September 14

Monday, September 14, 2020
Plenary – Chapel

Doing What you Want: Plato's Early Moral Psychology

We will examine another section of the Gorgias, the discussion between Socrates and Polus. (From which quotes from last time were taken.) Socrates presents a variation on means-ends analysis that distinguishes between “what we want” and “what we see fit to do”. We will try to interpret this distinction, and make explicit the psychological theories of motivation and action that Socrates seems to be suggesting, comparing them with some contemporary approaches, and seeing how Socrates argues, based on this moral psychology, that virtue consists in knowledge of the good and that no one does evil willingly.

Before Class

After Class