Ethics
Lecture 3: The Better: Logic, Desire, and Comparative Goodness

Transcript
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At the same time, we're able to defend that it's the good as such that is wanted. The bad as such is not wanted. That's an important distinction between as such and by happening, right? So when I eat the poisonous mushrooms, I don't want the poisonous mushrooms as such. I'm desiring the poisonous mushrooms because they resemble the good ones. So it's the good ones as such that I want. And when I drink the poisonous drink because it smells and tastes good, I'm attracted to that drink as such by the good taste and the good smell. And they are not a bad taste or a bad smell, right? But what tastes good and smells good happens to be poisonous. And so at the tragic end, I'm wanting something good. Poisonous, not as such. Poisonous, that's a little introduction to the good, right? It's not the last word, but it's the first word. Okay? Now once you have a little understanding of the good, the next thing to understand is the better. So in general, again, what is better? That's the thing to think about for the next class, right? In general, what is better, right? I tell the students sometimes, I have to tell your parents you don't know what good and bad is, see? Before we get into our conversation. But notice how basic this is, to know what good is, right? What bad is. But then also to know what better is, right? And it's kind of interesting the way these dialogues are arranged, huh? I've spoken of the symmetry of them before, right? If you were to look at introductions to philosophy around the country, you'd see a great deal of diversity and so on. But the most commonly read thing, probably in all directions of philosophy, is the what? Apology. Apology of Socrates, right? Now, apology is a transliteration of the Greek word apologia. The Greek word apologia doesn't mean apology. It's not a translation. Apologia is the Greek word for illegal defense in the courtroom. Kategoria is the word for accusation. Apologia for the legal defense. You know Cardinal Newman borrowed that for his kind of defense of his life, right? His apologia, povita sua, and he gives it in kind of a Latin form, right? But that's not really an apology for his life. Sorry. It's kind of a defense of his leaving the Anglicans and becoming a Roman Catholic, right? And so it's kind of like Socrates is doing here. So this is kind of a central thing here, right? And this whole trial and so on and Socrates' conviction leads to the great change in Plato's life. Now, this work we mentioned here, the Euthyphro, is leading up to the Apology, right? Because in the Euthyphro, Plato represents Socrates as going to the courthouse, what they call in Athens the porch of the King Archon, right? But we call it the courthouse. To see what the charges are that have been filed against him, right? And among the charges against Socrates is impiety, right? And he runs into Euthyphro, for whom this conversation is named, right? Euthyphro is also down at the porch of the King Archon. Except Euthyphro is there to initiate an indictment of his own father. and for the crime of impiety, okay? Now it sounds infious in service to be charging your father, right? So youthful must be an expert in questions of piety and impiety, huh? And of course, when Socrates asks him, he's the expert on piety and impiety. So Socrates gets involved in a conversation with him, because he says, I've been charged with impiety, right? What is this? Okay? So this is very close to the trial of Socrates, right? Now, in the temporal sequence, in the Apologist Socrates is eventually found, what? Guilty, right? And sentenced to, what? Death, right? But because this coincides with the Greek festival, right? He's going to be in prison for some time before the death is carried out. Now, his friend, Crito, after whom another dialogue is named, comes to see Socrates in prison and says, Socrates, I've got a plan to spring yet. You know, we're going to bribe the guards and et cetera, et cetera. And so Socrates says, well, just a minute now, let's see if this is the thing to do. So, Crito and Socrates have a conversation about this, right? And Socrates reasons the conversation that he should not disobey the law, right? And break out of prison, right? That's kind of surprising, right? Because we all probably, if we were in prison, we'd jump at the opportunity to escape, right? So this is right after the trial, I mean, at least in the time phase, right? And that's followed by the Phaedo. Going up like that, just because you'll see the purpose of that around. The Phaedo takes place on the last day of Socrates' life, in prison. And at the end of the Phaedo, Socrates, what, dies, huh? Now, the longest conversation in the Phaedo is one about, does the human soul survive death? And Socrates makes a joke. He say, we philosophers are always discussing things that are relevant, you know? You can hardly say it's irrelevant to me today. Today I'm going to die to know whether the soul survives death, right? Okay? There's also a conversation in there as to whether the soul is better off, right? After death or