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Single Idea 16

[filed under theme 20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 2. Acting on Beliefs / a. Acting on beliefs ]

Full Idea

Unless a man is born with a heaven-sent aversion to wrong-doing, or acquires the knowledge to refrain from it, he will never do right of his own free will.

Gist of Idea

We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge

Source

Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 366c)

Book Ref

Plato: 'Republic', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1993], p.55

A Reaction

This is the territory explored so carefully by Aristotle (after he had read Republic!). It is hard to see what the knowledge could be, other than awareness of consequences.

The 90 ideas from 'The Republic'

6562 Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin]
12043 Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas]
12122 Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato]
5574 Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant]
5094 Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle]
2630 If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato]
5945 The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato]
4115 Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato]
1869 The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus]
7 Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato]
2092 Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato]
5 Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato]
8 Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato]
6009 Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak]
2093 You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato]
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]
2096 Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato]
19946 Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato]
10 After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato]
12 If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato]
13 Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato]
2097 Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato]
14 If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato]
15 Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato]
16 We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato]
19889 People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato]
19890 All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato]
2120 God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato]
2061 The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato]
23767 The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato]
2123 Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato]
2126 A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato]
23561 People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato]
2127 The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato]
1737 The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato]
6041 There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato]
23562 If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato]
2129 Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato]
2130 People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato]
2131 Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato]
2132 Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato]
2133 Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato]
2134 Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato]
2135 Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato]
2136 Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato]
23682 It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato]
2137 The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato]
2138 Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato]
2070 Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato]
4007 For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C]
2139 Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato]
2140 True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato]
2141 I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato]
2142 The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato]
2143 Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato]
2144 Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato]
21818 Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato]
2145 In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato]
2147 The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato]
2148 To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato]
4547 Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato]
2149 Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato]
9861 The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato]
9862 To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato]
9863 We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato]
9864 In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato]
8727 Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato]
8726 Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato]
2151 Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato]
2152 Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato]
2153 Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato]
2154 The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato]
4011 For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C]
2155 True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato]
23316 For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M]
2156 There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato]
2157 Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato]
2158 Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato]
17 A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato]
2159 Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato]
16565 Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato]
2160 Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato]
2162 If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato]
2163 Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato]
2164 Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato]
2165 Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato]
2166 We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato]
2168 Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato]
5944 For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato]