Challenge to Christian Belief: The Trinity

Why three persons? Why not four or sixteen persons? 

Wouldn't the greatest conceivable being have an infinite number of persons, as that would be the highest level of being?

Or maybe being one person is greatest, as having your being split among persons is to somehow be divided, or made of parts, or to lack perfect coordination or perfect unity?

Or maybe it's just incoherent to have multiple persons in one being, as each person is necessarily a being? After all, we say that the cat is not the mat that it lays on, because the cat and the mat are made up of different properties. We distinguish the two by their properties, and by seeing that the properties are different, we see that the cat is not the mat. Likewise, when we see that one person has one set of mental properties, and we see that another person has a distinct set of mental properties, we see that these two persons are separate. And just as the cat and the mat are separate beings, or objects, so too must separate persons be separate beings.

And if the Holy Spirit is a person on par with the Son and the Father, then why isn't the Holy Spirit seated at the right hand of the Son, or at the left hand of the Father? (Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 12:2, 1 Peter 3:22, Acts 7:55, Acts 2:33, Matthew 22:44, Revelation 3:21.) We consistently see the Father and the Son paired, with the Holy Spirit missing, almost as if the Holy Spirit is something shared between the two, or represents the presence of one or the other, or of both, as felt on earth by believers despite the lack of a bodily presence.

Maybe Jesus plays a unique role in being seated next to the Father, because Jesus has a body and the Holy Spirit does not? But the Father does not have a body either, and yet is still depicted as on a throne.

Jesus commands that we baptise in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). But why couldn't that be a redundancy? Jesus says that we should love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37; Deuteronomy 6:5). So redundancy is a familiar feature in the commands of Jesus.

But confusingly, there are verses that treat the Holy Spirit as a who, a person separate from the Son or Father. Consider John 15:26 (NRSVUE):

"When the Advocate[f] comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf."

(Curious: In John 14 the Father sends the Holy Spirit on behalf of the Son; in John 15 Jesus says that He sends the Holy Spirit.)

Does choosing death entail maximal suffering?

In other posts I've argued that suffering-at-capacity aka max suffering (or maxed out suffering) aka unbearable suffering is logically incompatible with a loving God. Suicide entails suffering-at-capacity. Thus, suicide entails there is no loving God.

But is it true that suicide entails unbearable suffering?

It seems like my own views say no, because I believe that some people can die happy, and can even die happy by choice. I think an example of this is Jesus, who willingly goes to his own death. But Jesus can die happy, knowing that he will survive his death and knowing that his death is for the salvation of the lucky elect (or, under universal reconciliation, for everyone).

Socrates is another example. He takes his own life, but he seems to do so with a kind of satisfaction, knowing that either he will be favorably judged by gods in the afterlife, seeing as he is a philosopher who has strived to cultivate virtue, or death is a peaceful sleep. Either way, there is nothing to worry about. Socrates dies peacefully, despite the fact he dies by suicide; no unbearable suffering in sight.

First, here is a similar puzzle: If someone sees that they will be crucified on a cross in the near future, and takes their life to prevent what would be unbearable suffering, then isn't this a case of suicide implying a lack of unbearable suffering?

My response: Dread itself can cause unbearable suffering. If you want to know whether someone is suffering unbearably, look no farther than signs that life is not worth living for them. So if someone takes their life, it must be the case that living has become unbearable by something. In the case above, it's dread that is the source of the person taking their life, and thus it is dread that is the cause of unbearable suffering.

So how do I respond to the case of Jesus, or Socrates?

One option (and these options need not be mutually exclusive) is to say that no one can really die happy; everyone wants to live. Consider what Diotima says in the Symposium:

“Now, then,” she said. “Can we simply say that people love the good?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But shouldn’t we add that, in loving it, they want the good to be theirs?”

“We should.”

“And not only that,” she said. “They want the good to be theirs forever, don’t they?”

“We should add that too.”

“In a word, then, love is wanting to possess the good forever.”

“That’s very true,” I said. (206; pg 519)

Which reminds me of something Nietzsche said:

"Oh man! Take heed of what the dark midnight says: I slept, I slept—from deep dreams I awoke: The world is deep—and more profound than day would have thought. Profound in her pain—Pleasure—more profound than pain of heart, Woe speaks; pass on. But all pleasure seeks eternity—a deep and profound eternity." (Schaeffer, Francis. How Should We Then Live? Translated by Udo Middelmann. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976, pg 169.)

