Sophocles: My dear student, I must ask for your aid. Earlier I defined the Form of the Good to Glaucon but did not acknowledge any form of evil. Do you suppose that there is such a concept as the Form of the Evil?
Plato: Please enlighten me once again on what the Form of the Good is so that I can be of better assistance to you.
Sophocles: The Form of the Good is the “cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything. . . It produces both light and its source in the visible realm, and in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it” (508e-509a). A man is only able to reach the Form of the Good when he achieves the highest possible level
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Sophocles: I struggle with the notion of ignorance because it is a complex subject.
Plato: How so? Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge.
Sophocles: Yes, I am aware of what ignorance is but I presume that there are two types of an ignorant man. The first type of ignorant man is the one that chooses to be ignorant and ignore what is right. Then there is the man that truly does not know what the Form of the Good is and has not yet reached that level of human understanding. The first type of ignorant man is evil while the second is not.
Plato: Are there truly men that uncover the Form of the Good but choose to reject it?
Sophocles: Unfortunately, yes. There are some men who reach the Form of the Good and discover that it will not benefit them in ways that they had hoped. These men reject the Form of the Good and adopt selfish ways to acquire what they want with little regards to others. These men, though smart, waste their intelligence and in return, harm society. It is in this way that they are evil by choosing ignorance over what is
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The men who only comprehend the lowest form of images cannot be deemed evil because they do not know that what they see in the world is incorrect. Their realities are clouded by what is visible to them. This goes for the other forms, material objects, lower and higher, as well. Men at these levels of understanding are not evil unless the nature of evil is innate. Now, do you propose that evil is inherent within man?
Plato: No, man adopts evil.
Sophocles: Precisely. Man adopts evil when he performs actions that go against what is right. In this way, a man knows what he is doing is wrong and still chooses to do so anyway. I reason that in this way, the Form of Evil is not below the Form of the Good. A man does progress through the lower forms, reach the form of the evil, and then choose the Form of the Good, does he? No. Instead, he reaches the Form of the Good and chooses to do evil. Therefore, the Form of the Good and the Form of the Evil are connected.
Plato: Well, I do not reckon that is an accurate assumption. According to your definition, only philosophers are able to be evil, just as they are the only men who understand the Form of the Good? Are you saying that philosophers are the only true men?
Sophocles: Not at all; all men are equally men.
Plato: I agree. Yet, how is equality possible if evil is the product of rejecting the Form of the
Human nature is capable of extraordinary transformations, which may result in good or evil. Representatives like Simon and Beowulf now show the importance of good to break through the corruptness of others. First illustrated is Simon. A noble character in Lord of the Flies, but not highly recognized for his understanding of how much evil can destroy you. Sadly, Simon is murdered before he is able to express how savagery means you lose a part of yourself, but he was able to show the audience that if you stand your ground when evil is presented in front of you, you can morally understand what’s truly important, and in his case die with a purpose of goodness.
When I think of the concept of “evil,” I think of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. In The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy stated:
Plato was never satisfied with accepting other’s ideas or views of things in this world. Instead he would question everything to discover for himself what things in the world meant. Plato as seen in some of his writing such as “The Republic” uses numerous amounts of theoretical questions to try and get a deeper understanding of themes such as justice. Plato refuses to accept that justice is naturally good and injustice is bad as he writes “see, that to do
The additional position in which Socrates resides, is that of the good man. As he elaborates himself, a good man is one who acts justly and keeps the good interest of others, as well as himself, always in mind (Plato). So a good man acts according to this mindset, acting justly in his treatment towards others, but also in his treatment of himself. Though he may not see the just treatment of himself as the end towards which his action is intended, such potentially altruistic consideration of the
The debate of whether man is born entirely good or evil is a universal discussion that never seems to resolve. Even though a human is a complex individual who cannot be defined by a simple assessment, the people of today are convinced that there is a straightforward explanation as to why acts of wickedness exist. Some believe negative influences taint the naturally innocent heart of man, while others suppose evil men are born with an unavoidable capacity for darkness. This however, suggests that the wicked are created from birth without morals or the ability to be considered righteous. Despite the theories that exist, good and evil are not always separate. Man typically is neither solely good or bad, but a combination of the both. In the
Mencius addresses that men can become evil because of their actions. He uses the analogy of the forest. First it is beautiful but because of actions it can become barren. In other words, a man is born good and innocent. Still this man can do actions that lead to him becoming evil. This man still has the chance to go back to his good nature, but if he continues to be evil there is a point where he will be unable to turn back to his good ways. After a while of a person being evil people will stop believing that this person was ever good. Take Hitler for example, no one thinks of the innocent baby he was when he was born. Okay that is a pretty bad example but you get what I am saying, hopefully.
