2021-09-21

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

#philosophy

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

Related to Sources/This is Water - Speech

Ethics is the quest for the good life.

• A life of excellence is a life of virtue.
• Not simply to be pursue excellence or the good life, but to ’take care’ or ‘be careful’ (epimeleisthai)

• Doctrine of teleology: everything in the universe has a purpose/function within a hierarchy of purposes/functions.
  • Humans also have a purpose/function, and
• Theory of forms: there is a world of forms where the eternal and perfect models of the things in the world exist.

The soul existed prior to its union with the body. The soul is composed of two main aprts:

• the rational (reason)
• the irrational (spirit and appetite)

The soul performs three functions. To each function corresponds a power in the soul.

• Reason: awareness of a goal
• Spirit: drive towards action
• Appetite: appetite for bodily things

The soul enjoyed a basic harmony between its rational and irrational parts – a harmony wherin reason controlled the spirit and appetites through its knowledge of the truth. The reaason could suggest a goal for behavior only to be overcome by sensual appetite, and the power of the spirit could be pulled in eitehr direction by these sensual desires.

The condition of the man may be likened to the charioteer driving two horses. One horse is good, another is bad. Though the charioteer has a clear vision of where to go and the good horse is on course, the bad horse misbehaves…

1. Temperance: moderation. appetites kept within limits and in their measure. The art of living requires knowledge of limits and of measure.
   1. applies to appetite
2. Courage: when the energy of will (from the spirit) is kept within limits avoiding rash action, and becomes a trustworthy power in aggressive and defensive behavior
   1. applies to spirit
3. Wisdom: when reason remains undisturbed by the onrush of appetites and continues to see the true ideals in spite of the constant changes experienced in the daily life
   1. applies to reason

The harmony of three faculties constitutes justice, the overarching virtue.

Living the good life requires reining in your passions. Freedom outside of a well-ordered community is lawlessness.

Only knowledge can produce virtue while ignorance/false knowledge produces evil

Evil or vice is caused by ignorance/false knowledge when the passions influence reasons to think what appears to bring happiness will do so and cannot.

• Ignorance: when people are ignorant, their personalities are disorganized because unruly desires/passions control them
• Knowledge: when people truly know what is good, they will do what is really good
  • False knowledge must be replaced with an accurate appraisal of things or acts and their values…Awakening

Justice isn’t just political. It’s about soul.

• Virtue means knowledge.

• Virtue is the fulfillment of a unique function.

• Virtue is grounded in the nature of the soul.

• Virtue is attained only when each part of the soul is fulfilling its own function

  • The appetites and the spirit must be subject to the sovereignty of reason
  • This directs and orders the dynamic capcities according to wisdom

• non-rational
• rational

The rational aspect is more truly ourselves. We can identify with it rather than with the non-rational aspect, and can recognize that this is appropriate for the kind of being that we are.

There was a shepherd who was feeding his flock in a fieled when an earthquake happened. After the quake, he saw an opening in the Earth. He went inside and found a bronze horse containing a corpse who was wearing a golden ring. The shepherd took the ring and placed it on his finger. He discovered that the ring gave him the power to become invisible. He then arranged to be chosen as one of the messengers who reported to the king as to the status of the flocks. Arriving at the palace, he used his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen and murder the king. He then became king of Lydia himself. If there were two such magic rings and the just put on one of them and the unjust the othjer, ==both will behave in the same unjust way.==

“No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice.”

No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked and in all respects be like a god among men.

A man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, ==for if anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, he will be unjust.==

True justice pertains more to the true self “being concerned not with the outward man, but with the inward…==for the just man…sets in order his own inner life…is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself.==”

Justice in the end is far nobler than injustice for it serves the telos of man. The end of man is attained when his higher powers are perceived.