Ethics According to Socrates

How do we know if our actions are right? How does a man know if he has made a right decision, how does the person whose actions are morally upright know that they are? ethics is the field of philosophy that seeks to answer the question of what is right and what is wrong. According to socrates, who defines committing right actions as acting out justice, noone ever intentionally commits injustice. Socrates was right when he claimed that unjust actions are the product of ignorance. Of course, in terms of pragmatism, knowledge of what will happen in the future is the only way we can know whether an action will have good results or bad ones. Socrates, however, argues in ideals, and the ignorance he referred to was the ignorance of ones true nature and the nature of reality as a whole. Humankind has the unique gift of a powerful brain that enables us to think and communicate in very complicated ways. We evolved this brain because superior intelligence was selected for by nature and smarter individuals were able to procreate better. It is with this mind that we make our decisions. Like probably everything else, the human mind is not perfect and no two minds are the same. There is a cognitive framework that is conserved from person to person, but a persons experiences and unique genetic data ensure the uniqueness of each particular individual. One of the aspects of most of our worldviews is the delusional belief that anything we do matters in some sort of supernatural sense. By failing to see people as they actually are, a conglomeration of molecules maintaining a state of non-equilibrium, and using false beliefs to justify their world view, people act in ways that lower their own possible maximum happiness and the maximum happiness of everyone else as a whole. Being at the total mercy of nature, we have evolved a set of complicated emotional responses that have absolutely nothing to do with how pleasant the cognitive state of mind is, and everything to do with spurring us to action so that we may ensure the continued state of nonequilibrium. The fact of the matter is we are meant to feel pain as well as pleasure, it is the hand we have been dealt. The only thing we can do with our situation is make the best of it, and I like to believe that is what most of us strive for. While it is true that we don't know how to make everybody's life pleasant, many people have put alot of effort into trying to answer the question. The society that we have created is the product of thousands of years of work towards this end. If theres anything we learned its that we havent figured it out yet, and that there is probably something much better out there, at least that is what socrates would hope. Socrates is a widely known and respected historical figure because of the unique influence he has had on western society. Some of his principal arguments are very useful foundations for the huge advancements that have been made since his time. Chief among them are his idea that the wisest man is the man who knows that he knows not. He likens himself as a gadfly that stings the sleeping horse that is Athens and keeps it awake. The problem with Athens at the time and with human society as a whole is that while sometimes useful, emotions can and often do get in the way of progress. The story of socrates is one of a man who was declared by the oracle at delphi as being the wisest of all men, and being that he had no knowledge in the traditional sense, he took it as meaning that he was the wisest of all men in that he knew he knew nothing, whereas everyone else was foolishly deluding themselves into believing that they were wise because of the material they had managed to store in their memories. His wisdom was that he was never so foolish as to think he had actually figured "it" out, "it" being knowledge of the truth.

Directly related to this idea is socrates' idea that no one willingly commits an unjust act, but that people commit unjust actions out of ignorance. At first glance this idea may seem foolish, after all, don't people commit evil actions because of selfish desires that result in feelings of greed, jealousy, and other passions? While that is true, it is also true that these feelings ultimately result from a lack of knowledge, and not just any knowledge, but the useful kind of knowledge. Just like knowledge of mathematics is useful for engineering purposes, knowledge of important matters such as virtue, justice, and true happiness is necessary in order to act justly. For example, of all the best possible types of societies that can exist, there exist some that have better outcomes and some that have worse outcomes, in terms of overall happiness. Even though it is impossible to know what will happen before it happens, because there is always an element of chance, we can act to change the probability of things happening. One can unconsciously make a decision that results in something good happening, and this happens all the time. Unfortunately, often that unconscious decision results in something bad happening as well. By having knowledge of the forces that act to change our reality, we can act to improve our present reality. When someone commits an unjust act, they have to live with the unpleasantness of having committed an injustice against someone else. Often, the actor will believe that they had to do it for their own happiness, in order to satisfy their own desires. The pleasant feeling that may result from committing an unjust act is tainted by the guilt of having committed the act. Also, since the pleasant feeling results from satisfying some selfish material desire, it is by its very nature short lived because there is always more that can be had and more that can be desired, and these kind of feelings only serve to keep us running around procreating. Assuring the survival of our species is the whole point of these feelings, after all. However, if we are to enjoy our existence on the planet, we have to strive for a deeper kind of happiness and fulfillment. There are many who have experienced this sort of fulfillment, but for the great majority of us we have not felt this sort of Fulfillment, at least as far as we can remember, and if we did it may have been by accident and we may just be lucky at having made the right decisions. However, chances are great that without some sort of concerted effort such a pleasant state of mind is unreachable. Since this pleasant state of mind does not stem from selfish desires or the fulfillment of these desires, or at the very least not the usual ones that most people make their lives busy trying to fulfill, and these are the things that result in unjust actions, a person who understands the greater fulfillment that can be achieved and how to achieve it will be at the very least less likely to act in an unjust manner because he will be busy going after the greater good. If a person achieves selffulfillment, they would by definition not be reacting to these selfish desires and therefore will have the clear-headedness to make wise and just decisions. It is not news now and it was not news at the time that selfish desires will not lead to true happiness. People have been striving for this sort of contentment for years, others have given up on it altogether and adopted the view that happiness could never be achieved, and we are destined to suffer. In order to justify these different explanations for the human condition, people have been relying on superstitions. In relying on superstitions, people are making the same mistake that socrates has been praised for not making, they assume to have knowledge when they actually do not. It is essential that we rely on logic and reasoning and not on faith because if you think you have "it" figured out when you actually don't, you will never figure "it" out.