We then must speak of dying relatively happy. Some deaths are more miserable than others, and we should strive to have the least miserable death we can.

A key to dying well is to write down a bucket list, a set of things you'd like to do while you can, and to then prioritize them. Take the single most important achievement on that list and turn it into an action plan. And that there becomes your life, for the time being at least. If you do this accurately enough, and if you are lucky enough to succeed, and if you don't happen to change your mind such that the achievement in question no longer interests you, then you will achieve a pretty good sense of satisfaction with yourself and your life; you accomplished the essential task you set out to accomplish; you slayed your dragon.

So when we talk about dying happy, we are talking about something relative and not absolute. Obviously, if an old, accomplished person had the chance to live another life, or to be young again and free, they'd take that over death most of the time. But we don't get the option. So you have to psychologically adapt to what you're stuck with.

Another option is to say that Socrates did in fact suffer unbearably. 

Another option is to say that being able to die happy is exactly what causes unbearable suffering. If someone is able to die happy, then they probably have achieved some sense of existential completion; something of a self-actualization, or maybe even a psychological state beyond self-actualization. Whatever it is, it's the peak of psychological achievement; a kind of bliss or nirvana or enlightenment. But if someone has achieved such a state, then you can see how continued living could become unbearable for this kind of person. To live further would be pointless, and indeed it may be impossible to live without some kind of pursuit on which to live, a pursuit that betrays desire or need, when the person who is existentially complete has no desire or need, and thus has no pursuits, and thus has no basis on which to live. Living itself becomes unbearable for such a person. So far from the ability to die happy contradicting the idea that self-death entails unbearable suffering, it actually can entail it.

So I can have it both ways: self-death always entails unbearable suffering, and yet someone can die happy while choosing to die. But how can such deep peace be compatible with such deep suffering?

Another option is simply to say that not all suicides entail unbearable suffering, but some of them do. Even if just a single suicide entails unbearable suffering, that's enough for my argument against God.

The problem of different kinds of unbearable suffering:

Let's say someone achieves existential completion and can die happy. Because of this, they find life unbearable and so they choose their own death. Here's the problem: We now have two entirely separate kinds of unbearable suffering. The first kind is the suffering of being existentially incomplete. The second kind is living without a basis on which to live.

For the kind of person under question, the greater suffering between the two is obviously being existentially incomplete. Because, after all, why wouldn't this person just choose to die before accomplishing their great task? If they're going to choose death anyway, why not save themselves the trouble? The answer: because the thought of dying before accomplishing the great task is unbearable. And yet the thought of dying is no longer unbearable after the task has been accomplished, and indeed the thought of living becomes unbearable.

So now we have two kinds of unbearable suffering:

(1) Die before becoming existentially complete.

(2) Live while existentially complete.

Which one is worse? Surely, the first one is worse. And yet, death is not a conscious harm. And only conscious harms can be the worst harms. If suffering in general ultimately cashes out in terms of consciousness, then the worst suffering cashes out in terms of consciousness. But if we allow depriving evils to cash out in terms of consciousness via the theoretical conscious comparison between the positive goods and a lack thereof, then don't we allow depriving evils, and thus unconscious harms, to be the worst of sufferings? This would lead to a contradiction on my part.

Response: Being deprived of paradise is bad for the one deprived, but not as bad as being sent to hell. We know that being deprived of paradise is bad the same way we know being sent to hell is bad: by the test of direct awareness. We can be certain that one experience is better than another (or better than a lack) by comparing the two in our minds. If one of the experiences is not actual but probable, then we still have probabilistic justification for believing that one experience is better than another.

The person directly aware of their happiness in paradise is aware that being deprived of paradise would make them infinitely worse off. But this doesn't mean that deprivational evils are as bad as positive evils of the same magnitude. This is an asymmetry between max depriving evils and max extrinsic evils, and between max saving goods and max extrinsic goods. Being saved from hell is a max saving good. Being sent to heaven is a max extrinsic good. The latter includes the former, but then also includes infinitely more goodness. So extrinsic goods / evils are always greater than saving goods / depriving evils of the same "rank", at least when maxed, because max extrinsic goods / evils always include max saving goods / depriving evils. (Maybe unmaxed evils and goods are sometimes, or always, incommensurable and cannot be held at the same rank.)

