seem to understand that for the Greeks, virtue was by definition, IN ONE'S OWN SELF INTEREST. Plato never disputed that, he made it the basis of his Republic. Hence, meekness, self-abnegation, not punishing wrong-doers (“forgiveness”), self -sacrifice were foreign to traditional Greek ethics, These ideas, if anything, would have been seen as themselves indications as character flaws. From what I have seen at the MFC, I cannot agree that it is based on the “four cardinal virtues” of the ancient Greeks.
Further Affiant sayeth not.
VERIFICATION
I, the undersigned, pursuant to 28 USC § 1746, declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct, excepting those matters stated to be on information or belief, and as to those matters I declare that same are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information and belief.
Date: 3/15/2000
SARA RAPPE
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