Ethics
2. Answering by Induction: We Want Things Because They Are Good, and Why the Bad Seems Wanted
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/5-ethics/002-answering-by-induction-we-want-things-because-they-are-good/

[0:00] Let's begin again. Now we're going to try to answer this question. Of course, later on we'll learn even more reasons for the answer we give, but we want to start with the most known way, right? To make known the answer to this question. Now, basically, there are two kinds of arguments, and one is called induction, right? Epagoge in Greek, and the other is called syllogism, right? Okay.

[0:46] And syllogism is an argument in which some statements laid down, another statement follows necessarily because of the ones laid down. But induction is an argument from many particulars to the general. It's an argument going forward from many particulars to the general statement. Now, those two kinds of arguments, which one is is easier and for us? Induction. Induction, yeah. And for the same reason that we give examples before we have a universal definition, right?

[1:21] Yeah. Could you also say then that that might be Sherlock Holmes' reasoning in reverse? Would be induction, going from effect to cause. No, he's trying to syllogize more. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. He's trying to deduce, you know. You mean talk about deduction. all the time, right? Even though we spoke of going from effect to. re Yeah, yeah. There's two kinds of syllogisms. Now we're studying that. Posterior Analytics right?

[1:50] Demonstration, propter quid they call it. Okay. Given, going from cause to effect, and then the other one going from effect to cause. So induction is more known to us as an argument,

[2:04] and of course, notice the similarity between the word induction and introduction. Etymologically, induction and introduction are the same, aren't they? Leading in, right? When I give you an introduction to a course, I'm leading you into the whole from just some of the parts, right? In induction, I'm leading you into the universal whole from the particular instances of it. So we're going to try to answer this question:

[2:34] Is something good because it is wanted, or is it wanted because it is good? Right? Is wanting the cause or the effect of the good? We're going to try to answer that question by induction. Okay.

[2:49] Now we have to come back to the objections on the other side, right? Okay. Now induction, as we said, is an argument from many particulars to the general. So we have to take our examples of many particular goods and the desires corresponding to them, right? And see what seems to be the case in each one of these particulars, and then induce a general conclusion. Okay.

[3:38] And of course, we're going to go back to the most fundamental desires, and what desires that are the most what natural. And many of them are common to us, and even the other what animals, right? So here we have a good called food. So we're going to make a table here, and in one column we'll enumerate the goods, and the other one will enumerate the desire for that good, right?

[4:12] Okay. Desire corresponding. Now you'll find, of course, that some goods, other desires for some goods have a name, right? Other desires we don't have a name, so we'll have to use a phrase for it, right? Okay. So let's take a good that you pursue every day, food. Okay. What's the name of the desire for food? Hunger, hunger, yeah.

[4:47] Let's take water to be kind of simple here. What's the desire for this water? Thirst, thirst, thirst. I notice these two goods and these two desires we share with the other animals, right? Okay. Um. How about sleep? Good. Okay. Now, does the desire for sleep have a name? Sleepiness. We just say the desire to sleep, right?

[5:29] And this is again is a good that we share for with the other animals, right? How about health? Is that a good? Okay. That's a good that animals share too, right? Have a name. The desire? No. I don't think so.

[5:51] Unhealthy. What? Now, desire for health. Um. What about reproduction? Okay. Doesn't really have a name either. It's kind of strange it doesn't, but so-called desire to reproduce. Let's

[6:28] take pleasure, right? All the modern diseases. The desire for pleasure. I know it's all of these desires to some extent are common to us and to the other animals, right? As are these goods, right, to us and the animals.

[7:06] What about this desire called wonder, curiosity? What's this? Good to know, isn't it? Desire to know. A little more of a human desire here, right?

[7:36] How about money? Oh yeah, that's good. Everybody agrees, yes, money, huh? Okay. And desire for money too. Well, that's very prevalent in our society. Desire for money, right? Ah. Any other very common desires here? Yeah. What about something like desire for companionship? Oh, just a friend. Just see a friend. Everybody wants a friend, don't they? Okay. So, friend is a good that's quite common. Okay.

[8:39] What about wisdom? Wisdom. I can't really get to knowledge in a sense, but put down here. Desire for wisdom. Okay. Now, I mean that's long enough list to begin with, right? Okay. Now, let's look at the first one here: food and hunger, right?

