Class Synopsis Monday January 31st

On Monday January 31^st in Philosophy class we began by discussing the “Good Life,” and what exactly the “Good Life” is. We threw around some ideas concerning consistent happiness and what constitutes a consistently happy life, be it relative or not. We moved on to consider the concept of virtue and what it is to be virtuous. Some common virtues we discussed were courage, Piety, Justice, Friendship. Socrates Considered Virtue to be knowledge and said that you can’t be virtuous if you know not what virtue is. Being virtuous means that while you do good things, you can also give a definition as to what makes your actions good.

After explaining how virtue is knowledge we moved on to discuss what a good definition of virtue would be. Any explanation of virtue must be fluid with all of the definer’s beliefs, if the definition lacks coherence with its creator’s ideals then the definition is false and the action in question is not virtuous. The definition must also be “Universally Applicable.” All aspects of a definition of virtue must be applicable to all aspects of reality. Third of all the Definition must be practical, it must be something that is based on practice and not theory, something that is based on theory and not practice is based on assumption which is born of ignorance.

After we defined virtue (or pondered ways of doing so) we moved on to ask if Virtue could be taught. Yes was the first answer which came to my mind because I have always assumed that everything I know was taught to me by my peers and my parents. Others believe that we are born with some instinctual knowledge like the instinct not to kill other human beings. With this in mind we asked what of the children who do kill people and receive a pardon due to their adolescence. The question was raised in class “what of those who know right from wrong and still strive for evil?” and we moved on to the question of desire over knowledge. Often times we know things are bad and we do them anyway, for example: Most everybody knows and believes that cigarette smoking is bad for you in the long run but the good in being healthy doesn’t always overcome the good feeling that comes immediately with the cigarette. This is not a question of weak will but a question of what is good to the individual; the immediate gratification from the cigarette, or knowing that your lungs are healthy. In conclusion we were told that nobody wants to do bad things or what they believe is bad, but what some people perceive as bad others may perceive as good. This scenario is what makes cigarette smokers keep smoking and serial killers keep killing. They believe the good is in the feeling they get when they’re committing their action, not the action itself.