"‘isn’t it already patently clear, too, what it really is to do unjust actions and behave unjustly, and to do just things?’
‘How so?’
‘What’s clear’, I said, ‘is that there really is no difference between them and doing what’s healthy or unhealthy: they are to the soul what healthy or unhealthy actions are to the body.’
‘In what respect?’ he asked.
‘Healthy actions, I imagine, produce health in a body, and unhealthy ones disease.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, don’t just actions produce justice in a soul, unjust ones injustice?’
‘Necessarily.’
‘And producing health is setting up the elements in the body so as to control and be controlled by one another according to nature, while producing disease is setting them up to rule and be ruled one by another contrary to nature?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘won’t producing justice similarly be a matter of setting up the elements in the soul so as to control and be controlled by one another according to nature, and producing injustice a matter of setting them up to rule and be ruled by one another contrary to nature?’
‘Surely,’ he said.
‘In that case, it seems that goodness will be a sort of health of the soul, a state of beauty and well-being; badness will be disease, ugliness, weakness.’
‘That is so.’
‘So won’t it also be true that fine and beautiful practices lead to the acquisition of goodness, ugly and shameful ones to that of badness?’
‘Necessarily.’”
- Socrates talking to Plato’s brother, Glaucon, in Plato's Republic, 444c-e.
A healthy and natural soul
A healthy and natural soul
A healthy and natural soul
"‘isn’t it already patently clear, too, what it really is to do unjust actions and behave unjustly, and to do just things?’
‘How so?’
‘What’s clear’, I said, ‘is that there really is no difference between them and doing what’s healthy or unhealthy: they are to the soul what healthy or unhealthy actions are to the body.’
‘In what respect?’ he asked.
‘Healthy actions, I imagine, produce health in a body, and unhealthy ones disease.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, don’t just actions produce justice in a soul, unjust ones injustice?’
‘Necessarily.’
‘And producing health is setting up the elements in the body so as to control and be controlled by one another according to nature, while producing disease is setting them up to rule and be ruled one by another contrary to nature?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘won’t producing justice similarly be a matter of setting up the elements in the soul so as to control and be controlled by one another according to nature, and producing injustice a matter of setting them up to rule and be ruled by one another contrary to nature?’
‘Surely,’ he said.
‘In that case, it seems that goodness will be a sort of health of the soul, a state of beauty and well-being; badness will be disease, ugliness, weakness.’
‘That is so.’
‘So won’t it also be true that fine and beautiful practices lead to the acquisition of goodness, ugly and shameful ones to that of badness?’
‘Necessarily.’”
- Socrates talking to Plato’s brother, Glaucon, in Plato's Republic, 444c-e.