Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Philosophy Plato7 Plato7 Convention and nature are different from one another. When someone is speaking in the conventional sense, then this can also be interpreted in the natural meaning. The same goes with someone speaking in the natural sense. This can be understood in the conventional meaning. An example of this is when Polus was conventionally speaking about baser and Socrates took this meaning as the natural meaning. In the natural sense, the meaning is that greater evil means baser, which is suffering wrongdoing. Doing wrong is baser in conventional meaning. The majority of mankind is made up of weaklings. These weaklings establish conventions to help themselves and to scare those who are stronger than them. Since these people are inferior, they are content to be equal to the stronger by use of these established conventions. It is said to be wrong when any one to try to get an advantage over the majority. In nature and natural law, it is survival of the strongest and fittest. This is not so in conventional law, which is the law of the majority. Being wiser and more intelligent than others means being better and stronger. Better and stronger are the people with courage and intelligence that know how to take care of political matters. Men should use their courage and intelligence to satisfy all of their wishes. Happiness and virtue consist of having excess, luxury and licence and everything else is worthless. People are already dead, their body is the tomb and their soul carries in contrary directions. A temperate life is better than an intemperate life and a person’s life is temperate and is satisfied with what he has. Pleasure and pain can be experienced at the same time. Wise men, heroes, and fools feel pain and joy in the same degree. Where cowards feel pain and joy more than brave men. The good man is as good and bad as the bad man and the bad man is possibly better. These are the interpretations of Callicles by Socrates. Should the stronger take from the weaker and the better, more gifted rule and take from the less? Do stronger, better and more powerful mean the same thing? Is the Mass of men stronger than the individual? Do the majority believe that equality and not inequality is right? That it is baser to do wrong than to suffer wrong? Socrates uses the same line of reasoning while Callicles keeps changing his explanations of the meaning of better and stronger. How can a man be happy when everyone else rules him? The first philosophy is conventional thinking verses natural ways of life. Conventional thinking is the rule of the majority. Its limitation is that not everyone agrees with it and people do not like to be told what to do that goes against their beliefs. The natural way of life is survival of the fittest. The limitation to this is that men behave like animals and one can attack the other for any reason. This brings men down to the lower, less intelligent forms of life. The strong shall rule over the weak. The strong are defined as the wisest, most intelligent in political matters. The strong are also defined as the masses and the bravest. Having excess, luxury, and licence does not necessarily equate to happiness and virtue. What good are materialistic objects if a person does not have love? Being a person that has a temperate life and is satisfied with what he has is not good either. If a person is poor and starving, then how can one be satisfied with this? A good example of an application to a contemporary issue would be retaliatory attacks. This shows the attacker that the people being attack will retaliate even stronger and more powerful. This shows survival of the fittest. The people that can attack wiser, stronger, and win are the strongest, bravest, and fittest. Bibliography: Ethics, by Cooper, Copyright 1997, Blackwell Publishers Word Count: 651
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