PHIL10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Stoicism, Moral Realism, Rational Animal
15 Jun 2018
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Lecture 4: Aristotle & the Stoics
The plato / socrates disagreement
• S: the heart cannot motivate you, only the mind and intellect can
• P: its not just one thing that can motivate us to action but three things, all can motivate us
equally
The stoics
• Think that you need to embrace what comes, enduring, cannot take a cynical stance on
the universe
• Emotions are bad, you should be reserved, moderate emotions
• Everything in the universe is determined, but you can control your inner response
Aristotle
• Plato's pupil
• Taught alexander the great
Stoic view on the human soul - ONLY HAVE REASON
• Completed development in our first 7 years
• Think that everything is a belief, emotions are beliefs
• The person has a judgement that something in the world is good or bad
• IMPRESSION: Representation of the mind on a state of affairs
• Its up to you what you do w the impression
o Assent = form a belief
o If belief you assent to is a false one then the belief will become an emotion
• distress: irrational contraction, fresh opinion that something bad is present, which people
think is right
• Rational animal follows reason rationally, acts in accordance w reason as though it was its
guide
• Emotions are contrary to reason in some way, rational / reason is the only part of the soul
and everything else are mistakes of reason
• Cultivate virtue through assenting the right ones and dissenting the wrong one
• Only reason can motivate us to action (agree w S)
Ari's conception of the soul
• RATIONAL CAPACITIES: asserting what you think is best, exercising rational will, math &
science are distinctly rational, distinctly human
• NON-RATIONAL CAPACITIES: appetite, emotions, desires to take in bodily pleasure,
courage, kindness, generosity, things that flow from a person's heart
Decision procedure
1. Wish
• The setting of some goal you hope to accomplish
• Kinds of wishes that can set off decision procedure is the kind that is realizable
• Each person wishes for what is good to them
o Variation in ppl's beliefs = variation in wishes
o There is a 'true good' (moral realist) -> if you wish for something other than the true
good you are mistaken, you are pursuing something that appears to be good but is
actl bad
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