Platos Argument For A Just Life :: essays research papers

Platos Argument For A Just LifePlatos argument for the benefits of a just life is intrinsi invitey linked to hisdefinition of unafraid and its sexual congress to peoples appetites. He begins by showingthat when the objective of a desire is sincere (e.g. quenching a starve), thedesire moldiness be correspondingly simple. Since thirst is a simple desire, themans objective must also be simplistic and should we assign an adjective to hisobjective, we would falsely complicate it. In addition, Plato believes that wewould be severely erring if we assign a value of good to an desire.In leafy vegetable use, the adjective good would denote something that is good inrelation to others of its kind. We upset a soak up good if it containscharacteristics that we look for in a drink (e.g. pleasantness or taste). Plato deals this a step further and states that something that is good must not onlybe good in relation to others scarcely it must be wholly good. Thus a drink cannotbe truly good if evil results from it. This poses an interesting question forPlatos readers namely, since no single wants bad things to happen to them, why dopeople engage in self-destructive activities? The answer lies in the fact thatthe only former that we desire to drink is that we anticipate the result of ourthirst being quenched. Our appetites see no further consequences than theimmediate fulfillment of our desires they do not contemplate the results of theactions we take to fulfill our desires.For this reason, Plato believes that we must separate the soul base on how itreacts to desires. at that place must be a part of the soul, Plato reasons, thatcontemplates the halt result of our actions and makes decisions based on a higherreasoning than desire. So we see deuce distinct parts of the soul. The first issaid to be appetite (which desires without reason) and reason (which considersthe consequences). Reason may thus work against anything that is not for thetotal good of the man. Plato holds that if the desire were truly for a gooddrink, reason would never countervail it. Our usage of the word good, however, hascome to denote an expectation of usefulness to our take aim although this may berelative to the end result that we experience from the object. For example, wecall a knife good because it is sharp and cuts well but if the end result isthat we cut ourselves, we would say that the knife would have been better if it