[9:09] Is it hunger that makes food good for man and for the other animals? No. Can you see a reason why food is good for man and other animals apart from their hunger for it?

[9:28] Yeah. We would weaken and die, right? Without food, right? We'd starve, dead. Without food, right? Yeah. So at least an example of food. And hunger—it doesn't seem that hunger makes food good and even necessary for man and the other animals, right? But? It seems that nature has given hunger to man and the other animals, so they'll pursue food, which is in fact good and even necessary for them, right?

[10:01] Okay. Now again, how about water and thirst, right? Can you see that water is good for man and for the other animals, apart from their thirst, for it?

[10:25] Yeah. and even for the plants, right? Yes. Yeah. So does thirst make water good for you and me and the dog and the preadopter? tree up there No? No.

[10:40] So has nature given the animals thirst to make water good and necessary for them? Kind of stupid to say, wouldn't it? Yeah. But because water is good and in fact necessary for them, right? Then nature has given them thirst, so they'll pursue what is good and necessary for them. Okay. How about sleep? Can you see any good in sleeping for not only man but the other animals?

[11:13] So does the desire for sleep make sleep good for them? No. So did nature give the animals the desire to sleep so that sleep would become good and necessary for them? No. But so if they would do that, right? Okay. And

[11:36] notice how sometimes, as a little child, maybe when you were sick. and. You had temporarily lost your your appetite, as we say, meaning your hunger, right? And your mother said, you know, we'll try to eat something maintain your strength, right?

[11:54] Well, then you see she's recognizing the food is being good for you, even though temporarily due to your illness you've lost your what appetite, right? huh? She doesn't say. Oh, you don't have any appetite for food well, that's not even. Good for you. Forget about eating. Didn't say this. No, no, no.

[12:16] In the same way, you know, sometimes you know the usual, you know, urge you to drink water, you know, and you've got a cold or something, right? Okay. When my son was at West Point, there, you know, and you go on these marches, you know, and they tell you to keep on drinking this amount of water, and some guys, you know, don't feel like drinking the water, it's all along the way, right?

[12:38] You've got to be consistent upon drinking the proper amount of water. So even if a man doesn't have the the desire, huh, to drink this amount of water and this this very grueling thing, right? You'll find out it is good for him. They should have drunk some right because he falls by the way. And maybe you know your mother was sending you down to sleep because you know you get a cranky kid and won't be able to do your work at school tomorrow, right?

[13:06] So even though you don't want to go to sleep, you see sleep as being good for you, right? Mother, mama knows best, right? Okay. How about health, right? Health good for you? Because you want health? No, it's the reverse. How about reproduction? Not only in man, but in the other animals, and even the plants. Can you see any good in reproduction apart from the desire to reproduce?

[13:39] I can see enormous good reproduction because this is the only way that this kind of animal or this kind of plant, for that matter, right, can continue in existence, right? Without reproduction, the whole kind of animal or plant would disappear, right? So that's a tremendous good reproduction, right? So there's the desire to reproduce that you find in animals, and even this inclination to reproduce that you find in plants to produce seeds and so on.

[14:09] Is that the reproduction a good for them? No, you can see a tremendous good in reproduction apart from that desire to reproduce. So nature has made that desire to reproduce strong so that animals pursue so great a good for their species, their type of animal.

[14:32] Even here, maybe the cynic would agree, right? Is pleasure good because you want pleasure, and pain is bad because you don't want it? Well, if you experience pleasure and pain, you know why you want one, why you want to avoid the other. Yeah.

[14:55] I was with somebody the other day. They had one of these big cramps in their leg. You know, the muscle contract. I guess that's. I had a little bit, but nothing very great. But it's really very painful, I guess, when the body gets going. Yeah. So it was bad because they suddenly didn't want it, or because they felt this contraction and the pain, and and and they wanted to avoid that, right?

[15:17] Yeah. So it's not the desire for pleasure that makes pleasure something good, right? If you know the difference between pleasure and pain, you know why you want one and why you want to avoid the other, right?

[15:31] Now, can you see any good in knowing apart from our desire to know? It's good to know the way home, as they say. You hear the old song, Show me the way home. Cause I know where my house is, right? I know where my car keys are and so on, right? Not taking terribly profound examples, right?

