Pursuit of Happiness

For another class I wrote an essay about C.S. Lewis' "We Have No Right to Happiness" and in this essay, one of the topics i discussed was the last sentence Lewis wrote; "And then, though our technological skill may help us survive a little longer, our civilization will have died at heart, and will—one dare not even add 'unfortunately'—be swept away." Lewis is arguing that if a society were to let men (he is talking about men and not humans in general) and their [sexual] impulses set free then a society should end. 
His statement is interesting because he puts morals of people above a society itself.  So any society that allows immoral actions not just illegal actions should not be allowed to exist.  Also he is placing the blame solely on man.  Earlier he argues that the pursuit of sexual happiness, which is immoral, takes advantage of women because they are more monogamous than men and need domestic happiness.  Lewis' essay as a whole talks about why the action of trying to achieve happiness is immoral but his last paragraph shows how much emphasis morals have on a society.

extemes and means of social media

During my presentation someone asked me what my opinion of the extremes and means of what a virtuous "Facebooker," although there are multiple extremes, I think that there are many that have to do with each other.  One way to judge a Facebook user is by how much time a person spends, the extremes are a person who spends all his time on social media and a person who never uses social media.  It is better to never use social media that to always be on it.  The second way to judge a Facebook user is how they use it.  The people who use it for only work and there are people who only use it solely for pleasure. A third way to judge is by how people interact with each other.  There are "Trolls," people who do not take anything seriously, who go around grinding everyone's gears and annoying them to get a laugh. And the other side, the side that the trolls pick on the most, that takes things too seriously.
I think a good way to determine the extremes is to be able to combine all of these extremes together to form two major extremes.

What Aristotle’s views of Friendship means to the Social Media Generation

In the age of social media, friendships have grown from a handle of friends right around the corner to hundreds of friends from around the world.  According to Aristotle this new version of friendship is not a Complete Friendship.  Aristotle’s friendships are broken down into three areas, Friendships of Utility, Friendships of Pleasure, and Complete friendships. Aristotle believes anyone can be in a friendship of utility or pleasure; only virtuous people can be in a Complete Friendship. In order to become be in a complete friendship, they must have to be good or virtuous people. For only Virtuous People can become Complete Friends. They must also have reciprocating good feelings for each other and want each other to succeed. Each must know how the other feels.  And they need to enjoy each other’s company without having to have an activity. These three criteria to have complete friendships are also going to be the criteria These facts brings question to whether in the age of social media, have people lost the ability to become Complete Friends or have real meaningful friendships. People go through life with Twitter, Facebook, and other ways to communicate increasing the amount of people to communicate with but decrease the amount of meaningful conversation.  These social media associates know little to personal information about each other.  Even less have seen each other’s houses or families.  While these social media outlets have brought good things and brought old friends back together.  It has set aside the want to have a close friend, friends that come over and hang out just to sit around and be in the company of each other.

The criteria for judging whether or not having true friendships in social media are if the friendship has reciprocating good feelings for each other, if they enjoy spending time with each other online, and whether both people in the friendship are virtuous people.

What makes a law just?

        During Stephanie's presentation she said that in order for a law to be just, it must steer people to become more just.  This is interesting to me and made me think about certain laws that I break everyday.  Speeding happens to be a big one that I break everyday and I have no concerns about doing it. Disclaimer I rarely go more than 5 over but 5 over is still breaking the law.  And since the chance of getting a ticket does not make me obey the law, the question that I raise is whether I am a bad citizen for not following the law or is the law unjust? My opinion is its a little of both.  I am a less than upstanding citizens (lets leave the bad citizens for the drivers who are putting others in danger: drunk drivers, people who go 100+ mph, etc.) and I do not lead a good example for others but I am not alone. Anyone who breaks any law set forth by the society is wrong at that time, though there is times in history where there have been immoral and unjust laws and appropriate legal action should be used to change the law. Civil Rights Movement and Gay rights are two major examples in the past half century. (some of the actions taken during the Civil Rights Movements were not appropriate legal action)
        And as for the law being unjust, it does seem it would be more advantageous for people if speed limits did not exist, maybe on city streets with lots of traffic but on a highway in west Texas, where nobody lives, is this law necessary or important.
        My second stem from this is that speed limits are important and Just for one main reason and this reason is what makes all laws just in my opinion.  The speed limit posted keeps people safe from themselves and other drivers whether they are walking along the road or driving.  A just law must make the society safer or more advantageous to the whole than if the law was not in place and it must not take rights away from people in the society. A just law must protect the rights of the people and the people from others that would wish them harm inadvertently or on purpose.
        This summer I will be working at a law firm that does employment law. The laws that are in place for employment law keep the employers from taking advantage of the employees and interviewees.  This makes the laws just because even though they disadvantage the few in this case the employers who already have a large advantage over the employee, they increase the aggregate advantage of the society.

What Diotima Taught Socrates

The Five things that Diotima taught Socrates were (1) Not everything is of one thing or the opposite. (2) Love is in need of Good and Beauty therefore not Good or Beautiful but it is not moral or immortal but is a spirit. (3) Spirits are intermediaries between the gods and humans.  They bring the gods prayers and sacrifices from the humans and in return spirits bring gifts back to the humans.
(4) Where the spirit Love comes from and what gods Love was born from. (5) The spirit Love is a love of wisdom because, she is the daughter of Resource who was wise and resourceful and Poverty which has neither, of the mix of her parents she knows of wisdom but has not obtained it.

The one thing about Diotima that interests me about what she said was when she talks about the spirits bringing gifts from the gods because love is a gift from god and it is interesting to me that she believed that love brings a gift and is not in itself a gift.

Symposium by Plato

ASIGNMENT

1. Know how each speaker defines love

2. figure out how each speech improves on previous

3. What do all of the speeches have in common

4. How Diotimis Speech is different

• Phaedrus asserts that both gods and humans regard Love as great  and awesome, for many reasons. In particular, Love is widely considered older than almost all the other gods, and has no parents.

•  Pausanias points out that there are two kinds of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. First, there is Heavenly Aphrodite, the daughter of Uranus, with whom he associates "Heavenly Love." Second, there is Common Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus and Dione, who is considerably younger than Heavenly Aphrodite, and with whom he associates "Common Love." 
• Love is neither good nor bad but what makes it is how

• Eryximachus adds to Pausanias' points on two kinds of loves but adds that not just humans but plants and animals. Not only medicine, but also athletics, agriculture, and music are all wholly governed by the god of Love. Eryximachus concludes that Love is ever-present and all-powerful in our lives, as it is the cause of all self-control, happiness, and justice, and it produces good actions.
•  Aristophanes' speech comes in the form of a myth.  And this explains why we try to find affection
• Agathon's speech is about the nature of the god.
• Socrates goes to tell what he perceives as the truth and proves Agathon wrong.
•   Diotima's speech is different from the rest because he uses the socratic method on socrates

Why I like the Analogy of the Cave!

I like the Analogy of the Cave because it gives insight into Plato's views on Epistemology and Metaphysics.  Plato's epistemology seems to believe that with effort we can begin to know a form of the truth.  His epistemology seems to lead from his metaphysics that the more you know, you notice that what you thought was truth was just a lesser form of what you know now.  Seemingly since we cannot know everything then would lead to a perfect form.  A form that is not tangible for human knowledge.  These "perfect forms" are the basis of the metaphysics for Plato.