The end of the Gorgias, Socrates finishes with his Myth (523a-527e) of the three brothers and death.
What I want to look into are the implications of such thinking, and normally I would leave this for class, but it's been bothering me ever since I put down the text. My basic understanding was that, at death, you would be judged for the actions you took in life. Your intrinsic characteristics, rather than your extrinsic, were what was to be put to the test, and you were sorted into an effective 'pass/fail' place of existence depending on your actions in life.
This is something I have to say I have quite a serious problem with.
By putting actions as a way of acting at stake for something, it could always be perceived that what we do is really only selfish, and often is. I'm currently taking a class on religion, one which recently went over Hinduism, and I'm sure we are all fairly familiar with the idea of Karma. Karma, to me, runs into the same issue, and I hope to use it as an analogy, or perhaps show that it's not just this isolated incident. In a video we were shown, an interviewed Hindu said that she gave food to wandering monks because it would lead to a better rebirth. She didn't mention anything about them being helped, it was purely self. It was set in logical form, and a basic one of them at that, Modus Ponens, centered on the self. If I help them, then I will be bettered for it. I believe that something along the lines of - If I help them, then they will be bettered for it - is more in line with this ellusive Good (capital G) we have been talking about, even if it sounds silly and redundant.
Maybe 'silly' has a place in all this?
But back to my main point, it seems in Socrates mindset, the major reason to do good acts wasn't to benefit others, but so that you wouldn't end up in the effective Hell to have your deeds tortured out of you. Perhaps this is simply the case because he was trying to appeal to Gorgias' logical mind, but if that's the case, is it even in the realm of logic to find a reason for being good? I'm not saying that it's not, I'm posing a legitimately curious question.
Certainly shaming people into doing good things, or bribing them (which are often interconnected) will cause more people to act good, but how many truly internalize it if that's the reason? Do we need a reason to be good? Should we even try to make one?
What I want to look into are the implications of such thinking, and normally I would leave this for class, but it's been bothering me ever since I put down the text. My basic understanding was that, at death, you would be judged for the actions you took in life. Your intrinsic characteristics, rather than your extrinsic, were what was to be put to the test, and you were sorted into an effective 'pass/fail' place of existence depending on your actions in life.
This is something I have to say I have quite a serious problem with.
By putting actions as a way of acting at stake for something, it could always be perceived that what we do is really only selfish, and often is. I'm currently taking a class on religion, one which recently went over Hinduism, and I'm sure we are all fairly familiar with the idea of Karma. Karma, to me, runs into the same issue, and I hope to use it as an analogy, or perhaps show that it's not just this isolated incident. In a video we were shown, an interviewed Hindu said that she gave food to wandering monks because it would lead to a better rebirth. She didn't mention anything about them being helped, it was purely self. It was set in logical form, and a basic one of them at that, Modus Ponens, centered on the self. If I help them, then I will be bettered for it. I believe that something along the lines of - If I help them, then they will be bettered for it - is more in line with this ellusive Good (capital G) we have been talking about, even if it sounds silly and redundant.
Maybe 'silly' has a place in all this?
But back to my main point, it seems in Socrates mindset, the major reason to do good acts wasn't to benefit others, but so that you wouldn't end up in the effective Hell to have your deeds tortured out of you. Perhaps this is simply the case because he was trying to appeal to Gorgias' logical mind, but if that's the case, is it even in the realm of logic to find a reason for being good? I'm not saying that it's not, I'm posing a legitimately curious question.
Certainly shaming people into doing good things, or bribing them (which are often interconnected) will cause more people to act good, but how many truly internalize it if that's the reason? Do we need a reason to be good? Should we even try to make one?
