We can look at the options for conquerors as three:

1. 1.      totalitarian – impose the same culture and values on everyone (kill or be converted),
2. 2.      Tribal – consider other cultures as evil but allow them to coexist (the Peaceful Coexistence of the super powers during the cold war; the relationship between the Hindus and the Moslems in India are examples),
3. 3.      Individual – each individual chooses the values that are “right” for themselves (pluralism)

Alexander promoted pluralism in his empire. He encouraged client states to continue to value their cultures at the same time that he encouraged them to adopt aspects of the Greek culture. The result was the Hellenization of the known world (the “Greeks” actually referred to themselves in Greek as “Hellenes.”) The language of government and commerce became Greek. Since a language is the most important way a culture lives and thrives, the more the Greek language came to dominate interpersonal relations, the more the Greek world view came to override native cultures (much as modern European languages influenced native cultures in colonies, or English now influences those cultures that adopt American products and values today). Along with this impact on the cultures of client states there is the impact on the dominant culture itself. Accepting other cultures as valuable and as having insights and traits that are worth adopting, even if only to appear friendly to “barbarian” (Greek for “foreign”!) cultures has an impact on the metanarrative accepted by the elite. It becomes no longer clear that the values that were important in a relatively isolated community are necessarily what one should value in the more complex pluralistic community. How should someone decide what values are most important?

We already see in Aristotle’s Ethics a viewpoint that attempts to decide these issues. When we read Aristotle today, it is easy for us to see his point that the Good is what we aim at, and that different people aim at different things. So, unlike Plato, the Good does not lead us in one logical direction, but instead can lead us in many directions. What is good for one person may not be good for another. It was certainly less difficult for Aristotle and his fellow Athenians to still come to a rational consensus about what the good life should be like. They were still culturally sound as Greeks. But the more the pluralism of empire grew the more individuals would be affected and find the good life difficult to determine.

We see certain philosophers typical of schools of thought as we look back at the various philosophical attempts to answer this question. Imagine each of them as reacting to the stresses of pluralism and empire.

1. ·        Skeptics – argue that no metanarrative is believable. Nothing can be known with certainty.
2. ·        Aristotelians – argue that the good life can be known to be the best and that a particular type of individual wisdom enables a person to lead that good life.
3. ·        Platonists – argue that the Good is knowable through emancipation from material things and concentration on spiritual / rational ideas.