***(Note: I have an audio recording of the class but did not know how to link it to post. If you would like a copy, email me @ george.vanwormer@gmail.com)***
The Good Life – Plato and Socrates on Virtue
The Pluralists – Empedocles
Four Elements:
instead of just a material cause we need an efficient cause – love and strife
Plato believes it two worlds
· poetic – incorporeal - soul
· physical - corporeal – body
What is Virtue?
Acting well?
What are some virtues? (courage, piety, justice, temperance, friendship?
Virtue = Knowledge?
· One must know and understand virtue to be virtuous
· Not just merely actions, must also have words to defend your actions and call them virtuous
Lysis and his parents
· “You yourselves, surely, know that wrong action done without knowledge is done because of ignorance.” Plato, Protagoras, 357d
“Every man is good wherein he is wise, and bad wherein he is unlearned.” Plato
Virtue = Knowledge
· Aristotle, Ethica Eudemnia 1216b3-10 QOUTE
Words and Deeds
Being virtuous means you can say what it is!
Euthyphro (piety) - demands a definition of piety from a priest who calls himself pious
Laches (Courage)
How can two people be friends but be ignorant of what friendship is?
Good Definitions
What form would this definition be in?
· Coherent with all beliefs
· Universally applicable
o “Now remember, this is not what I asked you, to instruct me of one or two of the many pious acts, but to tell me the idea that makes all pious acts pious.” Plato, Euthyphro 6d
o The courage of a mother is similar to the courage of a warrior
o The courage of Obama is similar to the courage of an enemy of the state
· Practical
o “Instruct me of its nature, what it is [piety], that I may keep my eye fixed upon it and employ it as a paradigm.” Plato, Euthyphro 6e
o Must be able to use it
§ That my understanding of courage with make me courageous
Without Knowledge/Virtue Life Not Worth Living
· If you are ignorant of the good then why do you keep on living
· Quote from Plato, Hippias Major 304 d-e
· Does everyone have some sort of knowledge?
Moral Experts?
· Moral Expert would not be:
o Plato, Laches 199d
o Not be lacking in temperance or justice
o You can’t be pious without being courageous
· Unity of Virtue
· Can Virtue be Taught?
o Are we taught by our parents?
o Is it innate?
§ Are we just taught how to express it?
· If you are virtuous in one virtue, you must be virtuous in all?
No Weak Wills – Akrasia
Akrasia – weakness of will
· When desire over comes knowledge
o Does that mean we don’t really know something if our desire and will overcome that ‘knowledge’?
The Power of Knowledge
· Plato, Protagoras, 352c2-7
· Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1145a20-27
Universal Desire: The Good
· Plato, Protagoras, 358c6-d2
· Plato, Meno 77d-e
· Impossible for me to do something bad
o Smoking may be bad, but in that moment of bad we are desiring the good of that cigarette
o perception of good changes with desire and will
Virtue, Good, Happiness
· All identical things
· Plato Euthydemus
Virtue is Sufficient for happiness
· No external goods = health, wealth, reputation
· Virtue = Happiness
o Is the King of Persia Happy?
§ Is he virtuous?
· Knowledge/Virtue > Luck
A Problem? Socrates
· Socrates = Happy/Virtuous
· Socrates = Ignorant
Plato, Apology 21b
Virtue = Function/Natural Work
Socrates knew himself to be ignorant
· The virtue of a human is to accept ignorance and seek knowledge by asking questions - Plato
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