Personal Philosophy of Life Based on Plato's Apology - Essay Example

Philosophy November 4, 2009. Personal Philosophy In Plato’s Apology, Socrates basically mentioned in his defense that a man who realizes the fact that he knows nothing is much wiser than a man who thinks he knows many things despite the fact that he knows nothing (Jowett). Personally, I agree with some points of this view. Bragging about the matters we know only a little is never a step to reach true wisdom. On the contrary, it is the direct downhill step toward humiliation. Indeed, there might be many ways to reach the true wisdom, but the starting point is always the same… admitting what we don’t know. Talking about true wisdom as the final destination to reach, what is actually true wisdom? For me, I believe that true wisdom is the ultimate knowledge which stays in perfect balance with the basic moral principle. Knowledge without morality is not wisdom, just cold ignorance. Is a man who knows how to destroy the world wise? He is, only if he chooses not to use that knowledge. Morality without knowledge is not wisdom either but blind foolishness. In a war or in wilderness, is a man who doesn’t want to kill wise? Unless he knows how to survive without killing, he is a dead man not a wise one. My ideal true wisdom might seem to be distant destination which can never be attainable. However, in a lesser degree, true wisdom is achievable in daily life. The first main point of the wisdom is balance. Thus, as long as the knowledge that we acquire and apply lies in harmony with the moral principle we value, we attain the lesser true wisdom… for the time being. The next main point is progress. Once we stop trying to reach the ultimate true wisdom, the lesser wisdom we have will quickly fade away. To keep in direct contact with true wisdom, we need to gain more and more knowledge while basic moral values take the role as the safety measurement. Putting it in more systematical order, here are some steps we need to do to keep the wisdom within our grasp. First, we need to honestly realize what we don’t know. After that, we should allow our mind open to new ideas. Then, filtering these ideas using logic and moral principle should be our immediate task. Any idea which is not in harmony with the moral values we believe in should be stored away or even discarded from our mind. Finally, we need to put the acceptable knowledge into practice. If this new knowledge works well without significant ethical conflict, we should apply it either for personal gain or society’s benefit. Well, the path of wisdom does not end here though. We need to keep repeating the sequence back from the beginning, because wisdom is a lifetime work process. Since true wisdom relates knowledge to moral principles, ethical system plays a huge part here. Basically the main concerns of ethical system are intentions, actions and results. The adherents of virtue ethics simply believe that the intention of the act has the greatest ethical value. The followers of deontology, on the other hand, believe that the action itself, whether it is right or wrong, should be the main concern of the ethical system. Contrary to those views, the supporters of utilitarianism and consequentialism believe that the ends justify the means, which basically means the outcome of an action is the most important thing to consider for ethical system (Brown). It will be easy if the three concerns always support each other. There will be no significant argument if good intentions always produce the right actions and as the result there will always be excellent outcomes. Unfortunately, those three separate entities do not always flow in the same direction. Good intentions do not always generate good actions. Sometimes, they can even produce the worst result. Good outcomes do not always come from right actions either. Sometimes an action which might be considered very evil can surprisingly give the best outcome. So, which one of them is the most important? Actually, all the three sides of the ethical systems have their own weaknesses and strengths. Again, the combination of all their strengths will be unquestionably perfect. However, if I have to choose one among the three systems, I will pick the result-oriented system since I think what matters most in our life is the result of our actions. I know that in some cases, the saying “the ends justify the means” are morally wrong. For example, mass murdering all criminals will have high probability to lead the rest of the world into a better one. It seems a sound concept for the fanatic utilitarian or consequentialist, doesn’t it? However, is this moral? I might indeed prefer result-oriented ethical system, but there are some limits that I believe should never be crossed. For me ends can justify the means only if the ‘means’ mentioned here do not significantly sacrifice the existence of the minority for the sake of the majority. My chosen ethical system, the consequentialism view, leads me to define my moral principles. Respect your parents, be honest, do not kill, do not betray your friends, do not steal… Well, those are only a small part of the