before, right? And Socrates, also, besides these two philosophical conversations, tells the Wuthos, right? A story about what happens to the soul after death, right? Now, the Euthyphro is preceded by the Mino. Socrates has a conversation with Mino about what virtue is and whether virtue can be taught, and so on. But in that conversation, Annetus comes in, was one of those guys who would bring the charges against Socrates. And he gets very angry with Socrates, right? You know? And he goes off, leaving, you know, the conversation very angry. So it's kind of anticipation of the charges that we brought against him, right? And so these five kind of fit together this way, huh? Now, I think there's a kind of symmetry among these five works that you will see when you, if you have a chance to go through all five of them. But as far as our particular verse right now, I may mention that in the Mino, among other things, not the main thing by any means, but you do come to the idea that the good is what all want. In the Euthyphro, you're taught to ask the question that we asked. But it's asked about the pious, not about the good, right? Is it pious because the gods approve it? Or do the gods approve it because it is pious? We've applied that to the good, right? Okay, but you have to put two to the good. Now, in the Apology of Socrates, there will be many things that come up. But among them is the disagreement between Socrates and Athenians about which goods in human life are really better, okay? And that kind of presupposes an understanding of what is better, right? And what you can say in general about what is better, right? And then apply to the disagreement between Socrates and Athenians. So we're going to... Do, after the definition of good, first definition of good, and our whole discussion of whether it's good because we want it or want because it's good, now we're going to talk about the better, right? Okay? And the father's in order there, right? Confidians think that the goods of the body and exterior goods are the greatest goods in life. And Socrates thinks the goods of the soul are better. Okay, someone might, you know, try to get out of that by saying, well, Socrates, if we want those more, go for it. We want these more, we'll go for it. But can you say that if you understand the good? If something is not good for me because I want it, if we've shown that something is not good because you want it, then can you say it's more good or better because you want it more? Then you've got to give a reason now, right? The ball game is now over for these guys. They've got to give a reason for saying this is better for us than that, right? And that reason cannot be that I want it more. Do you see the problem there? You see the connection there. There's going to be a connection between those. So you have to see the false answer to the question of what is better, right? Which is a, well, whatever you want more, right? And then find the answer, right? We can actually give a reason for saying this is better. We'll make use of all the things we learned about the good. Okay? So, experience. And first, the first Boston player last night gets up, you know, this guy at the bat, you know, top of the first. It's a home run. Oh, you're home run. The first guy, so. I think you did it by just discouraging St. Louis. They just came up, you know? So they won four games in a row, then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like going four games, you know, coming back against the Yankees. I thought you were saying St. Louis was an all-one. I was surprised they were in there. Wow. They must have had the most wins, though, of any team in that league during the regular season. Well, if St. Louis got it, then they didn't say much about the National League this year. Yeah. Wow. Boy, they must be so good. I remember as a kid growing up, I'd always bet with my brother Marcus, you know. In the All-Star game, I'd been in the American League, and he'd been in the National League. He always won for some reason. I've got the impression the National League is better than the American League. I was just attached to the American League, so I would vote for them. Yeah. But he was a smart guy, and he always voted for the National League. Okay. Now, they say a chain is no stronger than its what? Weakish link. Yeah, yeah. So you have to understand good well, and continue to understand it well, to understand better, right? Okay. So let's just review a little bit what we said about the good last time, huh? And we begin by asking the American boy, right, what's good, right? And what do we get as an answer to that? Any examples? Yeah. Candy's good. Pizza's good. Baseball's good. Yeah. Et cetera. And then Socrates would say, well, okay, all these things are good, but what do they all have in common? Or why do you call them good, huh? Are they all sweet like the candy? No. Are they all things you can ride like a bicycle? No. And perhaps a little boy could only say, well, these are all the things I want, huh? And so that suggests a first definition of good, which is the good is what all want, right? The good is what all desire, huh? And then Socrates could ask the kind of