Moral Compass
Navigation helps individuals arrive to a given destination, but the human life also requires of such navigation. Some individuals unconsciously seek directions when challenged with a given issue and know which way to steer because of their moral compass. Furthermore, the moral compass is the soul that guides the personal self, but it is also the non-material aspect of a human being that is immortal. Although, the soul’s existence is in question, there is evidence that validates that the soul is real. Such evidence includes Plato’s theory of the tripartite soul and Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory, which reevaluates Plato’s theory. Both address that the soul’s existence is the personality of a human being.
On the other hand,
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However, our senses are not always reliable since our brain can be tricked to see, feel, or hear something that is not there. For instance, in the television show Brain Games, a show about perception and the brain reveals in several different sets of illusions that the our senses are not always trustworthy. In the first episode “Watch This”, Brain Games in particular messes with the human senses in various illusions studied by different scientists and researchers. For example, the narrator at the beginning of the episode posses the question about two squares, “true or false is the top square a darker shade of grey than the square at the bottom?”(Brain Games). When you first look at the set of squares you do see the top square a darker grey, but in reality the answer to the question is false because the squares are exactly the same shade of grey. To prove the squares are the same color, experimental scientist, Beau Lotto shows why the brain misinterprets what it sees by gathering a group of random volunteers. He then tells the group of volunteers “that the squares are the same color”(Brain Games). The volunteers do not believe that they are the same color. Therefore, Lotto attaches a grey swatch to one of the surfaces so the volunteers and the viewers at home can see for themselves that in fact the squares are the same color. He asks one volunteer to …show more content…
Subsequently, greater evidence validates the soul’s existence through Plato’s theory of the tripartite soul. Plato’s theory is broken down into three separate parts: reason, spirit, and body appetites. Plato defines reason to be the ability to use logic and language, while spirit is the emotional drives humans feel such as anger or love. And, he defines body appetites as essentials that the body requires to survive like food, water, and sex. Additionally, Plato states that together these parts create a living organism or a human soul whose purpose is to be in a healthy state. To attain the soul’s healthy state all of the three parts must be balance and such balance is only achieved when the element of reason leads spirit and body appetites. Otherwise the soul will come across a dysfunction, which can cause further effects. For example, let’s say individual X’s soul is not lead by reason, but instead by spirit; and one day X discovers that his girlfriend cheated. X is not going to act reasonably instead he is going to act upon his emotional drives like anger and frustration. Those emotional drives then cause his reason to be set aside reasonable thought leaving a large possibility to become unstable. At an unstable state it can cause X’s soul or personality to be insecure or damaged. This is an example that shows what can occur when
I spy with my little eye something blue, or is it purple, maybe green? I Spy was one of my favorite games when I was a little girl. Almost everyone as a child that I know played this game, and if you did, and your experience was anything like mine, you got stuck on an object or two a couple of times. If you didn’t play, eye spy was a game where someone said a color of something they saw and you would have to guess what object it was or vice versa. Was it our own vision at fault or that of our friends that we couldn’t find what we were searching for? Doesn’t matter since someone saw something they didn’t actually see. Stephen Jay Gould, a teacher of several subjects at Harvard University, discusses how our brain can play tricks on us in his essay titled “Some Close Encounters of a Mental Kind.” Although our minds are powerful things, what we see, or remember seeing, can be wrong.
In the Republic, Plato has Socrates argue that the soul is not simple, rather, its complex and composed of parts. He makes this assertion by first claiming that: “The same thing cannot undergo contraries at the same time, in the same respect, and within the same part.”. For example, something cannot be hot and cold or good and evil at the same time. Socrates posits this as the crux of his argument“let us proceed on this assumption, with the understanding that, if we ever come to think otherwise, all the consequences based upon it will fall to the ground.”(pg. 673). Assuming premise one is sound Socrates posits premise two: “The human psyche undergoes contraries at the same time, and in the same respect.”. This claim references internal conflicts
In this paper I will be discussing the tripartite (three parts) of the soul that Socrates discussed in chapter 6 of Plato’s Republic, and I will compare and contrast them to that of Aristotle and Anthony Kenny. In Plato’s Republic the three parts of the soul consist of the rational, spirited and, desire. In this dialogue the three parts of the soul go hand and hand with three parts of a just society.
Plato begins his argument for the tripartite soul by setting up a criterion for individuation. The same thing cannot be affected in two opposite ways at the same time (436c). As pairs of opposites, he includes “assent and dissent, wanting to have something and rejecting it, taking something and pushing it away” (437b). Plato argues for the truth of this claim by bringing analogies from the behavior of bodies—a method which may seem illegitimate, given that he wants to use the principle to apply to aspects of the soul (in particular, opposing desires), not to physical objects. Plato first tries to establish the existence of a purely appetitive part of the soul using this method. Thirst is a desire. There is a subject of this desire. Thirst is a desire for unqualified drink—that is, no particular kind of drink, just drink (437e). Now comes a logical digression, the aim of which is to preclude the combination of appetitive and rational forces in the same subject. The outcome of the logical digression is that if the truth
Plato's Allegory of the Cave Plato uses the allegory of the cave to aid understanding on his philosophical knowledge on the differences between the realm of the particulars and the realm of Forms. He believed that his analogy would explain why in the physical world, sense experience was nothing but an illusion; and that true reality must be found in the realm of Forms, which is eternal and unchanging. Plato’s analogy inaugurates in a cave; meant to represent the physical world, or the world we experience through our senses.
