“The Allegory of the Cave” and “Qualities of the Prince” (Authored by Plato and Machiavelli, respectively) have different viewpoints in contrast to one another. Looking at the texts, it seems that Machiavelli would be critical of the views Plato expressed in The Allegory of the Cave for a number of reasons. Plato states that people are inherently good, although good can be “seen only with an effort” (35). Machiavelli, on the flipped side, states that “for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good” (7), suggesting that most people are by nature not good, and that pursuing the act of being good, will only lead to disaster. Therefore, he would likely think that Plato’s ideology is too optimistic, if not ignorant, and that one must have a realist viewpoint to survive this world.
INTRODUCTION The ethical decision is challenging and probably blurry for decision-makers. Mostly, it creates a dilemma where fierce antagonism arises from listening to the voice of conscience and the voices of other opinions surrounding. Profoundly, the winner is determined by how willing the person is to pursue the goodness and freely choose to pay attention to the inner voice or mute it. Moral philosophers are contributing in providing an instrument to enable us to heed to the verdict of conscience, by which will be the compass through the decision stages. Kant analogizes the role of the moral philosopher to reveal the ambiguous perception of what it is moral to be clearer and shimmers dazzlingly, supplementary; he emphasised that we do not
In Plato’s The Republic, there exists a struggle between the characters of Socrates and Thrasymachus to find the correct definition of what justice is. Thrasymachus, being a Sophist, expressed his views on justice in a manner of rash sequences whereby Socrates closely followed behind with his own counter-arguments. These counter-arguments effectively exposed weaknesses in Thrasymachus’s argument for justice, and further crippled it entirely. By outlining and explaining Thrasymachus’s views on justice, I will argue two things; first that the weakness in his argument comes from only himself in abandoning his method. Secondly, that justice may be our deep-rooted understanding and ability to identify good from evil.
Virtue ethics is agent-centred ethics rather than act-centred; it asks ‘What sort of person ought I to be?’ rather than ‘How ought I to act?’ The Aristotelian approach shows to give an account of the structure of morality and explained that the point of enrolling in ethics is to become good: ‘For we are enquiring not in order to know what virtue is but in order to become good since otherwise our enquiry would be of no use.’ (Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, ch. 2) Quite importantly, Aristotle’s distinguishes between things which are good as means (for the sake of something else) and things which are good as ends (for their own sake only), Aristotle seeks for one final and overriding end of human action, one final good – eudaimonia (or final happiness). Philosophers of the 20th century brought about a revival of virtue ethics as many were concerned with the act-centered ethical theories. Virtue ethics is able to do something very different to other ethical theories – rather than focus on the act of a person, virtue ethics will focus on the person itself. The modern development of virtue ethics is often linked back to a paper by G. E. M. Anscombe entitled ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’.
A person must ultimately make the decision to be “good” in the presences of negative influences, it is what we as a society have determined to be “good” that sets apart the civilized from uncivilized societies. There are several ethical philosophies that hold merit and each has its weaknesses alongside its strengths. Virtue ethics, developed in ancient Greece with proponents such as Plato and Aristotle, is probably one of the most well known of the philosophies for its long history and relatively basic structure. Several other ethical views are built upon the basics set out in virtue ethics. A person inherently has some sort of primitive worldview and code of personal ethics.
Kant’s view uses a categorical imperative, in which ethics is based upon an absolute, objective, deontologcial theory, in which intentions are more important than consequences. Kant believed that an ethics should be based around something entirely good. He decided that the only thing entirely good in the whole universe is ‘good will’. Everybody must decide ethical decisions in a way in which they put themselves last, fulfill their duty, and commit only selfless acts. This may be psychologically impossible, as many believe there is always a selfish reason for any good deed, however Kant only proposed a theory, and
While their ideas of moral vision seem to coincide, they are also very different in the way they are interrupted. Iris Murdoch spends much of her book explaining that paying attention and living a moral life were connected. She used the teachings of Plato and Kant to support her theories: “It is to them, to Plato first and foremost, that Murdoch turns untiring attention and wonder, where ‘attention’ and ‘wonder’ are themselves but, and very precisely, instruments of moral perception” (Murdoch xi). Murdoch also speaks about the act of being selfish and the fact that human beings are naturally selfish: “I assume that human beings are naturally selfish and that human life has no external point” (Murdoch 364). She goes on to say that: “Our states of consciousness differ in quality, our fantasies and reveries are not trivial and unimportant, they are profoundly connected with our energies and our ability to choose and act.
In this respect, morality and Socratism are the expressions of a vital drive analogous to those which give birth to the figures of Apollo and Dionysus, as they are both connected to the metaphysical inquiry into the nature of things. Still, the Socratic worldview fails in seeing its dependency and connections to these drives, and thus fails to see its connection to life and its irrational kernel . According to Nietzsche, this mindset is the result of a pathology, as it gives too much merit to appearances while it excludes the Will from its view, making the former absolute and arranging them in a rational but insincere way. Socratism is then made of the same substance of the drives which inspire tragedy insofar as it is an expression of life, but, in both a literal and a metaphysical sense, it is the result of a sick form of this substance – it presents a metaphysical view of reality, just like art, but at the same time causes life to retreat within the safe walls of reasonableness, as by contrast art pushes the person to transcend them . In some respect, we can see here one of the seeds of Nietzsche’s later intuitions, and I believe there is no harm in employing them to elucidate this point.
Kant neglects to clearly define maxims, yet it is footnoted that maxims are “subjective principles of acting”[4]. However, one thing about maxims is clear – “a maxim is a personal endorsement of an articulated or able to be articulated, general rule.”[5] The formula of universal law states that in order to act morally, you must “act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”[6] For example, to assist a fellow student needing help understanding a particularly
Duty theory is a moral theory, especially connected with Kant, according to what actions are right or wrong because of their inherent content, and the motive from which they are done. Stealing is wrong principally because we can't make taking property a universal law. In general, philosophers usually call duty-based ethics deontology. It focuses on the act and not its consequence. The morally binding nature of a deontological norm derives from the person’s obligation to perform some act in some specified manner, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes it is not.