Thursday, October 21, 2010

Socrates

Socrates

"No one knowingly does evil/wrong"

Socrates says this because the root of human instinct is to obtain happiness or to be happy. Therefor people may do things that they believe will bring them happiness but in truth is a bad thing and actually causes them pain, sadness, or regret.

Heres an example: You see a guy walking down the street and he drops his wallet. You pick it up and take a look inside and see theres $500 in there, you decide to take the money and leave the wallet on the ground.

By taking the money you think it will bring you happiness so you take it not thinking that its really wrong and if there are any other consequences that may come from taking it.

The idea being that you do wrong because you do it out of ignorance of the consequences of your actions. Socrates believed this principle so strongly that he attributed knowledge with being good, because the more you know the less ignorant you are so the less reason to do wrong/evil.

3 comments:

  1. I disagree with that quote. I think that people act out of self-interest, and that people do, in fact, knowingly do wrong. It just a matter of whether it's wrong in the sense that it affects them negatively, or whether it affects others negatively. People don't think that they did wrong because they don't realize that they may have unknowingly wronged someone else.

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  2. exactly but the quote just states a truth you do act out of "self-interest" he isn't saying people don't do wrong just that you don't realize it until after because of the consequences of your actions.

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  3. Sorry but I gotta disagree with SO-CRATES on this one.
    Maybe he got the idea of ignorance being the cause of evil after meeting Bill and Ted lol

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