I will be explaining Plato’s tripartite soul. I will also be covering the virtues found in the individual state and giving some real world examples. Bravery, wisdom, temperance, and justice will each be evaluated. For further coverage I will be talking about 4 other virtues that would be desirable and why these would be desirable. I will also mention why these 4 virtues are in my opinion better suited than Plato’s 4 original virtues.
Plato envisions each person as a body, which is inanimate, and a soul. The soul is what moves and controls the body. Plato further believes that the soul is not a simple thing, he fully recognizes that the soul is a very complex thing. To account for this complexity he comes to the conclusion that the soul contains three separate parts, but all part of the same soul. He believes that the soul even though one soul has three distinct parts which control the different actions of a body. The first and most important part of the soul is reason. Then there is the Appetite or desire, followed by the Spirit.
Reason being the most important part is also known as the intelligence of the soul. The reasoning section of the soul is responsible for the thinking things such as math and numbers. More importantly it is the part of the soul that seeks knowledge and education, the reason part of the soul is why we are able to think things through and then make calculated and choices. This part of the soul is what makes philosophy possible, allowing us to think critically and analyze things from different perspectives. This part of the soul can be seen every time we get curious about something and seek answers instead of just accepting it as it is.
The Appetite is also known as the desire portion of the soul, which controls the physical urges and seeks instinctive fulfillment. This part of the soul pays close attention to our physical selves. Seeking the physical pleasures or keeping us away from physical displeasure. A great example of this is how we all wish to be pain free, eat, sleep, and even our urges for material things which the reason and spiritual parts gain nothing from.
The third and last part to the soul is very important, it is the part of the soul that controls our spirit or passion. The spiritual part of the soul gives us the drive to make actions, or the moral compasses that we hopefully strive to listen to. Our passion for lives and others and even ourselves all stem from this part of the soul. An example of this portion of the soul is how we sometimes will tell white lies to others, although not nice, they usually are to keep that person admiring us. Another good example is how we usually have a drive to be the good guy in the western films. Nobody wants to be the bad guy wearing black in the old western films, its the shining hero in the white hat that every wishes to be, this is controlled by the spirit.
Plato maintains that these three parts of the soul when ruled evenly and correctly by the reason section, we will achieve a balanced morality. This balance of morality can be seen through certain virtues. Plato lists four virtues as being important, they are bravery, wisdom, temperance, and justice.
The first virtue is bravery, which controls our fear. Bravery is a virtue that allows our reason to decide what we shall fear or not fear. Bravery is usually defined as what great warriors have when faced with bad odds. Bravery can be seen in a more important facet each and every day. When a warrior confronts a large enemy he must only steel himself against the physical bravery. Every time someone must act like an adult and take responsibility for something that they have messed up is a great form of this virtue. An example of this is when someone has lied to get a personal gain for themselves, but in the end when someone really gets hurt they come forward and come clean to that injured person. This may be very painful or even scary for the person who lied, but it is the morally correct thing to do. This battle did not have a simple enemy of size or power, rather it was an internal battle of moral high ground or self preserving low ground. The two people may never talk again, but the over all battle of reason taking control and facing the fear of truth is morally more important.
The second virtue is wisdom which is the effect of reason, better known as knowledge. Knowledge is the one true thing that can never be taken away from you. There is career and never attended college, on the other hand there is a man who has postponed his career to further his education in college. There is no other real difference between the men, you could even say that they are brothers, but when the man who attended college is able to keep his job during a round of layoffs while the man who did not attend college gets fired, we can see a large difference. The difference is not in the fact that one went to college and one did not,the difference is actually is the fact that the man who went to college has had more life experience at change in general, while the other one has laid down all of his time doing one thing. The man that went to college knows that change is the only constant therefore he has learned to roll with the punches, whereas the man without college may not understand this as well since he has had such consistency in his career. Wisdom and knowledge do not come from learning from books or being taught lessons, they come from life. Throughout our life times each of us are always students of life, our experiences give us insight and knowledge of things that cannot be taught or transmitted to others through words, pictures, or videos.
Thirdly is the virtue of temperance, this can be explained best as an inner harmony of the three parts. With reason ruling the other two sections of desire and spirit. Harmony from within makes the man temperate of things that would sometimes make one of the other parts rage out or react in rash ways. A great example is when there is a fight, a person without temperance will get angry because of either desire or passion and then fight. A temperate person would ration the situation and come to the conclusion that even though what has happened has angered them, starting a physical fight is in no means an answer to the problem. The virtue temperance gives us the will to resist the actions of our spirit or desire, and let our reasoning make its judgment. This balance of power of the two sections being ruled by the reason section is what makes a person temperate and morally stronger.
