I got ya covered Miko.
Whale Guts.
What can Plato tell us about pleasure, desire and love and Whale Guts?
Should we not be looking at what modern physiology and psychology tell us about them? Yes, but this should not prevent us learning from Plato, who wrote extensively on these topics, and has been discussed ever since.
The continuing interest of professional philosophers in Plato’s ideas was reflected at a recent conference on his ethics at the University of Arizona, Tuscon. Some of this interest is of a scholarly nature, but much concerns what is of far wider interest.
One apparently scholarly topic which turns out to be relevant to the problem of pleasure concerns the question of what Socrates thinks, as opposed to what Plato thinks. Since nearly everything we know about Socrates comes from Plato, it is hard to distinguish the two, and intelligent people can hold different views without obvious contradiction or foolishness. A popular story is that Plato wrote the early dialogues under the inspiration of Socrates, but wrote the later ones under his own. Thus the early dialogues are often called "Socratic" and the later ones "Platonic". Sometimes the same dialogue is held to have elements of both. For example, it is said that the opening of the Republic is Socratic, because it questions what justice is without coming to a conclusion; while the rest of the dialogue is Platonic, because there, presumably, Plato displays his mature thinking.
As speakers at the conference noted, this is important for understanding what Plato has to say about pleasure. For example, commentators have noticed for a long time that Socrates is made to say contrasting things about pleasure in the Protagoras and the Gorgias. In the Protagoras, Socrates seems to endorse the view that pleasure is the good, without any consideration of higher (intellectual or spiritual) and lower (physical) pleasures; while in the Gorgias, Socrates refutes the view of his opponent, Callicles, that pleasure is the highest good, and that happiness is a life that successfully satisfies the greatest desires. The first is considered an early dialogue, while the second is considered a middle dialogue. Is there some way to reconcile what Plato said at different times?
Another problem concerns Plato’s moral psychology. Socrates is often described as a "Eudaimonistic" philosopher, meaning that he argues that all of us want to be happy, and we consider good what we think will make us happy or contribute to our happiness. All we need to be happy, he thinks, is knowledge of what is really good for us. He says that no one errs willingly, but only through ignorance. There is no such thing as "weakness of will", where we are described as choosing, unwillingly, what we know is bad or unjust. On the Socratic account, this description can never be true. Weakness of will is merely a kind of mistake. Philosophy will help us avoid mistakes. By questioning received opinions, we improve our understanding, and hence live better lives, not just in someone’s opinion, but in reality. Scholars debate why Socrates denies a phenomenon so generally recognised as weakness of will, and whether his argument works.
A common view is that Plato came to think that Socrates had an over-simple conception of the soul. In the Republic, for example, Plato has Socrates distinguish three parts of the soul, when no such division is found in the dialogues believed to be earlier. The three parts are irrational physical appetites or desires, thmos or spirit (the part of us that wants recognition and respect, fears shame, and feels righteous indignation); and finally, nous or reason, which is capable of knowing the Good and guiding the whole person toward it. Some say that Plato comes to recognise that the earlier Socratic belief that pure reason motivates us to seek the good is not always adequate. Reason needs the cooperation of thmos (spirit) to control the appetites of the unreasoning part of the soul. In other words, there has to be something to motivate us besides pure cognition. On this account, Plato developed a more complex psychological theory than Socrates precisely to deal with the problem of the weakness of will. At the same time, reason has its own pleasures, desires and loves.
As I see it, what links these various debates is that Plato’s ideas have their roots in the Socratic question of the best way to live a human life. If our aim is to find this out, then what we say about pleasure, desire and love will reflect that goal. We will want to cultivate those pleasures, desires and loves that are compatible with the best life, and the best life is defined, by Plato, as one in which reason plays a central, though not all consuming, role.
Take pleasure. What sort of pleasures will a reasonable person allow into her or his psychic economy? Not pleasures that harm the person. Reason looks to the welfare of the whole person in the long run, and not to any particular part in the short run. There is an overlay of asceticism in the dialogues. We are often warned about the dangers of bodily pleasures. They distract us from contemplating higher things. We waste our time on them. Furthermore, the pleasures of drinking are offset by the pains of thirst, eating by hunger, sex by lust. The body is fickle. It will let you down in the end. These are the pleasures we must watch because they are not rational, that is, they do not take the well being of the whole organism into account. A grudging Socrates allows that as long as we have the misfortune to be embodied, we will be subject to desires and in satisfying them often find the pleasures we ought to deny ourselves.
Socrates often tells us that some pleasures are necessary while others are unnecessary. Some are higher than others. We are advised to undergo the necessary pleasures of eating and drinking in moderation and avoid unnecessary pleasures, like sex and the pleasures of wearing expensive jewellery. Basically, we are enjoined to live a sober life in rational contemplation of eternal truths or in virtuous public action.
What about desire? Pleasure and desire are intimately connected, for the satisfaction of a desire is a pleasure, no matter what the object of desire is, whether good or bad. Desires to eat, drink, take drugs or have sex are all on record as capable of ruining or ending the lives of individuals who pursue them. However, many desires and their pleasures are not purely physical. We feel there is more to life than eating, drinking, having sex or taking drugs. Our desires reach out to others and their regard for us. Desire for honour, glory, fame, celebrity and wealth are like this. To be recognised by one’s peers is a desire that can organise a life, as can the desire to accumulate wealth or power. We should aim to have the desires of a person ruled primarily by reason, and reason’s concern for the overall good.
Many dialogues tell us to cultivate desires whose satisfaction brings the pleasures of the mind and simple aesthetic pleasures. The desire to learn should be uppermost, and the joys of learning the highest pleasures. We also have to come to desire justice for all and to do the right thing oneself. This is crucial. We are told many times that in comparison to doing well and thinking rightly, the diseases and death of the body are trivial things. To live well there most be something more desirable than bodily life. Death, we are told, is the separation of the soul and the body, and philosophy prepares us for that separation.
Finally, love. What is the object of love that is seized upon by reason? Above all, it must be a form, or universal paradigm, never fully realised in the sensible world. In the case of love, it is the Form of the Beautiful. The message of Plato’s Symposium is that love of the Beautiful leads us to the Good. Love of the Beautiful, which most closely touches our senses, allows our souls to rise to the point where the soul by itself alone can recognise the forms, and among them, as the sun in our own solar system, the Form of the Good. Mystically almost, we are told that the Good is beyond Being and illuminates not only itself, but all the other forms, including the form of the Beautiful. We move from the love of a beautiful body, to the love of a beautiful soul, and from there to the beauty of the rule of law and other human institutions. Leaving humans behind, we see beauty in truth and knowledge, and beyond that there are the forms as they are in themselves. Love is the great power that can take us out of ourselves and propel us to a reality beyond our bodily existence.
In conclusion, then, Plato’s thoughts about pleasure, desire and love give us a prescription for a happy life, in so far as that is possible while we are still connected to an animal body. It is a life in which reason has a central role. On a charitable interpretation, we can grant the worthy desires of the spirit and give the pleasures of the body their due. Having a reputation for justice is a good thing, when one is actually just. The pleasures of eating a good meal can be enjoyed to the full, just so long as there is no conflict between that enjoyment and what reason judges to be best overall. Without reason to judge what is best, pleasure, desire and love will each take itself as most important. However, reason and experience tell us that, as leading principles, the pursuit of pleasure, desire for self-aggrandisement, and passionate love, can lead to disaster.
And Whale Guts.