So the worst of suffering and the best of flourishing still must be intrinsic and not merely depriving or saving. So technically the best possible good with respect to someone suffering in hell is to send them to heaven, and not merely to snuff them out of existence. But both the sending and the snuffing are in fact maximal goods, it's just that one is greater.

But how can you have two max goods with one being greater than the other? Likewise, how can max suffering be considered maxed when we can imagine a worse suffering? If (2) is an unbearable suffering, and yet (1) is worse, then (2) isn't really a max evil. This would mean that suicide doesn't entail max suffering.

Response: Think of unbearable suffering as suffering that surpasses a threshold. Different sufferings can surpass that threshold to different degrees. So if I have a bank account with $100 in it, I can overdraft it by spending $101 or by spending $1,000. If one's capacity for suffering is overdrafted, then one experiences unbearable suffering, no matter the degree of the overdraft.

This means that some max sufferings are worse than other max sufferings. This makes sense, for God could always enhance our minds so that we could suffer in deeper and more profound ways, and then torture us with our new heightened capacities for suffering. These heightened max sufferings are worse than our current max sufferings.

But max suffering is relative to the individual's capacity. And saving goods are relative to the suffering. So no matter how simple the creature, their suffering-at-capacity produces a good of being saved from that suffering, and it's hard to imagine what goods God has in mind that are supposedly greater than these saving goods.

To die happy then is to die without a specific kind of suffering – the suffering of feeling unfinished in one's life, and to die with a specific kind of happiness – the happiness of feeling that one's life is complete. But it's entirely compatible to have one kind of happiness amid outweighing pains such that one dies with one kind of happiness, peace, and yet also with unbearable suffering. The mistake is in thinking that necessarily happiness and pain eliminate each other and cannot co-exist, or in thinking that specifically contentment cannot survive along with suffering, as suffering implies discontent. But one can be content in certain respects while discontent in others, just as one can be happy with some things while unhappy with others. No one is truly happy, because to be truly happy would be to plainly ignore the failings of this world and the plights of others.

Logos, Pathos, Ethos

"Among Aristotle's contributions in [rhetoric] was a theory of persuasion, which famously contained the idea that there are three modes by which a speaker may persuade an audience. Paraphrasing very loosely, Aristotle's idea was that we can be persuaded, first of all, by a speaker's personal attributes, including such things as his or her background, reputation, accomplishments, expertise, and similar things. Aristotle referred to this mode of persuasion as ethos. Second, a speaker can persuade us by connecting with us on a personal level, and by arousing and appealing to our emotions by a skillful use of rhetoric. This mode of persuasion Aristotle termed pathos. And third, the speaker may persuade us by using information and arguments—what he called logos. Unfortunately, logos—rational argumentation—is one of the least effective ways of winning someone to your point of view. . . . People notoriously are unfazed by good arguments while finding even the worst arguments compelling."

-Critical Thinking, 10th ed. Brooke Moore & Richard Parker, 48-49

Theodore Sider - Time (Chapter 3 of Riddles of Existence)

What does it mean to move? To move is to be in one location at one time, and then at another location at a later time. So movement as a concept depends on the concept of time. Movement itself is a temporal notion. Talk of time's movement then, such as the flow or passage of time, is strange. How can time move? Just as a train moves in terms of time, does the present moment move in terms of some higher order of time, like hyper-time? But then hyper-time would move in terms of a further kind of time. We have an infinite regress.

Maybe time is not like a river that flows, but is part of a structure called space-time. Time is like space in three respects: 

1) Just as objects can be near or far in space, objects can be near (present) or far (past or future) in time.

2) Material objects take up space by having parts that extend through space. I have a leg there and an arm here. Likewise, temporal objects have temporal parts. For every moment that passes, there I am in that moment, and that snapshot of me is a temporal part of me. So just as there are material parts and wholes, there are temporal parts and wholes.

3) Just as space is relative to an observer, so is time. My here is not your here, just as my now is not the same now of someone at some other time. Now and here are relative, not objective.

So time is not like a river that flows, but is like space that objects would have temporal extension.