The last virtue is justice which is what keeps a man from stealing or failing in whatever his duties may be. Justice is not just outward action taken by a man but the inward actions he takes in controlling the three parts of his soul. When a man stops a jewelry thief he is doing justice. Likewise when the man stops his desire or passion from gaining total control and loosing all reason he has imposed justice within himself. This does not mean that the spirit and the desire do not do their duties, it simply means that when they do perform their duties reason is allowed to step in and weigh the situation correctly. A good example of this seems very similar to the example of temperance, instead of passion or desire running away and taking control reason is allowed to make judgment. This is not only temperance but there has been inward justice put in place.
Each one of these four virtues according to Plato are very important. Bravery is the first one listed and I simply agree with Plato for making bravery an important virtue. Bravery is not only important to the individual morally but also in keeping the balance within the interactions of people. Without bravery we would be free to run scared from things that we do not understand, this would lead people to never learn about new things. This can be applied physically, mentally, and morally. As our example shows coming forward to admit a lie not only is the right thing to do but also maintains the inner moral balance that each person has. If the bravery was not there to come forward about your lie your inner balance would be off center which may or may not be fixed in the future, this in balance is the exact thing that bravery wards against, without bravery there would be no forward advancement in morality.
The second virtue is wisdom, wisdom is the knowledge gained through life experiences. These things which are not taught are a true virtue. Such intangible things often are outside of human grasp. I d not think that wisdom should be one of the four virtues. While it it is a very important virtue and there is no true replacement for the experiences of life, it is also a held perception that examining life through critical thinking is more important than having the experience first hand. By using critical thinking the physical experience can be studied mentally elsewhere and thus resolved or contemplated fully without the experience physically. This does beg the question then of whether wisdom is not only life experiences but in critical thinking experiences as well. While I do believe this to be true, I also feel that this makes wisdom a virtue that can be replaced by a larger more important virtue.
I believe that virtues should be things that have an impact on the greater good of humanity not just the individual. The four virtues are very important to being morally balanced, being morally balanced means at one with yourself on the inside and outside.
Temperance, the third virtue is a really great virtue in that without it there would be no inner harmony and balance. This imbalance would go against the four virtues by nature and cause many consequences that would be undesirable. If desire or spirit were allowed to go unchecked in harmony the world and humanity would be worse off. Passions would flare, desire would consume us and our reasoning sections would be powerless. This wold also reduce the amount of critical thinking and problem solving we would be involved with. Morally temperance is the over all happiness within the three parts, without temperance our inner selves would be horribly separated.
Justice is the final virtue listed as one of Plato’s important four. Justice is not only an outer virtue but an inner virtue as well, without justice there would be nothing to restrict our temperance from becoming unbalanced. Justice, temperance,wisdom, and bravery are all neatly tied to each other. Temperance and justice are closely tied in that without one the other cannot exist within. Justice keeps our duties on the outside functioning as well, without justice things would be worse with societies. Morally without justice nothing would step in to provide your reasoning section with a sense of right and wrong. This sense of right and wrong is not a physical right and wrong but more of a moral compass. This moral compass is what makes the three part soul work in harmony. The one difference in the virtues that I would change would be the virtue of wisdom.
Wisdom is the virtue that I would replace, I would simply replace wisdom with compassion. While compassion is closely related to passion it is an outward compassion. If every man were to have a strong sense of compassion then the human race would be better off. No soul should be toughened and hardened to any sentient beings. To be purely reasoning would leave a man acting like Dr. Spock on Star Trek. Compassion would give the reasoning part of the soul another aspect to reason with, and the best way to reason something is to have as many views of the situation as possible. A great example of this is the fight scene from earlier. Instead of fighting for passion or simply not fighting because of reason you may see that like during World War 2 that fighting is not only th morally correct thing but the compassionate thing to do for humans.
With the virtue of compassion inserted into the list of the four virtues I believe that my moral compass would not simply be more centered but also fuller in respect to angles of viewing by reason. The best reasoning is done only with the most understanding of the situation. Without compassion the understanding of the human experience is sometimes missed. Having compassion for another person can solve many problems, by understanding that another person may be experiencing this situation from a different perspective is immensely important in keeping you inner balance in reasoning and in solving situation.
I have explained Plato’s tripartite soul and what each of the three sections are in control of. I have also talked about how each one interacts and relies on one another. I have explained Plato’s four virtues and why each one is important, and I have also brought to attention some changes that I believe would make the moral compass more robustly centered. Although I have disagreed with some of Plato’s beliefs within the four virtues, this discrepancy in virtues is what makes each person unique and important, with having so many people with different sets of virtues it gives our moral compasses a larger range of movement. This larger range of movement in our moral compasses is what gives us larger strides to inner harmony. These moral compasses keep humans from becoming a bunch of animals and gives us humanity.
