According to Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Virgil), it’s from “Book VI” of The Aeneid by Virgil. However, I don’t see it there. At least, not here: http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.mb.txt
You don’t see it because that is an English translation; it will appear in the Latin. You can see it in this form: “The more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose.” on this page: http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html
I know it’s the English translation. I was looking for “do not give in to evil” and so on. So, “tu ne cede malis” translates into “The more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose”?
Right. “Misfortune” would be less confusing than “evil”. The “evil” in the quote is not “evil” in the moral sense. It’s more like the definition of “evil” that runs: “something that is harmful or undesirable”.
This is Mises telling of it:
“It is a matter of temperament how we shape our lives in the knowledge of an inescapable catastrophe. In high school I had chosen a verse by Virgil as my motto: Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. “Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.” In the darkest hours of the war, I recalled this dictum. Again and again I faced situations from which rational deliberations could find no escape. But then something unexpected occurred that brought deliverance.” Notes and Recollections, p. 70
The “evil” he was proceeding boldly against was “catastrophe”: not crime or sin. Thus his motto, interpreted rightly, in no way at variance with his utilitarianism.
[:D]
[:^)]
if ‘crime’ and ‘sin’ were catastrophes then that would not oppose his utilitarianism either, in fact, that’s what commonly marks out utilitarians
just sayin’
Well that’s a big “if”. “Catastrophe” means “an event causing great damage or suffering”. Something that in one man’s judgment is a crime or sin may not cause “great damage or suffering” at all.
its the utilitarian if, its the kind of judgements utilitarians are committed to making.
…unless we say that Mises is a whole new type of Utilitarianism that owes nothing to Bentham and Mill
Oh! That changes everything. I always thought it was “evil” in the moral sense. I’m sure lots of people think it’s “evil” in the moral sense. Thanks for the explanation.
"you might think that if someone says economics implies utilitarianism, it sounds like they think that economics implies a positive ethical theory — because we usually think of utilitarianism as a particular ethical theory, a theory that says that certain things are objectively good. The standard versions of utilitarianism, like John Stuart Mill’s version, assert that a certain goal — human welfare, happiness, pleasure, satisfaction — is intrinsically valuable and worth pursuing, objectively so. And then our job is to pursue it.
Clearly Mises can’t mean that. Since Mises thinks that there are no objective values, when Mises embraces utilitarianism he can’t be embracing the view that human welfare is an objective value. What Mises means by “utilitarianism” is a little bit different from the kind of utilitarianism that people like John Stuart Mill advocate. By “utilitarianism” Mises means something like simply giving people advice about how to achieve the goals they already have. So you’re not necessarily endorsing their goals, but utilitarianism says that really the only real role for any kind of evaluation is simply to talk about means to ends, because you can’t evaluate the ends."
-Roderick T. Long
I’m certain Mises made a decision based on what is logical and true. I’m sure his conclusions pertaining to human action noticed that the free market is better than communism, etc…
R Long, is there arguing that Mises is not in the utilitarian tradition. That if you sit through a philosophy course in ethics at university, and you are then told that Mises was a utilitarian, the person giving you that tidbit, does you a disservice.
Dryden’s is a poetic, rather than a literal, translation. Fairclough translates it rather more accurately in prose: “Yield not to ills, but go forth all the bolder to face them as far as your destiny will allow!”
FWIW, the Latin text is here: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen6.shtml
The Latin word, malis, is plural; out of context it could be interpreted as bad people/things/events, etc., but “‘evil’ in the moral sense” is singular 
“Ills”, in Fairclough’s translation, is a good choice.
[But I always thought it was “don’t give in to apples!” (joke – the Latin word for apple is also malum…vowel length is different, but you can’t tell in writing)]
wow…lol
on a more serious note: the differences are so subtle. very interesting.
Mises called himself a utilitarian, and I can’t find a better word for his position, so I don’t know what else to do but call him a utilitarian with important qualifiers.
Yes, I say he is utilitarian, with a eudomanianist appreciation that makes his utilitarianism not strictly materialistic, (which would reduce everything down to pleasure and pain). On that understanding it is clear that he believes in ethics. He believes that utilitarian analysis is the correct analysis for answering moral questions. He doesn’t believe that morality is bunk, that there is ‘no’ morality. rather he is a utilitarian and therefore, (despite his economics being whertfrei) he as a philosopher/person is a utilitarian (contra to R Long I guess)
i don’t think Mises was void of ethics because of his actions. He knew the means to the free market and socialism, but he didn’t practice or put effort into practicing socialism. He seem to spend his life “Planning for Freedom”, etc… Also he didn’t commit any crimes that I’m aware of. He said the free market has to have private property, and how else to sustain private property but either by philosophical maintenance and/or justice. Of course Mises wasn’t on the police force, but he entered the market I assume to find food, etc… and he didn’t steal but entered voluntarily exchanges. He maintained a free market approach by his own actions.
I mean that’s my view on ethics in a nutshell. Am I wrong?
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He didn’t believe in objective moral values. While, he, like every man, had his own personal values, and obviously would be considered a very decent chap by most of us, he believed that morality, as a system of scientific “oughts” IS bunk. (He wrote in Socialism: “It must be emphasized again: there is no such thing as a scientific ought.”)
Wertfrei, to Mises, applies to ALL sciences, not just economics.
No. I often disagree with Long. But, judging from Mises’ writings on these matters, in this particular analysis, Long is spot on.