[15:54] So is it my desire to know where my car keys are or where my house is that makes it good for me to know that? No, that'd be stupid, right? Say that right. But because it's good to know where your car keys are, I shouldn't have. Yeah, it's good to know where your car is, good to know where your house is, and so on, right? That's why you want to know these things, right?

[16:17] Okay. So you want to know them because it's good to know these things. How about money now, right? Huh? You know. Everybody wants money, right? Huh? Right. All these cynical students I have in class, you know. Yeah. They all agree that money is good, right? Everybody wants money too. But is money useful in our society? Because everybody wants it, or do they want it? Because it is so useful for so many things.

[16:49] It's not even related to anything valuable anymore. It's just a piece of ugly paper. So you have to want it because it's good. Yeah, you want money because it's so useful, right? To buy all these things, right? Okay. So my wanting money is not what makes money useful, right? But because I say it's useful for me to buy a meal, or useful for me to buy some gifts, or it's useful for me to buy a pair of shoes, right?

[17:18] That's why I want the money, right? Okay. Now, do you see any good in having a friend? Well, we don't treat it in that way. Yeah. Okay. So your desire for a friend is not what makes having a friend good, does it? You can see all kinds of advantages. Even if it's only a useful, friend, right? Okay.

[17:50] And does the philosopher think that wisdom is the best thing around because he wants it? No, because he recognizes that's the most divine knowledge, right? That he wants it so much. So notice as you go through, in particular, each of these basic goods and the desire for it, it seems that the desire doesn't make the items here on the left—food, water, sleep, health, reproduction, and so on—make them good, right?

[18:27] But I can see a reason why each of these is good and even necessary for man or for the other animals, apart from the desire we have for them, right? So the desire is not given to us to make these things good for us or necessary for us, but because they are good, necessary, we are given a desire so we'll pursue what, in fact, is good and necessary for us, right?

[18:51] Okay. So by this inductive argument, right, we can draw the conclusion, right, that something is not good because we want it, but we want it because it is good, right? Okay.

[19:13] But to be sure about that, we have to be able to give a reasonable answer to those objections against that side, right? Now, if you recall, we had, I guess, two objections to saying that something is

[19:34] wanted because it's good. Let's put down our conclusion here, at least provisional, and then see if we can answer those objections, because if we have the truth. We should be able to answer those objections, right?

[19:50] We want something because it is good. Or another way of putting our conclusion: that good is the cause of wanting. Or I can use the word desire here.

[20:19] But now we had given in our dialectic before. We looked at both sides, and we had seen a very obvious difficulty on the other side, right? Saying that if you say wanting something makes it good for you, then my wanting one more drink would make one more drink good for me. And even I admit that was not true. Okay, if wanting something made it good for me, then my wanting to drive my car 100 miles an hour down the Salisbury Street, down the Salisbury Street whatever assumption is the winding road, right?

[20:55] Would have made driving 100 miles an hour good for me from my car, right? But even I admit now. You know, since the hospital there, my car has been totaled. That this was not good for me, right?

[21:13] But then we had objections against this side too, if you recall, right? We said, well, the good is not always what wanted, right? We don't always want what's good for us, and every parent will say that about the children, right? That the children at times don't want what is in fact good for them, right? Okay, that seems to be a part of our experience. So, if good is the cause of wanting, how can something be good for me?

[21:52] As my mother and father know, and I don't want it. How can you have the cause and not the effect? That's one problem, right? See that? The other one goes back to the famous proposition, which you can state either way you want to: contrary causes have contrary what? Effects, right? And vice versa: contrary effects have contrary causes, right?

[22:28] So, if good is, as you're claiming, the cause of wanting, right? Then the contrary of good, which is the bad, should be a cause not of wanting, but of the opposite of, of turning away, right? But isn't it also a part of our experience? And then the objection on the other the other side indicate that too, right? Don't people, in fact, sometimes want what is bad for them, right?

[23:06] So, if good is the cause of wanting, the bad should be the cause of the opposite of wanting, turning away from aversion. Yet, you don't turn away from it; they go for it. Okay.

[23:21] Now, how are you going to solve those objections? How are you going to even begin to solve those objections, right? If you can't solve those objections, you can't rest completely in this conclusion that we arrived at by induction, right? Because there's a couple of arguments here against the conclusion we have. So can we? do some of it can you separate the subject and the object? I mean, that when there is desire on the in the subject, it's because of a good, but sometimes because of some problem in the subject there's no wanting.

