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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Upanishads' and 'Prospects: Proletarian Revolution?'

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5 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue

5972	Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
	Full Idea: According to Chrysippus, living happily consists solely in living virtuously.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr139) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1060d
	A reaction: This, along with 'live according to nature', is the essential doctrine of stoicism. This is 'eudaimonia', not the modern idea of feeling nice. Is it possible to admire another person for anything other than virtue? (Yes! Looks, brains, strength, wealth).

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / f. Good as pleasure

1777	Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures, and nothing disgraceful is good.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.60
	A reaction: I certainly approve of the idea that not all pleasure is intrinsically good. Indeed, I think good has probably got nothing to do with pleasure. 'Disgraceful' is hardly objective though.

5973	Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
	Full Idea: Chrysippus thinks that, while justice could not be preserved if one should set up pleasure as the goal, it could be if one should take pleasure to be not a goal but simply a good.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 23) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1070d
	A reaction: This is an interesting and original contribution to the ancient debate about pleasure. It shows Aristotle's moderate criticism of pleasure (e.g. Idea 84), but attempts to pinpoint where the danger is. Aristotle says it thwarts achievement of the mean.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure

8142	The wise prefer good to pleasure; the foolish are drawn to pleasure by desire [Anon (Upan)]
	Full Idea: The wise prefer the good to the pleasant; the foolish, driven by fleshly desires, prefer the pleasant ot the good.
	From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha')
	A reaction: If you consider appropriate diet, this is too obvious to be worth saying. The complication is that it is doubtful whether a life without pleasure is wholly good, and even the pleasure of food is not bad. Of two good foods, prefer the pleasant one.

20845	There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Chrysippus (in his On Pleasure) denies even of pleasure that it is a good; for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.103
	A reaction: Socrates seems to have started this line of the thought, to argue that pleasure is not The Good. Stoics are more puritanical. Nothing counts as good if it is capable of being bad. Thus good pleasures are not good, which sounds odd.