long list of moral teachings I know and follow. To summarize that long list, I define my main moral principle simply as: enjoying my precious life maximally. Well, it is somewhat similar to Aristotle’s concepts of eu zên (living well) and eudaimonia (happiness) although it has one obvious difference. My concept of moral principle focuses on what we already have while Aristotle believed that happiness and living well are the highest good which needs to be achieved (Kraut). My “enjoy the life” concept might seem a kind of weak and unimpressive moral principle for many people. However, it actually has quite deep meaning since to be able to do this principle well; there are many requirements to be fulfilled. And surprisingly, the requirements themselves are actually the long list of moral teachings I have mentioned before. Let’s take the samples of the list into consideration. Can I enjoy my life if I respect no one and no one respects me? Obviously, I can’t. Will I be able to enjoy my life fully if I have killed someone? I don’t think so. Can I enjoy my life if my friends are against me due to my betrayal? No, it is impossible, at least for me. To totally enjoy my life, so far I have devised three basic rules to do. First, I need to have peaceful community around me. No sane man will be able to enjoy his life well when everybody around him is his enemies. This means that I have to be careful in interacting with other members of the community I am involved in. I must be honest but I must also be diplomatic enough so that any disagreement does not immediately result in problematic quarrels. For the same reason, I should try my best not to offend others and be patient enough to bear others’ unintended offence. The next rule deals with environment. Safe, enjoyable, and healthy environment are obviously needed for me to enjoy my life. It will be impossible to do that if the atmosphere of my surroundings is dirty, unhealthy, and not safe. Well, one man might not able to change the environment much, but can still make difference. My final rule to completely enjoy the life is closely related to the peaceful state of mind. No regret is basically the idea here. If I think I will regret it later, I should never do it. In other words, I need to carefully consider my action before I execute it. And once I executed the action, I should brace myself not to lament the decision I made. Living in regret is definitely not my idea to totally enjoy my life. So far, my simple moral principle there has led me to a peaceful and enjoyable life. Despite its simplicity, it is good enough to take the role of the main moral principle as well as the purpose of life. Wait! Does life has purposes? There are two different schools of thought about that actually. The adherents of accidentalism believe that life exist without any particular purpose while the followers of teleology are sure that there must be certain purposes of life. Personally, I am inclined to believe the latter. What are the main purposes of life then? Some people, the religious ones, might argue that the main purpose of life is to glorify God. The scientific ones might argue that the main purpose of life is gathering more and more advanced knowledge. The secular might argue that the main purpose of life is to enjoy all pleasures the world has offered. Fundamentally, I agree with all those opinions, and my simple “enjoy the life” principle actually covers all these purposes well. Enjoying the life fully means that we joyfully accept life as God’s precious gifts. This also means that we show our greatest gratitude of this gift. Is there any way to glorify God better than this? Enjoying life fully also means that we keep improving our quality of life, which basically the main reason of acquiring knowledge. Is there any way to acquire knowledge better than this? Finally, enjoying life fully means that we try hard to experience constructive pleasures and to avoid destructive pleasures the world has offered. Is any way to experience pleasure better than this? I mentioned God several times in this paper. It does not mean that I am a very religious person. No, I am not a devout fanatic who spends a great amount of time everyday to pray. But, I am not an atheist either. I believe that God does exist. Actually, it is hard for me to think otherwise. There are too many questions whereas, for me, the answer can only point to the ultimate source, God. Here are some questions to consider. Everything had a start, what is it? Who exists before time? Who makes living organism exist from nothingness? Who gives us awareness? Who set up the complicated yet uniform law of the universe? What will exist in the end of time? I know that from the atheism point of view, all those questions can be still answered skeptically. Atheists can argue that God does not exist because it cannot be proven otherwise. They might also argue that this universe exist merely because of accidents. Thus, the complicated law of the universe is not actually planned to be complicated. They might doubt the content of Bible or any other holy books due to the lack of evidence. In fact, almost all of