question that he asks Euthyphro, a question of before and after in a sense of cause and effect, right? Is it good because you want it or do you want it because it's good, right? Does your wanting it make it to be good or does the goodness in the thing itself excite or arouse desire and wanting in you for it? And you can begin to investigate that question by saying, well, what can be said on one side or against one side and the other side? And perhaps the most obvious objection to saying that it's good because you want it, the most obvious objection to saying that the wanting is what makes it good, good right is the experience everybody has so that they wanted something in life that not others but they themselves admit later on was bad for them like that person who says he wants one more drink right and later on himself says i shouldn't have had that last drink right that was no good for me on the other hand if you take the other side and say well the goodness of the object is a cause of desire in us our desire our wanting is an effect of the goodness in it do people always want what's good for them parents will tell you the kids don't always want what's good for them right um and furthermore you could argue that as the first objection uh makes use of sometimes people do in fact want something bad for them and since good and bad are contraries if good is as you say the cause of wanting then the contrary of good should be the cause of not wanting but of turning away so how is it that people can sometimes want something that is bad for them right contrary effects of contrary causes and vice versa contrary causes we expect to have contrary effects then we begin to try to answer this question by the kind of argument that's more uh familiar with us more proportioned to us we try to answer this by a what induction right rather than by syllogism and so we made a list of the fundamental goods most of which we share with the other animals like food and water and reproduction and sleep etc etc right and the desires for these some of which have a name like hunger thirst some do not and then we asked in each one of these particular goods and the desire for it well is it hunger that makes food good for man or for the dog no you can see that food is good and necessary for the man or the dog apart from his hunger for it so did nature give us hunger for food to make food something good for us no but because it's good for us and necessary for us and for the other animals for that matter too nature has given all of us an inborn desire for food and you see that desire stronger when you need food more okay but even when a person is sick and has temporarily lost appetite they see the need to what eat something so we went through the various particular goods right and the desires for them and it seemed that the desire didn't make the um object good you know we could see that the object was good apart from the desire and so therefore the desire is not the cause of the object being good but it's being good is why there is that desire for it and therefore we answer the question of socrates is it good because we want it or do we want it because it is good and the answer by the induction or induced by an induction an argument for many particulars to something general is that it's wanted because it is good the good is the cause of desire right and so you recognize that this first definition of good is by what is more known to us namely from the effect of the good okay now if our induction is good argument and if the conclusion we reached is true how would you handle these objections on the other side right the objection that says well if good is the cause of desire how can you have the good and not desire how can you have something being good for you and you want it how can there be the cause without its effect Or how is it that the contrary of good is sometimes wanted, like the bad? Well, here we have to use our reason and look before and after, like we did in our study of love with Thomas Aquinas. If you go back to the first two causes of love, the primary cause was good, but then in the second article on causes, Thomas said that knowledge is in some way a cause of desire or love, too. And in a way, for the same reason, the good is. That is to say that it's the good as known in some way that is wanted or desired. Okay? You follow that? No. Okay? Now, sometimes the senses or reason are ignorant of something, right? I don't know what caviar tastes like I've ever eaten caviar. You see? Okay? So, if Romeo had never seen Juliet, would he want her? You'd never even heard of her? You see? Okay? So, that would explain why it is that something can be good and not wanted, because good is not the whole truth about the cause of what? Desire. It's the good as known in some way, right? Now, the other objection said, how is it that the bad, then, is sometimes desired, right? Well, again, the senses and reason can be deceived by the likeness, that there is sometimes between the good and the bad. I gave an example of people eating the poisonous mushrooms because they resemble the good ones, right? So, the original cause of their wanting to eat the poisonous mushrooms is the