[24:15] Well, you gentlemen have just completed the treatise on love there, and before we did friendship there, on Thomas Aquinas, right? And he had a whole question there with four articles on the causes of what? Love, right? Okay.

[24:37] And we could go back to our dear friend, Bill Shakespeare, right? Who says, "Look before and after," right? Is there something that comes after the good,

[24:56] but before wanting? Something that might be considered in some way a cause to, or an aspect of the cause of wanting? No, no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's take an example here of a good here, the beauty of Juliet. right?

[25:26] There's something that comes between the beauty of Juliet and Romeo's wanting here. Because in the game we play, Romeo wants who? Rosalind. Rosalind, yeah. That's Friar Lawrence, you know, our Franciscan pretty famous name. Oh my God! he's talking about Rosalind. Who says Juliet? What came between? Did Juliet suddenly become beautiful? I'll be beautiful one day, huh? And then he started to want her. She was beautiful before he even met her, right?

[26:11] What came between the beauty of Juliet and Romeo's wanting her? The party. Yeah, yeah. He saw her, right? Huh? We had that in some of those monodactyos,

[26:25] those passages from Shakespeare leading up to those, right? You know how close he's tied was his seeing her and his wanting her, right? So what comes in between here

[26:39] is an act. Of the what senses, right? Okay. In this case, it might be the eye, right? Okay. I suppose I'm eating something. It looks kind of interesting, and and you, hey, want to taste it? Yeah. Mmm. Oh, can I have one of those too? You see, what's come between the good food and you're wanting it? Taste or smell or something of this sort, right? Okay. If you hadn't seen that or smelled it, maybe or tasted, especially, right?

[27:17] You wouldn't have begun to what want it, right? Okay. Now, take a little different example, in Julia. Here, let's take wisdom. Okay. I didn't always want wisdom, huh? I was a little boy. I wanted candy. I didn't want wisdom. Okay.

[27:46] What came between wisdom and Berquist wanting it? Understanding, part of it. Yeah. So it'd be in this case an act not of the senses but of the what? Reasoning. Reason. Yeah. Understanding. So an act of the senses or of reason, right? In some cases, or both. But an act of the senses or reason comes between the good and our wanting it, right? Okay. So like Thomas was saying in the treatise on love, those first two causes kind of go together, right?

[28:30] He says the good is a cause of love, and in the second article, knowledge, is a cause of love, right? But he says for the same reason, in a sense, right? That's the object in the way of love, right? But more precisely, you could say the good as known is the object of love, right? Then, okay. It's the good as known that is wanted. Now, see the before and after here, right?

[29:05] The beauty of Juliet comes before Romeo seeing her beauty, right? Okay. But his seeing her beauty comes before his wanting Juliet, right? The excellence of wisdom, huh? The godlike character of wisdom, right? Huh? It's most divine knowledge, right? Came before my reason recognizing the godlike character of wisdom. Is the best knowledge, but that came before my wanting wisdom, right? More than candy. Okay.

[29:47] Now, can we make use of that added factor here? Now, to begin to answer the objections, right? You say if the good is the cause of wanting, one of the objections was, well, the good is not always wanted, right?

[30:13] If wisdom is so good, for example, right? Why is it then that there aren't people wanting it so much? It would be whether it's correct knowledge or not. In other words, to know something, yeah, truly good, or you could say they could be ignorant of it, right? Huh? Okay, they don't know what wisdom is, right? Okay.

[30:44] Um, there might be a food that I don't want because I've never what? Never tasted it, right? That's one possible explanation, right? I might not want something because I simply don't know it, right? Okay.

[31:21] So that's one way of explaining, right, or answering reasonably, I think, that first objection. Okay. Now, a second thing about the senses or reason:

[31:37] can the senses or reason be? uh deceived by the likeness of things. Both the senses, right, and reason, can be deceived by the likeness of things.

[31:59] So, what about the other objection now, right? If good is the cause of wanting, then bad should be the cause, not of wanting, but of aversion, turning away, right?

[32:18] But could the bad resemble the good in some way, and that the senses and reason are therefore deceived by the likeness of the bad to the good, right?