But your intuitions might say the following:

1) No, past and future objects do not exist. The past is gone and the future is not here.

2) There are no temporal parts, only temporal wholes; all of you exists now.

3) While space is relative, time is not. Everything exists now. (Perhaps necessary objects exist atemporally.) The present moment is privileged.

There are three further arguments against the idea that time is like space:

1) From change: As Sider states, "Change is having different properties at different times." That's a temporal notion of change. Spatial change is having different properties at different places. A pillow may be hot on one side and cold on another. The difference between the two kinds of change is that in the case of temporal change, when something changes, its total properties have changed. But for the pillow, its total properties are the same. Spatial change really isn't change at all; no old properties have been lost and no new properties have been gained. Change is fundamentally a temporal notion and not a spatial one.

A counter to this is that change is not fundamentally temporal; it just so happens that our ordinary notion of 'change' is the temporal one. On the space-time view, time is a dimension like space, and sure enough change is simply having different properties at different places or times. The space-time view does not need time to be identical to space; they're just similar.

You could also say that just as an object in space has all of its properties "now" even with different properties at different places, so too does an object in time have all its properties "now" in the sense that no reference frame is privileged and the object is a temporal whole. In other words, just as a plank of wood has a smooth surface here and rough surface there, so too does the plank of wood have a smooth surface now (having been sanded), and a rough surface there in the past (before being sanded).

2) From motion: You can move backwards, forwards, left, right, up, down, and so on, in space. But in time you only have one direction, from past to future.

A response to this is that it's not fair to say you can move backwards, forwards, etc., in space, when movement is a temporal notion. So when we translate moving back and forth in space, with a dimension reference to time, we get (t = time, p = place):

Moving back and forth in space: An object is at p1 at t1, then at p2 at t2, then at p1 at t3.

To show whether time and space are analogous, we invert the reference dimensions so that we get:

Moving back and forth in time: An object is at t1 at p1, then at t2 at p2, then at t1 at p3.

This depicts one object at two places that comes together in a single place at a later time. Sider gives the example of clapping hands: one hand is at p1, the other hand at p3, and the two come together at p2.

This doesn't make sense to me. When the hands open up after coming together, the hands are not going back to t1. That would involve traveling back in time, which is exactly what this objection to space-time is saying. Moving back and forth in space makes sense, as the locations stay the same while time moves forward. But when moving back and forth in time, it's the temporal points that would remain while spatial locations change (per the graph). But when clapping your hands, the spatial locations stay the same while time moves forward, just like in the first graph.

Besides, when I think of moving back and forth through time, I imagine, say, the TARDIS from Doctor Who appearing at the same location it left from. Moving back and forth through time doesn't require more than two spatial locations. 

Plus, someone could say you don't have one object, a pair of hands, in two places. Rather, you have two objects in two places, when we want to know whether one object can move back and forth in time.

3) From causation: Like motion, causation stretches out in all directions in space, but there's only one direction in which temporal causation moves. Future events cannot cause past events.

Sider admits that we do not observe backwards causation. But if time is like space, then in theory backwards causation is possible, such as through time travel. This leads to discussions about whether time travel is possible. If it's not, and if space-time implies it is, then we have to give up space-time. Sider concludes that there are consistent stories of time travel, and cites the Terminator as an example, and thus concludes that the objections against the space-time model of time have been answered.

But I don't see how the Terminator story is consistent. For John Connor to send his own dad, Kyle Reese, back in time, John must have already been born. But born how? By Reese being sent back in time. Sent back in time by who? By John Connor. There must have been a first John Connor to start the chain. But there couldn't have been a first John Connor, because each John Connor depends on an earlier one for their birth. It's a bootstrapping paradox.

The peace that surpasses all understanding is perfectly understandable

Christians, like Paul, have been in situations where they suffer horribly. These are situations of imprisonment, martyrdom, or suffering under the pains of life. And yet, Christians report a sense of peace, calm, and even joy in these situations. In Philippians 4 (NRSVUE) we read:

Rejoice[b] in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.[c] 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about[d] these things. 9 As for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you.

There is an obvious psychoanalysis of this peace: by believing that death is not the end, and that death is the worst this world can do to you, you are in an existentially complete state. Put another way, you feel fundamentally safe. Caveat: this requires that you don't have any anxiety over whether you are living out God's plans for you – basically, as long as you don't feel like Jonah running away from your Nineveh.

