Wednesday, September 11, 2019
The Definition of Morality
In Chapter 6 of the Republic Socrates defines morality in terms of the proper functioning of the mind. He states that "[i]ts sphere is a person's inner activity; it is really a matter of oneself and the parts of oneself"(443d). A person is moral if and only if the parts of her mind work together and the rational part guides and directs the other parts. Given such a definition, Socrates proceeds to show that such a mind is healthy and a disordered mind leads to unhappiness. Yet is Socrates' definition of morality correct? Is that definition close to your working definition of morality? If he fails, where or how does he fail? Is the connection between morality and mental health as tight as Socrates argues?
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The connection between morality and mental health are not as tight as Socrates argues. Although we often describe truly evil people/criminals as not being "right in the head" or being mentally ill, often their actions have a logical cause or pattern to them, and the criminals themselves see their actions as completely rational. For some, they see violence as a therapeutic exercise, or others see it as a mission they must complete. While I am not saying that these people are necessarily "right in the head," what does keep normal people from committing the same crimes as these criminals is the feeling of guilt they have thinking about doing the action or after doing the action. The absence of guilt, an emotion, is what often enables bad people to do bad things. I believe that it is both our emotions, such as fearing guilt or not wanting to hurt those that we love, and our rationality, as in knowing what is right and wrong, that keep us in check, not one or the other.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely disagree with Socrates that morality and mental health have a tight correlation. I believe that morality is a concept that guides a person's personal sense of right and wrong as opposed to a state of functionality. Socrates is implying that a "disordered" mind, or that which is not in perfect working order guided by reason, is not only inferior, but immoral. Take for example a person suffering from mental illness. Often, their views of the world are ever so slightly skewed, and thus, their interpretation of it is as well. This means that the reasoning part of their brains cannot properly guide the other parts of the mind, as it cannot receive totally accurate information. According to Socrates, this person would be immoral. But does that mean they are incapable of moral acts? No, it does not. They can still return a lost wallet to its owner or treat their friends with the utmost respect and kindness. Socrates' argument also implies that if reason were not in charge and were to be replaced with either a person's desire or appetite, they would no longer be moral. I disagree with this as well because emotional people can still be moral. A person guided by their desires (or emotions) can have a fully functioning mind and act according to their moral compass. They could see a stray dog and adopt it because they feel bad for it, whereas a logical person might adopt it for more logical reasons. Although the reason for adopting the dog stems from different places, it can still be a moral action; you are helping the dog survive by giving it love, food, and a home.
ReplyDeleteThe similarity between a healthy working mind, and morality is more of a correlation effect, where a lot of the time a person who is moral have well thought out decisions, and those who are immoral have some flaws in their decision making process but one does not necessarily correlate to the other. A working example to show this is the Ring of Gyves, where if devoid of all external consequences, even the most rational people choose to do the immoral deed, not because their mind is skipping parts of the process of determining what to do, but rather because there is little to no risk and rewards as large as you want. Morality to me is more of a social construct telling you what is right, and what is wrong, opposed to union of multiple brain functions. This is why when there is low risk of getting caught or getting in trouble for something immoral, people will often still do it not because it becomes moral to do it, but because of their brain sensing a low cost over benefit, which would be rational to take, but still wrong, and immoral. We tell the truth not because it is always better to tell the truth(which is moral), we do it because we don't want others to loose trust in us, or to gain a reputation of being a liar (which is immoral in the eyes of society, yet if rationalized based off of Socrates premises, would be moral individually). We do things out of the fear of societal consequences. This is where Socrates fails, as he presumes that morality is an individual construct based on mental health, opposed to a societal construct.