good mushrooms, right? But they were deceived by the likeness of the bad to the good, right? Or it may be that the senses and reason see something good in the object, like in a delicious, smelling and tasting poisonous drink, right? Reason and the senses can be incomplete in their knowledge, right? So, I'm drawn to the delicious poison, not because it's poisonous. I know nothing about that. I'm drawn to it because it smells or tastes good, huh? You see the idea? Of course, the fact that the good acts upon desire through knowledge, that, again, kind of confirms the idea that the good is the cause of desire, right? The desire of the good, right? Because if desire was going to cause the good, it had to do so through knowledge, right? Because that's laughable to say that knowledge, what? As such, affects the thing being known. I see that piece of paper there. Is that affected by my seeing it? A piece of paper? Is it changed and transformed by my seeing it? No. I might be changed by seeing something, right? Something might act upon my heart through my senses or through my reason. But my heart doesn't act upon things through my eyes or through my reason, okay? So, by induction, then, we drew the conclusion that something is not good because we want it, but we want it because it is good. That, therefore, this is a definition by effect, which is not strange because effects are more known to us than causes, for the most part. So, every time we ask the question, why, we know the effect, but not the, what? Cause. That's a sign that the effect is usually more known to us than the cause. And that's because our knowledge starts with our senses. So, it's more known to the senses that the leaves change their color every fall, right? Than why they change their color, right? It's more known to us that... the sun comes up every day, right? Then whether the sun itself is moving around the earth or the earth is turning on its axis, right? And so men will agree more about the effect than the cause. We agree with the ancients that there's day and night, don't we? We might disagree as to whether the cause of it is the sun going around the earth, being pulled by somebody, or whether the earth is turning on its axis, right? But the fact that we disagree about the cause of day and night, but agree about the fact of day and night, the fact that we agree about the effect, and disagree about the cause, is a sign that the effect is more known to us than the cause. And that's why the first definition of good is a definition of good by its effect. The good is what all desire, or the good is what all want. Want and desire, there are synonyms, right? But want is more the native English word, huh? Desire is a Latin word, huh? Okay? So any question about that, huh? Now, we're going to later on in our deeper study of the good get further confirmation that our conclusion by induction was correct, right? Okay? Let's go now to the second thing you want to talk about. You want to talk about good earth, more good. Okay? But in English we say what? Better. Better, right? That's okay. Now, can you understand better if you don't understand good? And let's raise a little question here about the better, huh? Is something better for you because you want it more? Now, could you reason from what we learned about the good to answer this question? Is something better for you because you want it more? Possibly. Well, stop and think, huh? We asked the question about the good. Is something good because you want it? Okay? We said, no, that's not true. So, if something is not good because you want it, then, could it be more good because you want it more? So, if something is not good because you want it, then it is not more good, better, because you want it more. Now, notice, that's an if-then statement, huh? Okay? Now, in logic, an if-then statement is a compound statement and it involves putting together usually two simple statements, right? And in the if-then, or sometimes they call it the hypothetical or the conditional statement, right? You're putting together two simple statements with if and then, right? Okay? Now, does the truth of an if-then statement depend upon the truth of the simple statements it's made out of? Or could you make a true if-then statement out of two false simple statements? Yes. For example, if I am a dog, then I am a four-footed animal. True or false? Yeah. Even though it's false, I am a dog. right and it's false that i am a what yeah yeah now how about this statement here if i am a man then i am white that's false right even though it's true i'm a man and it's true i am white right so i can make a false if then statement out of two true simple statements i am a man i am white okay and i can make a true if then statement out of what two false simple statements if socrates is a mother then socrates is a woman that's true even though it's false the simple statement socrates is a mother and the simple statement socrates is a what woman right do you see so what is truth and falsity mean instead of statement it doesn't mean that the simple statements put together are true or false right what does it depend upon well it's relation between these two but what does