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Believed Truly
According to Plato, the soul consists of three basic energies which animate human beings: Reason, Emotion, and Appetite. Reason is given the greatest value, while Emotion and especially Appetite are regarded as the "lower passions". The soul that is ordered is governed by Reason, and therefore keeps one's emotions and one's appetites under control. The lower passions *must* submit to the dictates of Reason.
Mill notes that it may be further objected that a person may set a bad example for others
Mill notes that it may be further objected that a person may set a bad example for others
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31/03/2006 | Glance Cruel
Plato was Greek philosopher, born into a distinguished family either in Athens or on the island of Aegina where his father had an estate. He received the education in music and gymnastics of a wellborn Athenian youth, under the limitations imposed by the seige created for Athens by the Peloponnesian War. Plato was influenced by the teachings of Cratylus and Socrates and of the schools of Italy, which he later visited.
Simone de Beauvoir is obviously trying to address the weakest point of Sartre's philosophical exposition of existentialism -- what sort of value system arises from the existential outlook? De Beauvoir wants to show how existential assumptions actually do lead to an ethics of a non-classical sort. In speaking of the freedom of men from the deterministic bounds of society, religion, or the material world de Beauvoir states: "[I]t appears to us that by turning toward this freedom we are going to discover a principle of action whose range will be universal (23)." This seems to be an important point as it addresses directly the accusation that the very "existential freedom" of man is a destructive and horrific isolation of each individual into self-justifying random action. Later de Beauvoir states that it is actually freedom itself which is this universal. "At the same time that [freedom] requires the realization of concrete ends, of particular projects, it requires itself universally (24)." She then continues to set up an equality between being free and being moral. Even considering the starting point of ambiguity, how can freedom in terms of consciousness become the basis for any morality? So whatever you do is moral as long as you choose to do it? |