[32:37] So that the bad is not desired as such, but because it seems to be good, right? Now, if it's desired because it seems to be good, because it resembles what is truly good, the original cause of good is what is truly good, and the bad is desired because it resembles, right, what is truly good. Let me take two examples here.

[33:21] My wife is Italian, right? Yeah. So she tells me of this occurrence in the family before I was in the family. One of the relatives over from Italy was a self-appointed expert in mushrooms. So the relatives gathered mushrooms under the guidance of this self-proclaimed expert. Right. They made big Italian feast with all these mushrooms. Well, after dinner, they all had to go and have their stomachs pumped.

[33:54] Oh. They were the what? Bomb mushrooms, right? Now, a man who has some made some study of mushrooms, but knows the mushroom experts, they say it's very difficult to tell apart the good mushrooms from the what poisonous ones. Even an expert, right, who studies mushrooms, has a hard time doing this. And he tells me this horrible story, you know, of these guys who, in France, actually do gather mushrooms sometimes, probably, and they wanted to have them prepared in a restaurant.

[34:35] And the first two restaurants refused to touch them. Third one agreed, and they died for them. The guy died for eating these mushrooms. So. You can be deceived, right? Now, you say, did they want to eat these poisonous mushrooms? See, well, the mushrooms that were put on the table. They apparently wanted to eat, right? They put them in their mouths, and no one's holding their mouth open, forcing them in there.

[35:03] but they killed them. No, no. See, but they wanted to eat these poisonous mushrooms because they seem to be the good mushrooms, huh? And this is the point we're making, right now. See, the mushrooms that are really good to eat are the original, first cause here, right? The poisonous mushrooms are secondary, right? If all mushrooms were poisonous, no one would want to eat any mushrooms, right? But because there are some mushrooms that are very tasty and so on, and these other mushrooms, which are not in fact good, right?

[35:43] Because they resemble the ones that are good, right? Then they are, in some secondary way, said to be wanted, right? But not as such, not causa, not per se, right? But in a sense, per accidens right? Because they happen to resemble the ones that are good, in fact, to eat. You see that? Okay. So what you see in this example is that the bad, as bad, is not wanted, huh?

[36:19] The poisonous mushrooms, as poisonous, are not wanted, huh? But the bad as resembling the good, right, is per accidens by happening, right, wanted, right? You see that? But originally, it's emotions that are good that are behind even this apparent wanting of these poisonous ones. You see the example there. Okay.

[36:58] Now, take another example here. My cousin was in the navy for four years, right? He tells me this horrible story that on board one of the ships, right, on a free afternoon or otherwise, the sailors broke into some compartment on the boat that has what alcohol, and they mixed the alcohol with coke and so on, had one hell of a bash one afternoon.

[37:27] The next morning, they woke up and they were blind. Okay. Now, do they want to drink this alcohol? That was obviously, in retrospect, bad for them, right? In fact, it blinded them, right? Do they want this? No. But they're too dumb to know the difference between the kind of alcohol that is kept on the ship for, I don't know, cleaning purposes or something, from the kind of alcohol that, in moderation, is not bad for you, huh?

[38:00] You see? See? Do they want that alcohol as such, or do they want the alcohol insofar as it seemed to be like the alcohol that won't make you hang or doesn't blind, huh? See? They didn't want the bad as bad, right? Okay.

[38:27] So notice, huh? What distinction we're making here, right? We're saying that the bad as bad is not what wanted, right? Huh? It's the good as good that is wanted, huh? Okay. But the reason why the good

[39:04] as such is not always wanted is because it's not always what known, right? Okay. And the reason why the bad, in some sense, some qualified sense, seems to be wanted, right, is only because it resembles what is truly good. So the original cause of wanting is something that is truly good.

[39:35] Now, let me add in one more point here. Everybody, he said that. The senses and reason are sometimes ignorant of something, right? Sometimes they are deceived by the likeness, right? You could also say too that the senses and reason, their knowledge is often incomplete, right? And there might be something good in something, right? Which they know, but something bad they what don't know, right? So if I give you a delicious poison, you say, "Got one of these?

[40:16] Do you want to drink it because it's poisonous? No, you want to drink it because it smells and tastes good, right? So you're attracted by the, in this case, by the real good in that drink, right?