the arguments that the theists devoutly believe in have counter arguments from the atheists’ point of view. Actually, in my view, any attempt to reason the arguments between these two opposite school of beliefs is futile. It makes sense to argue over different school of thoughts with abundant evidences and large room of improvement. But, arguing over different faiths is evidently useless since it is basically either you believe it or not. No argument will ever be solid enough to be used without opposition in this case. Related to my faith to God, I essentially prefer to keep the relationship between God and me personal. I believe that faith should be personal, not collective. I respect most religions and their teachings but for me, those religions function more socially rather than spiritually. What I mean here is that most religions and their teachings work well to instruct and arrange the relationship among people within the same circle of belief as well as among the people in different circles of belief. However, it seems quite strange for me if my relationship to the omnipotent source of all must be restricted with some kinds of ritual, just like what most religions require. I must admit that I might have a bit of gnosis faith here. I am willing to listen to religious teachings but my relationship to God is mainly self contemplation, not ritual mass. I can say that I am a ‘spiritual but not religious’ kind of person. Well, unlike what some people belief, spirituality and religion are actually two different entities. Basically, spirituality is the attempt in searching God within oneself which means it is more personal and less dogmatic, while religion is formalized external search of God which is more general and more dogmatic. All of the philosophies I used in my life as I mentioned above are not static. It is not like that I have always believed in the same ways of life since the day I was born. No, my philosophy of life is definitely a lifetime work in progress. It has changed several times in the past and it might still change again later in the future. Let’s see the progress of the viewpoints in my life. Once, I actually believed that wisdom equals to knowledge. In my view then, gaining knowledge through any means necessary was the essence of true wisdom. Since the more we know, the more we realize things we don’t know, I believed that improving our knowledge is a lifetime work, and how hard we do that showed how good our wisdom was. I was convinced that those with great knowledge were very wise and those with little knowledge were not wise at all. But later on, after I gathered enough material to be considered through reading, watching the news and surfing the internet, I must admit that I was wrong. I started to realize that expanding knowledge without any limitation is actually dangerous. Other than that I also realize that knowledge is only an element of wisdom. Well, computer database have a huge amount of knowledge but I have never heard anybody call it wise. Here I began to understand that wisdom is not in what we know but in how we use that knowledge (Sternberg, 6). Realizing that wisdom does not consist of knowledge only, I began to search for other elements which construct wisdom. That was why morality entered my description of wisdom. So far, I have found only knowledge and morality as the elements of true wisdom. However, I know that my description of true wisdom is not final yet. So, I will not be surprised if I find other elements of wisdom in the future. My view in the purpose of life is actually also a lifetime work project. In my childhood, I believed that the purpose of life was only to follow God’s teaching. This was probably caused by the religious teaching I have received that time. Then, there was some time in my life where crisis of faith took charge of my judgment. At that time, I could not help thinking that God did not exist and that life had no purpose at all. That was over, fortunately. Now, I wholeheartedly believe that life has some significant purposes, just like what I have mentioned in the paper. Later on, I expect to discover more purposes of life. Basically, all of the views I used as the philosophy of life are lifetime works in progress. They have experienced significant changes in the past and they might change again in the future. Simply speaking, saying that my views are the best and the most accurate visions are obviously ridiculous. Life is much too complicated to be understood completely within our short lifetime. Thus, opening our mind to new ideas should take a decent place in our priority. Bibliography Brown, Curtis. "Ethical Theories Compared." Trinity.edu. Trinity University. Web. 8 Dec. 2009. . Jowett, Benjamin, trans. "Apology by Plato." The Internet Classics Archieve. Web Atomics, 1994. Web. 08 Dec. 2009. . Kraut, Richard. "Aristotles Ethics." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. . Sternberg, Robert J. Wisdom Its Nature, Origins, and Development. New York: Cambridge UP, 1990. "Teleology." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 8 Dec. 2009. . 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