y education can help us "feel" the right moral way; good when we do right, bad when we do wrong. These rights and wrongs are dependent on Plato and Aristotle's view of the soul's perfect state, so in accepting the social ideals of what is inherently good we must accept the philosophers' ideas of what the soul reflects. I tend to lean toward the view of Aristotle more than Plato when discussing human emotions, Aristotle leaves more room for flexibility in his discussions. I would not want to be part of a world where my experiences are not based on what desire but rather what I find is reasonable. I understand and agree that reason is an important and respectable ideal, however I want to be able to ignore reason when emotions begin to pus reason away. This argument is not flawless, by any means. A society that flourishes needs community that requires great characteristics from individuals, if a society was influenced more by desire then reason, we would be left with hedonistic selfishness. So as society is concerned, yes it is important for reason to play a greater role than emotion, but is Plato's idea that all strong displays of emotion our wrong, correct? I can not agree with him in that assertion. I believe a very important aspect in communities is the ability for humans to relate to one another based on experiences, feelings and common ideas. While Plato's model may enforce a moral norm for emotions, I do not believe it can be a natural state of nature. Another reason I have issues with both Plato and Aristotle's views of the correct use of emotion is that I do not agree that their idea of flourishing would actually be flourishing. Flourishing should deal with feeling good when you do something good, but the ideas of what is good should not be so ingrained in ones mind by education that they can not discover this themselves. If all my life I am told that strong emotion is wrong, I feel I will miss out on many of the parts o...