[40:32] And the badness is accidental to your wanting it, right? Because that which smells and tastes good is in fact what poisonous, right? Then it happens to be bad for you to eat that, right? Not in so far as it's good smelling and tasting, because that attracts you, right? So if you choose or you want the bad, it's either because it resembles the good in some way, right?

[41:05] Like the poisonous mushrooms resemble the the good mushrooms, huh? And your senses or reason can't see the difference, right? Or you're attracted by the real good, not the apparent good, right? In them which you which you know, right? But you're ignorant of the real bad that is in the same thing, right? Okay. So you see, in this way, we can defend that the good as such is the cause of wanting, right?

[41:40] But we realize that. The good arouses wanting or desire for it through either the senses or the reason, right? And they can not only be ignorant, but their knowledge can be incomplete, and they can be deceived by by the likeness of things.

[42:03] Okay. I'm a guy who was a what? A bank robber, you know, come before the judge more than once. Son, he's a famous bank robber. He said, "Why do you rob banks? you know? And I said, Well, that's what the money is. "

[42:23] Now, does he rob banks because it's unjust to rob a bank? Is that why he robs a bank. No, he robs the bank because that's where the money is. Okay. He's attracted by what's good in this whole thing, right? Okay. And if he's aware of the bad, that's not the reason why he chooses that son. Do you think?

[42:58] If the student cheats, is it because to cheat is good? No, they cheat to get a good grade, right? Next good. You see? So he's he's drawn by the good that is in it, right? And someone might, you know, bring up, was it the Crime and Punishment, huh? By the novelist Dostoevsky, right? Where the student is going to what? Commit a murder, right? Where he seems to be not to get money from the person, right?

[43:45] It's an old lady or something, but just to show he's above the law, right? Right. Now, is he choosing the bad because it is bad?

[43:59] Well, if he's trying to choose to murder this old lady for no good reason at all, really, except to show he's above the law, right? Of all the rest of you guys, if below the law, and I'm above the law, then I'm above all of you, right? So it's kind of a false appearance that he's what? Creator. He's above everybody else, right? He's a false appearance of what?

[44:25] Some good, right? Huh? Even the devil there, deporting from God, kind of in the name of liberty, right? So there's an apparent good. That the bad are pursuing, even when they seem to choose the bad huh? Itself. huh?

[44:58] I think all of these tips we went through today are basic, right? In other words, you should see that in the beginning, all of us would be like the little boy, right? When asked what is good, we'd all give examples at first, right? But then, when we tried to say, "Why do you call all these good—the candy and the pizza and the bicycle and the

[45:30] vacation, so on?" It's not because they're all sweet, right? It's not because you can eat them all, right? All you could probably come up with, why you call these things good? These are all the things that you, the little boy, want, right? And so you call all the things you you want good, right? So this suggests a first definition of good as the good is what all want, right?

[46:01] Once you've arrived at that first definition, then what's the next step, right? What to ask the Socratic question, right? Is it good because we want it, or do you want it because it is good, right? Is the wanting the cause or the effect of this being good?

[46:22] And then what's the next step? To see that there's some difficulty on both sides, right? Perhaps greater difficulty in saying that it's good because you want it, because everybody has a number of clear examples in their own individual life where something they wanted and wanted. Very much at some time, they later recognized as being what bad for them, right? Not someone else that was bad that you did that, but they themselves recognized that that class drink say was bad for them, right?

[46:53] Everybody has some examples of that in their life, right? But then there's also difficulties in saying you want it because it's good, right? Namely, that the good is not always wanted. The good is good for me, is not always wanted, right? And what your parents might truly see as being good for you, you don't want. What your teacher sees as good for you, you don't want, right?

[47:26] Okay. And then the fact that people seem to be attracted to bad things. There's all kinds of evidence for that. So how can you say therefore that the good is the cause of of wanting, right? Because then the contrary good, which is the bad, should not be the cause of wanting. Should not be attracting people. It should be driving them away, right?

[48:01] And then the next step was to be try to answer the question at least provisionally, right? But using again the most known kind of argument, the induction, right? And so he enumerated all those goods, about ten or fifteen of them, right? And the corresponding desires. And in each particular good and the desire corresponding to it, we saw that the desire didn't make that thing good for man, for that matter, for the other animals.

[48:32] And so we concluded from the induction, from those many particulars, that the good is not good because it's wanted, but it's wanted because it is good.

