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Full Idea
Goodness is a state of mental health, bloom and vitality; badness is a state of mental sickness, deformity and infirmity.
Gist of Idea
Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness
Source
Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 444e)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Republic', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1993], p.157
A Reaction
A nice statement of the closeness of goodness to health for the Greeks. The key point is that health is a deeply natural concept, which bridges the fact-value divide.
| 3053 | Pythagoras taught that virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 495 | Wisdom creates a healthy passion-free soul [Democritus] |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| 5154 | Excess and deficiency are bad for virtue, just as they are for bodily health [Aristotle] |
| 5268 | Disreputable pleasures are only pleasant to persons with diseased perception [Aristotle] |
| 5870 | Everything seeks, not a single good, but its own separate good [Aristotle] |
| 502 | Good breeding in men means having a good character [Democritus (attr)] |
| 22238 | Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable [Stoic school, by Pormann] |
| 20861 | The health of the soul is a good blend of beliefs [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| 22237 | The Greeks had a single word meaning both 'beautiful' and 'good' [Pormann] |