Sophist Skepticism:

 “The moral rules are fashioned deliberately by each community and have
relevance and authority only for the people in that place.”
 “The moral rules are unnatural, that people obey them only because of the
pressure of public opinion, and that if their acts could be done in private, even the
‘good’ among us would not follow the rules of morality.”
 “That the essence of justice is power, or that ‘might is right’.”
 “That in answer to the basic question ‘what is the good life?’ one would have to
say that it is the life of pleasure.”

Plato on Soul
 It has three parts.
o Reason – awareness of a goal or a value; a goal-seeking and measuring
faculty; to seek the true goal of life; penetrates to our fantasies; the head;
the rational part.
o Spirit – the drive toward action; the heart; an irrational part.
o Appetite – desire for things of the body; the belly or genitals; an irrational
part.
 The soul is the principle of life and movement.
o The body is inanimate and when it acts or moves, it must be followed by
the principle of life – the soul.
 The soul has three parts because people’s internal conflict indicated different
springs of action at work.
 The rational part of the soul has the right to rule the spirited and appetitive parts.
These three are relevant links to achieve a goal.
o Plato emphasizes the dominance of reason over the spirit and appetite; it
should control them, not necessarily be in balance with them.
 Without reason, passions and appetites would lead us to a world of fantasy and
deceive us into believing that certain pleasures would bring us happiness.
o Unhappiness and the general disorder of the human soul are the result of
man’s confusing appearances with reality.
o This confusion occurs chiefly when passions deride the reason.
 Thus, moral evil is caused by ignorance.
 Plato illustrates this through the charioteer driving two horses:
o The noble white horse on the right is the soul.
o The ugly black horse on the left is the appetite.
o The charioteer on the middle is the reason.
o The whole system must not be governed by the wishes of the horses (nor
by the inertia of the chariot itself, the body) but by the rational decisions of
the charioteer.
Plato on Evil
 Evil or vice is caused by ignorance, by false knowledge.
o False knowledge occurs when the passions influence the reason to think
that what appears to bring happiness will do so, although in reality it
cannot.
o No man does evil on purpose, but he mistakes evil for good.
o One may do "wrong" acts such as murder or lying, and even admit the
wrongness of these and other acts, but one always assumes that some
benefit will come from them.
 Before one can go from false to true knowledge, one must somehow become
aware that one is in a state of ignorance.
o It is as if one must be awakened from a "sleep of ignorance."
 One can be awakened by something that is happening within one
or by something external to one by someone else.
 Through the process of Recollection.
o Recollection begins first of all when the mind
experiences difficulties with the seeming
contradictions of sense experience.
o As one tries to make sense out of the multiplicity of
things, one begins to go "beyond" the things
themselves to ideas, and this action of the mind is set
in motion by one’s experience of a problem that
needs to be solved.
 Through an external agent.
o Allegory of the Cave: someone must break off the
prisoner’s chains and turn him around.

Plato on Virtues
 The Greek word usually translated as "virtue" is arete, although it might also be
translated as "excellence." The concept is closely linked to the idea of something
fulfilling its purpose or function. Thus, the arete of a sword would be those
qualities that make it a good weapon, for instance: sharpness, strength, balance.
The arete of a horse would be qualities such as speed, stamina, and obedience.
 Knowledge can produce virtue.
 In Plato’s Meno, Socrates argues:
o Agree:
 “Virtue is knowledge and can be taught”
 Virtue is something beneficial; it's a good thing to have.
  All good things are only good if they are accompanied by
knowledge or wisdom (for example, courage is good in a wise
person, but in a fool, it is mere recklessness).
o Socrates Objects:
 If virtue could be taught there would be teachers of virtue. But there
aren't any. Therefore it can't be teachable after all.
o Socrates confronts the paradox that he now finds himself with: on the one
hand, virtue is teachable since it is a kind of knowledge; on the other
hand, there are no teachers of virtue. He resolves it by distinguishing
between real knowledge and correct beliefs. 
 Socrates endeavors to convince Meno that learning just by hearing
from others does not provide real knowledge or real virtue.
 Socrates finishes by emphasizing that real knowledge of the
answer requires working out the explanation for oneself. So even if
a “teacher” can show the answer, he cannot give the
understanding. 
 The understanding requires active inquiry and discovery for
oneself, based on innate mental resources and a genuine
desire to learn. 
o How do these good men acquire virtue? Socrates suggests it is a gift from
the gods, similar to the gift of poetic inspiration enjoyed by those who are
able to write poetry but are unable to explain how they do it.

Plato’s Background
 Born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens.
 Student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher of Aristotle (384–322 BCE).
 The son of Ariston (his father) and Perictione (his mother).
 Plato’s family was aristocratic and distinguished: his father’s side claimed
descent from the god Poseidon, and his mother’s side was related to the
lawgiver Solon (c. 630–560 BCE).
 Plato as a young man was a member of the circle around Socrates.