book

Socrates and Morality

21 Pages 776 Words 1557 Views

Morality plays an vital role in determining the nature of a society or a culture; they are defined as the beliefs humans practice in the course of interacting with one another. The behaviors exhibited by one can be correctly used to evaluate his/her morals. However, no matter what the person’s morals are, they must reveal the person’s capacity and ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Having said that, Socrates clams that one cannot choose a bad thing if one realizes that is it bad. He believes that wrongdoings always harm the person who does the harmful actions and nobody wants to bring harm upon themselves. Therefore, he concluded that it is impossible for people to choose the bad thing if they know that it will bring harm to themselves due to man’s selfish human natures; we always do things in our best self interests in which things that would only benefit ourselves. This claim of Socrates may seem contrary at first to many of the realities we have witnessed in life (i.e.,theft, bullying and drugs) or read in literatures (i.e., Shakespearean tragic heroes), but to an extent, Socrates is correct in a clear and simple way. Consider the following statements: (1) one can choose to do things that are perceived to be wrong by others, (2) one can choose to do things that they believe is bad for others, however, (1) and (2) are only true under the condition that the wrong doings they are committing benefit themselves in certain ways. Thus this leads to the final statement that (3) one would never choose to do the bad thing if they acknowledge the self-harms that follow. This is essentially because us humans tend to have instincts that always seek to benefit ourselves under any circumstances; we are only satisfied in our own success, own happiness and our own gain rather than others. No matter how brutal our actions are, if they act as advantages to ourselves, we perceive these actions as good rather than bad even if it mean

Read Full Essay