Republic by Plato
-Explain Socrates argument against the view that morality is the interest of the stronger
-Explain Socrates argument for why morality is better than immorality
So I have a basic idea of what each question might be I just need a second opinion.
Interesting you are that you frame your question in the present and not the past tense, for indeed Socrates’ points of views and purposes had little if anything to do with the elements of time except insofar as he could use that universal element to facilitate his students and colleagues to master a greater familiarity with still higher principles, to which the fitness of time bears little or, in truth, no importance.
Allow that I preface this point first: you are best not to get too bogged down with contemporary interpretations, as found in Philosophy, of Socrates’ via Plato’s thoughts and discourses. These two men both steeped down their light and knowledge for sake of those to whom they so often spoke and with whom they shared. For what too many today know of these two men are but interpretations of interpretations of interpretations again, and little more than that.
Now, it is this. Socrates and Plato in the quiet of their lives essentially cared little about morality, for they knew that morality was but a mongering guilt-ridden ideal got up by men of influence in their respective time and place, something to chew on, that is, and which were men who wielded the thoughts of the masses, and whose follies addressed still another principle having nothing to do with morality but rather with human consciousness itself. The confidence that is a promise has more to do with the bonds that come by sheer Physics less the morality.
Thus to these two great beings were morality and immorality in truth amoral entities, ideas, ideals, and actions where and when instituted. They held that the individual bears already all that he or she needs within to administer him- or herself and negotiate the outside world; that morality was but a tool used to lord over others and restrict the higher impulses and eddies cascading from out of the higher self that the mind had as surely in effect to corrupt.
And this is why Socrates did entreat all to wield of a self-examined life and why Plato spent untold hours and days with his students and close ones. The two men cared little about morality, for they knew how much a sham, though a potential danger, morality indeed was and is where propagated and solidified into the collective consciousness. We see this pattern even to this day, in particular among the Clergy and Doctors in the Schools.
you go to deanza.
I don’t know what Socrates think or better to say believe about this issue, but I say morality is not the same for everyone. According to you it might not be moral to break a promise, but I would do that if I find my own interest in breaking it.
Morality is better that immorality?! It’s a little bit funny, because no one can say what morality is! Who is going to decide what is moral and what is not?