[48:47] But before we could rest in that conclusion, we had to be able to come back, right? And answer the objections against that, right? And with the help of Thomas and the treatise on love and so on, right? We realized looking before and after, which is means using your reason, right? That after the beauty of Juliet, right, and before Romeo was wanting her, there came an act of the eyes, right.

[49:22] And before the excellence of wisdom, and my wanting it, came some act of reason recognizing what wisdom is. Once we saw that in between the good and desire, right. Then we begin to think about this and realize that both the senses and the reason can be ignorant of something, and that would help explain why something is not wanted even though it's good or very good. It's not known.

[49:59] And then we saw that the senses and reason could also be what deceived, huh? Or they could be partial in their knowledge of the thing, right? So they could be deceived by the likeness of the bad to the good, right? I took very simple examples, right? The likeness of the poisonous mushrooms to the good ones, huh? I go for a walk sometimes in the wooded areas here with a friend, and he'll point out, "No, that's good to eat, not that."

[50:36] But there's a little bit of savvy there, right? Huh? You know, you could poison yourself out there, right? Huh? One place I go for a walk now is in Shrewsbury, and I get some of these little berries that are good to eat, you know. But other ones maybe not good to eat. So, and we're out the grandchildren. They're gathering leaves, you know. But there's, you know, sometimes you have poison ivy in there, you know.

[51:01] And there's some nice colored leaves too, you know. So you've got to be very careful. These little grandchildren and picking the wrong kind of leaf, not because they want to get poison ivy, but because they resemble the good ones. Or you see some good in the leaf that is beautiful, but not its being poisonous or irritating the skin. So we can explain, right, with very well-known things, reasonable things,

[51:33] why people could seem to what want the bad, right, and not want the good, but At the same time, we're able to defend that it's the good as such that is wanted. The bad as such is not wanted. Okay.

[51:54] That's important distinction between as such and by happening, right? Okay. So when I eat the poisonous mushrooms, I don't want the poisonous mushrooms as such. I am desiring the poisonous mushrooms because they resemble the good ones, huh? So it's the good ones as such that I want.

[52:21] And when I drink the poisonous drink because it smells and tastes good, I am attracted to that drink as such by the good taste and the good smell, and they are not a bad taste or a bad smell, right? But what tastes good and smells good happens to be poisonous. And so at the tragic end I'm wanting something good. Poisonous not as such.

[52:55] That's a little introduction to the what is good, right? It's not the last word. It's the first word. Okay. Now, once you have a little understanding of the good, the next thing to understand is the better.

[53:20] So, in general, again, what is better? That's the to think about for next class, right? In general, what is better, right? Tell the students sometimes. I have to tell your parents you don't know what good and bad is before we get into our conversation. But notice how basic this is. Know what good is, right? What bad is, but then also to know what what better is, right?

[54:01] And it's kind of interesting the way these these dialogues of Plato are arranged, huh? I've spoken the symmetry of them before, right? Um, if you were to look at introductions to philosophy around the country, you'd see a great deal of diversity and so on. But the most commonly read thing, probably in all introductions to philosophy, is the what? Apology. Apology of Socrates, right?

[54:37] Now, apology is a transliteration of the Greek word apologia. The Greek word apologia doesn't mean apology. Not translation. Apologia is the Greek word for a legal defense in the courtroom Kategoria is the word for accusation. Apologia for the legal defense. You know, Cardinal Newman borrowed that for his kind of defense of his life, right? His apologia pro vita sua. and he gives it a kind of a Latin form, right?

[55:13] But that's not really an apology for his life. Sorry. It's kind of a defense of his leaving the Anglicans and becoming a Roman Catholic, right? And so it's kind of like Socrates is doing here.

[55:30] This kind of the central thing here, right? And this whole trial and so on, Socrates' conviction leads to the, you know, great change in Plato's life. Now,

[55:48] this work we mentioned here, the Euthyphro, is leading up to the apology, right? Because in the Euthyphro, Plato represents Socrates as going to the courthouse, what they call the porch of the King Archon, right? We call it the courthouse to see what the charges are that have been filed against him, right? And among the charges against Socrates is impiety, right?

