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Full Idea
A dung-basket is fine, and a golden shield contemptible, if the one is finely and the other badly constructed for carrying out its function.
Gist of Idea
A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function
Source
report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.6
Book Ref
Xenophon: 'Conversations of Socrates', ed/tr. Waterfield,R/Tredennick,H. [Penguin 1990], p.159
A Reaction
This is the basis of a key idea in Aristotle, that virtue (or excellence) arises directly from function. I think it is the most important idea in virtue theory, and seems to have struck most Greeks as being self-evident.
| 5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| 33 | Each named function has a distinctive excellence attached to it [Aristotle] |
| 23909 | Wearing a shoe is its intrinsic use, and selling it (as a shoe) is its coincidental use [Aristotle] |
| 398 | Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function [Aristotle] |
| 15772 | A thing's active function is its end [Aristotle] |
| 22381 | Being a good father seems to depend on intentions, rather than actual abilities [Foot] |
| 3505 | The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle] |