ETHICS Bramante here represents Democritus as the laughing philosopher and Heraclitus as the weeping philosopher thought that was developed by Socrates into the principle that it is better to suVer wrong than to inXict wrong—a principle incompatible with the inXuential moral systems that encourage one to judge actions only by their consequences and not by the identity of their agents Others of his oVhand remarks, if taken seriously, are sufWcient to overturn whole ethical systems For instance, when he says that a good person not only refrains from wrongdoing but does not even want to wrong (DK 68 B62), he sets himself against the often held view that virtue is at its highest when it triumphs over conXicting passion Democritus did not explore, however, the most important concept of all for ancient ethics: that is, arete, or virtue The Greek word does not match precisely any single English word, and in recent scholarly writing the traditional translation ‘virtue’ is often replaced by ‘excellence’ ‘Arete’ is 259