[56:26] And he runs into Euthyphro, for whom this conversation is named, right? Euthyphro is also down at the porch of the King Archon, except Euthyphro is there to initiate an indictment of his own. father. And for the crime of impiety, okay. That sounds impious in the service to be charging your father. So Euthyphro must be an expert in questions of piety and impiety, huh? And of course, when Socrates asks him, he's the expert on piety and impiety.

[57:05] So Socrates gets involved in a conversation with him because he says, I've been charged with impiety, right? What is this? Okay. So this is very close to the trial, of Socrates, right? Okay.

[57:20] Now, in the temporal sequence, in the Apology, Socrates is eventually found what guilty, right? And sentenced to what death, right? Okay. But because this coincides with a Greek festival, right? He's going to be in prison for some time before the death is carried out. Now, his friend Crito, after whom another dialogue is named, comes to see Socrates in prison and says, "Socrates, I got a plan to spring you.

[57:58] Now we're going to bribe the guards and etc. " And so Socrates says, "Well, just a minute now. Let's see if this is a thing to do. " So Crito and Socrates have a conversation about this, right? And Socrates reasons in the conversation that he should not disobey the law, right, and break out of prison, right? Okay. That's

[58:23] kind of surprising, right? Because we all probably, if we're in prison, jump at the opportunity to escape, right? So this is right after the trial, man. This time frame, I mean at least in the time phrase, right? And that's followed by the Phaedo. going up like that just quickly 'Cause you'll see the proofs later on. The Phaedo takes place on the last day of Socrates' life in prison, and at the end of the Phaedo, Socrates what dies, huh?

[58:54] Now, the longest conversation in the Phaedo is one about does the human soul survive death. And Socrates makes a joke. He say we philosophers are always discussing things that are relevant. You know, you could hardly say it's irrelevant to me today that I'm going to die to know whether the soul survives death, right? Okay. There's also a conversation in there as to whether the soul is better off, right, after death or before, right?

[59:23] And Socrates also, besides these two philosophical conversations, tells a muthos, right, a story about what happens to the soul after death, right? Now, the Euthyphro is preceded by the Meno. The Socrates has a conversation with Meno. About what virtue is and whether virtue can be taught and so on. But in that conversation, Anytus comes in, who was one of those guys who would bring the charges against Socrates, and he gets very angry with Socrates, right?

[1:00:00] You know, and he goes off, feeding you know the conversation very angry. So it's kind of anticipation of the charges that we brought against him, right? And so these five kind of fit together this way, huh?

[1:00:20] Now, I think there is a kind of symmetry among these five works that you will see when you, if you ever have a chance to go through all five of them.

[1:00:32] But as far as our particular works right now, I may mention that in the Meno, among other things, not the main thing by any means, but you do come to the idea that the good is what all want, huh? In the Euthyphro, you are taught to ask the question that we asked, but asked about the pious, not about the good, right? Is it pious because the gods approve of it, or do the gods approve it because it is pious?

[1:01:02] Well we could apply that to the good, right? Okay, but you have to put two and two together. Now, in the Apology, Socrates would be many things that come up, but among them is the disagreement between Socrates and the Athenians about which goods in human life are really better, okay? And that kind of presupposes an understanding of what what is better, right?

[1:01:32] And what you can say in general about what is better, right? And then apply to to the disagreement between Socrates and the Athenians. So we're going to. Do

[1:01:44] after the definition of good, first definition of good, and our whole discussion of whether it's good because we want it, or want because it's good. Now we're going to talk about the better, right? Okay. And follow this in order, right?

[1:02:05] The Thebians think that the goods of the body and exterior goods are the greatest goods in life. Socrates thinks the goods of the soul are

[1:02:16] better. Someone might, you know, try to get out of that by saying, "Well, Socrates, if you want those more, go for it. We want these more, we'll go for these." But can you say that if you understand the good? If something is not good for me because I want it, if we've shown that something is not good because you want it. Then can you say it's more good or better because you wanted more?

[1:02:46] Then you've got to give a reason now, right? The ball game is now over for these guys. They've got to give a reason for saying this is better for us than that, right? And that reason cannot be that I wanted more.

[1:03:04] Do you see the problem? Do you see the connection there? There's going to be a connection between those. So you have to see the false answer to the question of what is better, right? Which is a well, whatever you want more, right? And then find the true answer, right? We can actually give a reason for saying this is better than that. We'll make use of all the things we learned about the good.

[1:03:28] Okay.