Evil can be categorized into two forms, moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is brought about by bad choices that stem from our free will. Natural evil is bad things that happen to people, whether they deserve them or not. The problem with evil is,
The reason that we even have an experience of a perceived evil is because for the soul to experience itself as any particular thing, the exact opposite of that thing must come into the realm of existence. In other words, in this relative existence, hot cannot be hot without cold, darkness cannot be without light, and you cannot be you without that which is not you. So I believe that what we call evil is just the opposite end of the spectrum of good, not something separate.
The world is filled with many different words, some harder to define than other. One of these difficult words is considered by many to be evil. The definition of the word evil depends entirely upon the reader or writers perspective upon the word. The most innocent and simple ways that of would define evil is by simply saying that evil is the exact opposite of good, but what is good? In order to understand the true meaning of evil, we must first be able to describe what good is, what has goodness produced, and what has evil truly defied.
Plato starts with the analogy of the sun, which points out the contrast between the visible and the intelligible worlds. Within the visible world man has eyes and objects to be seen, but man needs another object for the eyes to see the object. This object is the sun, which provides the light that is required by the eye to view the visible world. In correspondence, the Form of the Good in the intelligible world is equal to the sun by the way that the Good allows the forms to be known. Plato specifically states, “What gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the Form of the Good. And though it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge” (508e). Along with
He writes, “when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then [the soul] has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and seems to have no intelligence” (Book VI, p. 25). By establishing opinion as the opposite to the ultimate good, and by definition, the ultimate evil, he criticizes the use of rhetoric and persuasion while praising to his long-winded, circuitous form of writing. By continually asking questions and telling parables, Plato avoids direct advocation of his beliefs and allows his readers to discover the truth for themselves, rather than to be coerced through eloquent language.
Socrates might be a wise philosopher but one of his ideas strikes me as particularly naive. In the allegory of the cave, he tells Glaucon that "in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort [·] and that this is the power upon which he [the intellectual] would act rationally" (517b-c). In other words, he seems to be implying that knowledge of goodness is a sufficient condition for being good. A person who has seen what goodness is will henceforth act in a way that is good. Is this belief justified? For instance, we sometimes do things that we know are not good but we do them nonetheless and feel guilty after that. If, as such cases
However, most of these paradoxes are due to the evolution of Plato’s ideas. Plato’s earlier dialogues seem to place too much value on the pure rationality of man, while later dialogues show an acknowledgment of man’s basal needs influencing his morality (455). By focusing on Plato’s later works regarding ethics it becomes far more possible to find interpretations that have academic consensus. In Plato’s Republic, a collection of works exploring the nature of virtue, one sees a teleological axiom: “The good is that which all soul pursues and for the sake of which it does everything” (Parry, 241). It is important to note that Plato has a specific idea in mind when he writes of the good. For Plato the good is the inherent trait that makes all good things good (243). With these two premises Parry is able to conclude: “That which all soul pursues and for the sake of which it does everything is the good itself, the reality of goodness, and not any visible good” (244). According to Plato, when the soul does everything for the sake of the good the soul is acting virtuously, as the good is all that is good, including all of virtue (249). Furthermore, since the good is a teleological state, the admiration of the good is what humans should strive for. And only by recognizing the good can humans admire it (250). Therefore, when humans obtain the knowledge to recognize the good and admire it for itself can humans do everything for the sake of the good, thereby
Socrates and Plato's older brother Glaucon are in conversation during a celebration. The main topic has been an attempt to define the meaning of Justice. Along the way this marathon of a conversation, at the request of Glaucon, took on the task of defining “the good”. The illustration that followed has come to be known as the allegory of the sun. The good that is defined or reveled is referred to as the form of the good. The dialog is found in Plato's Republic book VI 507b-509c.
Plato goes about this by explaining what justice is; justice has to do with doing what is right, and there exists some specific virtue in everything, which enables it to work well. If it is deprived of that nature, in contrast it would suffer. It is much the same with the soul, the soul must also perform its specific virtue. The more virtuous, or ‘just’ a soul is, the happier the soul is. The happier the soul is, the happier the person is. Therefore a just man lives happily and well, whereas an unjust man would not. This argument follows the a=b b=c therefore a=c argument form.