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ReplyDeleteI disagree with Socrates’s definition of morality as I feel that it fails to account for those individuals who are able to be high functioning with a mental disability and while an unbalanced mind plays a role in an immoral person, Socrates definition of an unbalanced mind is not correct in this instance. Socrates definition of morality, as presented in Plato’s Republic, states that only those with their mind at complete balance with leadership from their rational side as moral, however this excludes all those who are “mentally unbalanced” yet continue to make moral decisions. Multiple qualifications can determine ones morality, however I do not believe that a perfectly balanced mind is one of them. Personality traits such as a strong sense of empathy, or guilt for one’s own wrongdoings, or goodness are much more important than keeping a perfectly ordered mind. While some may associate the ability to do wrong or to harm someone else with an unbalanced mind, Socrates definition does aptly fit this association. Missing these aforementioned personality traits makes a person unbalanced, not their ability to lead with rational.
Socrates takes an interesting approach to define morality. I believe that he has functionally defined morality. Socrates states that morality is based on the health of the mind. If someone acts immorally, i believe that there is some part of their mind that is unhealthy. For an easy example, a serial killer or terrorist will definitely not have a “healthy” mind because it is obscured by a dark sense that allows him to see good in what he is going. If people see good in killing than their mind is not healthy. I believe that Socrates was very close to the correct definition of morality. However, no living person is capable of being 100 percent good. The key lies in the fact that nobodies mind is entirely healthy. It is possible to say that a normal person who does not commit any crimes has a relatively healthy mind, but not entirely. The only thing that has an entirely healthy mind is God because he is described as being all-good. Normal people commit immoral actions in day-to-day life such as speeding, lying or even just not following simple rules. People tend to perform minor discrepancies even if they are immoral. But it is a plausible argument that even their minds are not healthy. There is some incorrectness in the average human mind that is not perfect, because people cannot be perfect. Therefore, their mind is not perfect, and an entirely “healthy” mind, can be described as an entirely perfect mind.
ReplyDeleteI strongly disagree with Socrates definition of morality because it excludes people with mental illnesses. This unfair because one who has a mental illness is not automatically unable to be moral. It's understood that the thought of "disordered minds" might lead one to the thought of violence or crime, but that is not always the case. Mental disabilities are a lot more common than one might think. Therefore, everyone most likely knows someone with a mental illness and knows that they are well driven. Just because they might handle situations differently does not mean their minds are unhealthy. Morality should be based more on actions and not the way the mind works. No one’s mind works the same so it would be almost impossible to choose one mind that works “morally.” Who decides whether a mind works morally or not and what factors come into the play? Socrates definition does not have me convinced as it is unfair and unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe that the connection between morality and mental health is as tight as Socrates says it is. First of all, I believe that if someone does something that can be considered immoral, they aren’t mentally ill. For example, if someone puts their aging relative in an old folks’ home, they might think it’s immoral. That you just want to get rid of them. The reality of it is that your relative moving is in their own best interest. What is immoral to some person might be moral to another.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with his connection between a balanced mind and morality. I think that someone's definition of a balanced mind differs from another because rationality is subjective. I can understand his point about keeping personal desires and rationality in check, but we are all perceiving the world in unique ways and finding what being rational means to us. People who have a "disordered mind" should not be dismissed as immoral and inferior because they don't fit his definition. No state of mind is permanent and is malleable to our environment and to mental illnesses. I think that happiness does come from within us, and not externally, but to reach this state, we need to act immorally and irrationally to find peace. Reaching a state of an ordered mind seems god-like and unattainable, and happiness is fleeting.
ReplyDeletePlato believes that in order to be moral, one must have the rational part of their mind take precedence over both the passionate and desirous parts. This, however is incorrect for multiple reasons. First, everyone's rational part of their minds functions differently and cannot be considered the only basis for morality. For example, Person 1 could commit a hate crime and think with their rational side that what they are doing is right and that it is their duty. Additionally, Person 2 could have only desires and passions towards doing good deeds for others and let those desires and passions rule their actions. According to Plato, Person 1 would be more moral than Person 2, regardless of the impact of their actions. Therefore, Plato's definition of morality can only be correct if the assumption is made that all humans have the desire to be self-serving and evil.
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