Plato’s Republic introduces a multitude of important and interesting concepts, of topics ranging from music, to gender equality, to political regime. For this reason, many philosophers and scholars still look back to The Republic in spite of its age. Yet one part that stands out in particular is Plato’s discussion of the soul in the fourth book of the Republic. Not only is this section interesting, but it was also extremely important for all proceeding moral philosophy, as Plato’s definition has been used ever since as a standard since then. Plato’s confabulation on the soul contains three main portions: defining each of the three parts and explanation of their functions, description of the interaction of the parts, and then how the the
He found that there was no order in everyday life; history was composed of the downfalls of man, follies that were repeated generation after generation. He believed that the only way to purge one’s body from the cycle of unending meaninglessness was to live by logic. Logic allowed the body to exist in harmony with the soul by casting aside anything without meaning. The unity of body and soul represented ultimate control. Plato stated, “When the soul and body are united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the body to obey and serve” (513). When the soul was in complete control, the bodily weaknesses disappeared and the mind was left to think freely. Eventually, through thought, one could achieve bodily transcendence and purpose within life.
In the days of Plato’s existence, the soul was a living, non-material entity that was created before the person and would continue on after the person was no more, unlike contemporary concepts of the soul, this concept was not based on religion or religious views as it didn’t exist then (Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). Plato believed that one must endeavour to take care of their soul as it is eternal and more important than the body (Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). Plato’s tripartite theory of the mind, is one of the most notable ancient theories of the soul in the fourth century, as well as in contemporary philosophical study (Lorenz, 2009). It focusses around the idea that the mind or soul - both terms are used interchangeably - is divided into three parts which are appetite, reason and spirit (Lorenz, 2009; Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). Since Plato, there have been other similar concepts, especially in modern psychology, formed around the idea that an individual is subject to multiple divisions of oneself, the most memorable being Sigmund Freud’s notion of the conscious and subconscious with the Id, ego and superego (Stevenson, Haberman, & Matthews Wright, 2013). The notions of weakness of will and self-control can be explained through the exploration of Plato’s tripartite theory, as they can be seen as a representation of unbalance and balance between appetite, spirit and reason. Throughout this essay, I will explain the
Plato strikes a similarity between the human living being from one viewpoint and social living being on the other. Human creature as per Plato contains three components Reason, Spirit and Appetite. An individual is just when each piece of his or her spirit plays out its capacities without meddling with those of different components. For instance, the reason ought to run for the benefit of the whole soul with insight and planning. The component of soul will lower itself to the lead of reason. Those two components are a blend of mental preparing. They are put in order over the hungers which frame most of man's spirit. Consequently, the reason and soul need to control these cravings which are probably going to develop on the substantial joys. These cravings ought not be permitted, to oppress alternate components and usurp the territory to which they have no privilege. At the point when all the three concur that among them the reason alone ought to lead, there is equity inside the
There is no such thing as “absolute good” but “good for”. Whenever I meet my defining moment, I think about the question, “Whose good should I be serving?” I am not saying to evaluate whose interests are more valuable, but to evaluate whose interests are more important TO ME. There are three principles for me to evaluate different interests. The first is the interest’s indirect impact on the third party. For example, the police are investigating a theft and I know who the thief is. I must
According to the definition of the Moral Compass text, moral compass is the reflective, international adoption of values and behaviors as a framework for realizing the good in oneself, in others, and in the social and material environment. My own moral compass is constructed mainly by my parents and the eastern social values and principles of relationships, which are largely influenced by the thoughts and ideas of Buddhism, Taoism and the Confucianism. Among them, Confucianism affects my country’s social values and furthermore my parents and my moral compass the most. In the contrast of Western culture, Confucianism puts a huge emphasis on the relationships between individuals in family, school,
Throughout Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates invokes different arguments to portray specific ideas about the immortality of the soul. One of the arguments in which Socrates brings about is the cyclical argument. The cyclical argument, also referred to as the principle of opposites, connects the core ideas of the body and the mind to later prove that the soul is an immortal entity. Forms are ever changing in and of themselves to create the cycle in which Socrates explains the basis of all things. It is through knowledge of the Forms, and the existence of the body and the soul that Socrates enhances the cyclical argument to demonstrate the concepts leading to the immortality of the soul.
In this essay, I will be discussing how Plato divides the soul into three parts and how they are related with one another, what they are and what this division is supposed to tell us about the best life to live. Plato’s theory which can be referred to as justice in the individual, is split into three parts: appetite, spirit and reason. Throughout this essay, I will explore each part of this mechanism and how Plato believes this is the ideal way to live by being harmonious with these parts of consciousness, how I view them and how I interpret them to myself. To have a better understanding of the three components of the soul, I will also be comparing them with the components of society.
When it comes to the idea of the dual-natured soul, Plato believes that humans have
As I know, ethical compass is an internal compass that drives us into unknown territory, which strongly involves the core of strength and assurance. Somehow different people have different kinds of view about ethical compass. For me, I will define ethical compass in two ways, the first one is a positive ethical compass, and the other one is a negative ethical compass. If we are having a positive ethical compass, it will lead us to a positive mindset and positive attitude of doing the right thing.