THEORIES OF SOCRATES, PLATO AND ARISTOTLE ABOUT THE MORAL
BOOK: “CODE OF SPIRITIST NATURAL LAW
JOSÉ FLEURÍ QUEIROZ
Socrates felt himself encouraged by the sophists, but was not inclined to follow them in all the theories. He was also quite interested in the problems of the moral life. Large part of their teachings, thus, versed over the signification of the good and of the evil.
Had firm conviction that should exists a basic principle of the good and of the evil, a measure that superimposes the beliefs of any individual. Inquired several times: What is it that good? What is the highest good, by which we can measure everything else in the world? Responded that is the knowledge.
If the individual knows what is right, will act accordingly, he argued. "No man" - he said - "Is voluntarily bad." When the individual knows that something is good, will prefer to do it. Therefore, the most important is make efforts to find out what constitutes the good. Socrates spent his life seeking to auxiliary the men to find out what represents the good. So, for him, the life that is inquiring, and trying to discover what is good, is the best; It is the only one worthy to be lived.
Plato took the problem of the good and of the evil where Socrates left it. In his view, the goodness is linked to his theory about the nature of the universe. The world of the senses, indoctrinated him, is unreal, transient and changeable. Here is evil. The true world of the pure and immutable ideas is the one of the good. The man can only know it through the reason. This, then, is the highest good of the man. The goal of the life is to liberate the soul of the body so that she can contemplates the true world of the ideas.
But the man can live a just life, even being subject to the body and remaining in the world of the mutable shadows of the real things. This is what one can do - Plato believed - while the rational part of the man govern all their acts. The appetites care about the functions and the desires of the body. The will, or the spiritual part of man, cares about the actions, the courage and the bravery. And the reason, with what exists of more elevated and best in him.
The man lives a just life when the reason governs the will and the appetites and when, as a result, he is wise, brave and moderate.
The life of the reason is, therefore, the highest good for the world, a life that overlaps by the wisdom, courage and self-control. Plato taught that this kind of life is the happy life. Happiness and kindness go hand in hand. One should not, however, seeks the pleasure as a goal of the life. The pleasure comes when one reaches a just life, in which the highest good, the reason, governs and dominates the inferior, the will and the appetites.
Aristotle signaled that all the action of the man has one objective in mind, being this, and others, the objectives of an infinite chain. The individual acts in order to get something, but this something is obtained in order to obtain other more, and so successively. What is the highest good - he asked -, the good for which one does everything else? Presented an answer to the question, emphasizing that the goal of all in the world is the complete realization. Everything differs from all others. It has some talent, capacity. Thus, it is just when concretizes fully the talent and the capacity. The complete concretization is, therefore, for Aristotle, the highest good, the goal of everything else that is done.
Well, the characteristic that distinguishes the man is the reason. No other being possesses it. Only the man has this faculty. Therefore, his highest good is in the full concretization of the reason. It is what brings the happiness, believed Aristotle. The pleasure accompanies the complete concretization of the reason; it is its natural result.
But Plato also preached that the reason is only a part of the man. This has, also, sensations, desires and appetites. A just life is, therefore, that in which all these factors are concretized in perfect harmony, in which the reason dominates and the sensations and desires obey. The purpose of the human life is a rational attitude towards the sensations and desires.
What is this rational attitude? Aristotle indoctrinated that it consists of a middle term. For example: one should judge the courage a middle term between the cowardice and the imprudence. Good man is, therefore, he who lives according to this middle term; who, in their acts, is not going to the extremes, and yes establishes an equilibrium between one extreme and another.
The just life, for Aristotle, is, therefore, that in which the man completely concretizes the supreme part of his nature, the reason. Such a man will be noble, honest, attentive and will give proofs of all the other virtues. Will act so because he wishes it of the intimate of his being. Is not forced to act in this way by imposition of any authority out of him; his own nature impels him to the good actions. Aristotle wrote: "The virtue is the disposition, or habit, which involves a deliberate alternative or objective, and consists of a means related to ourselves, determined by the reason or by the manner that a prudent man would determine it."
