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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letter to Shumacher' and 'Gorgias'

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9 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.
4322 In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato]
     Full Idea: When we drink to quench thirst, we lose the distress of the thirst and the pleasure of drinking at the same moment, but one loss is good and the other bad, so the pleasure and the goodness must be separate.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 497d)
     A reaction: This is open to the objection that the good of slaking one's thirst is a long-term pleasure, where the drinking is short-term, so pleasure is still the good.
136 Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato]
     Full Idea: Good should be the goal of pleasant activities, rather than pleasure being the goal of good activities.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 500a)
     A reaction: Nice. Not far off what Aristotle says on the topic. So what activities should we seek out? Narrow the pleasures down to the good ones, or narrow the good ones down to the pleasurable?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
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.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / e. Role of pleasure
134 Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato]
     Full Idea: There is little to tell between good and bad people (e.g. cowards) in terms of how much pleasure and distress they experience.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 498c)
     A reaction: A very perceptive remark. If the good are people with empathy for others, then they may suffer more distress than the insensitive wicked.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / f. Dangers of pleasure
132 If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato]
     Full Idea: Socrates: I want to ask whether a lifetime spent scratching, itching and scratching, no end of scratching, is also a life of happiness.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 494c)
     A reaction: There are plenty of people who think 'fun' is the main aim of life, and who fit what Socrates is referring to. We don't admire such a life, but not many people can be admired.
4319 In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato]
     Full Idea: In a fool's mind desire is a leaky jar, …which is an analogy for the mind's insatiability, showing we should prefer an orderly life, in which one is content with whatever is to hand, to a self-indulgent life of insatiable desire.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 493b)
     A reaction: This points to an interesting paradox, that pleasure requires the misery of desire. And yet absence of desire is like death. An Aristotelian mean, of living according to nature, seems the escape route.