the relation have to be you take the simple statement in the if part which comes first so they call you have to see them sometimes right and the simple statement in the then part which comes after so they call it the consequent what's going to be the relation between the antecedent and the consequent in order for this to be true the if then statement the consequent necessarily follows on yeah yeah and also if i say this about socrates if socrates is a father right which he in fact is then socrates is a man i think five okay but i turn around and said if socrates is a father is a man then he is a father so he couldn't follow right see if this is the number two then this number is less than ten true but vice versa if this number is less than ten then this number is true doesn't it doesn't follow does it do you see that so for if then the statement to be true the consequent has to follow necessarily from the antecedent but you're not saying that in fact either one is true right see if i am the number two then i am half of four right i'm not saying in fact i'm the number two i'm not saying that in fact half of four i'm saying but if i am two then i am half of four do you see that you get the idea what the if then statement is okay that's why when we want to reason from an if then statement to the way things are we have to add the if then statement a simple statement that we know to be so now if this if then statement is true and then you add that in fact but this is something we showed last class we viewed already today right but in fact something is not good because you want it now the second statement here i'm saying as a matter of fact right it's the way things are something is not good because you want right so if that consequence follows necessarily from the antecedent and the antecedent is in fact so then you're going to have to admit the consequence right sometimes you'll see them represent the two statements by 100 right and you're saying that if statement a is so then statement b is so but you're not saying either one is in fact so now if you add to that then in fact it is so Then you're forced to say what? Be is so, right? If I am a man, then I am an animal. Does that follow? Yes. Yeah. But I am a man. In fact, right? Therefore, I am what? Yeah. Okay? You see that? Now, this premise down here, the second premise, we saw last time, right? And we're doing it again in this class. But now, let's manifest this first one a little bit here, right? Okay? Let's take something a little more sensible here to get the idea. Is something sweet, would you say, because it's white? You'll admit that something's not sweet because it's white, is it? The reason why something is sweet is that it's white? No. Okay? Okay. Now, once you admit that something is not sweet because it's white, then is it going to be sweeter because it's whiter? No. See? So you see the argument there, right? If something is not sweet because it's white, then it's not sweeter because it's what? Whiter. You see the way it follows, right? And so if, in fact, you admit that something is not sweet because it's white, then you're going to be forced to say it's not sweeter because it's whiter. Do you see that? Okay? Now, I feel a little bit of logic here, right? There's another way you can reason from an if-then statement, right? You might say, if B is so, C is so. And if C is not so, in fact, then what about B? B is not so, right? Is it? Because if B, let's take, let's use the same letters for now, and make it easier. If A is so, B is so, B is not so. And then I say, you're forced to say A is not so because if A had been so, then B would have been so, right? But you're given that B is not so, right? So you're forced to say that A is not so. Now, I want to add to reason this way here, too. I could say, let's take our kind of example again. Is something, if you say, you, numstalls, if you say something is sweeter because it's whiter, then you're going to be forced to say that something is sweet because it's what? White, right? But that ain't so, is it? Something isn't sweet because it's white, right? Therefore, it is not sweeter because it's what? Whiter. Do you see that? I could argue that way, too, right? Okay? And so I say to you now, you find this in daily life, right? Somebody will say, you know, well, you want more steak and I want more chicken, so steak's better for you and chicken's better for me, right? You see? Most. You're saying that it's better for me because I want it more, right? But if something is better for me because I want it more, then something would be good for me because I want it. See? You get more of that cause and make more of that effect, right? But that isn't so, we learned last time, right? Something is not good because you want it. Okay? Yet that would follow if you're saying something is better because you want it more. Do you follow me? Okay. That's important because you get to, say, the apology of Socrates, right? Socrates will talk about his life where he has conversations with men, right? And examines what they say, right? But then he says a little later on in the apology that he's been examining his fellow Athenians, especially about...