Is it possible to learn this peace? "Not from a non-Christian", the Christian says.

But I disagree. While I've already written about this, I'll duplicate thoughts for this topic. I wrote the following in response to a prompt from class, about Socrates discussing how pleasures and pains, matters of the body, distract us from what matters most, which are matters of the mind and virtue:

Is it true that the body distracts us from what matters most?

In Christianity, God incarnates as Jesus, taking on a human body. From a Christian point of view, the human body is elevated and esteemed, validated by the God who designed and created the human body and the environment in which it lives. Even when Jesus rose from the dead, he did not turn into a bodiless spirit, but retained a physical body that somehow ascended to heaven.

Christians consider it a Gnostic heresy to say that the body is wretched and the soul pure, and that the physical is imperfect and evil while the immaterial is perfect and good. Indeed, the Christian would say that our souls are as corrupt as our bodies, both being corrupted by sin. It is only through faith in Jesus, and baptism, that the soul can be purified. So on one view, both the body and the soul are corrupt, and yet both are glorified and validated.

On a very different view, it is matters of the mind that distract us from what matters most, which are bodily affairs. For many folks, life just is a matter of family, sex, drugs, food, relationships, social experiences, traveling, and so forth—matters of the body. Matters of the mind are irrelevant, or even distracting us from living life. Philosophy, on this view, causes “analysis paralysis,” leading to a paralyzed life. While some people, like me, love to stay inside and read and write, many others would consider this an impoverished way of living, and a failure to live life to the fullest, which requires one to go out and do things in an embodied way.

On a third view, what matters most is transcendence. I’m reminded of a lyric I wrote long ago:

Aim for pleasure

And you won’t survive the pain

Aim for transcendence

And death will transcend your aim

I’ve heard it said that we shouldn’t aim for a life free of suffering, as that sets you up to be most vulnerable to suffering. Instead, we should engage in work we find so important that it’s worth suffering for. Transcendence refers to this ability to overcome suffering, even transform it into something good. Transcendence also refers to achieving a level of consciousness and existence that is higher than what you’ve had previously.

Death threatens transcendence, because you cannot exist on a higher level when you don’t exist at all. So, as the lyric suggests, we have a dilemma: If we focus on an embodied way of being, and ignore matters of the mind and soul, then we make ourselves too vulnerable to pain and won’t have a way to surpass our pain. And yet, if we aim for transcendence as a way to overcome pain, death threatens our transcendence. This dilemma lies at the core of the “human predicament.”

So how do we solve this dilemma? This is why Christianity is so powerful: it solves the problem of death through the promises of eternal life that Jesus makes to His followers.

But for those who find the challenges to Christian belief too challenging, this is not an option. If you find the idea of heaven too good to be true, you must admit that on some level death wins and we lose.

However, there is a way to transcend even death, not by defeating death, but by sharing in death’s victory. If you allow death to motivate you to work as hard as possible while you still have time, then, if you’re lucky, you will have the resources needed to create that thing or achieve that achievement that allows you to die happy. (Something even Christians may feel pulled by.)

If you can achieve something so great, at least of such great personal importance, that you enter into a state of bliss such that you can genuinely die happy, then, by enabling this possibility, both in terms of the urgency and of the magnitude of the achievement – of such magnitude that you can die happy – death itself becomes the mechanism by which you transcend. Death glorifies you indirectly through this achievement at the same time it humiliates you through your destruction.

If the achievement lasts beyond the grave, then you will have achieved the closest thing to immortality that we can. Though, it’s not the immortality that matters, but the state of being able to die happy. It just so happens that achieving such a state requires achieving something of great personal significance, and often such achievements will be the kind that leave a mark on the world. But you could have a person who does some great work behind the scenes that doesn’t last beyond their lifetime, but who is nevertheless connected to the work in such a way that they can die happy having done it. I think parenthood can be like this, a great work (when done right) that involves giving up yourself to build up someone else. When people say "Some people should never be parents," part of what they are getting at is the fact that some people are not connected to the work of parenthood in the right way; they see parenthood as a burden and not as a core part of their life's work.

Matters of the body can distract us from transcending death in this way: if someone ignores death and strives not to achieve that which will enable one to die happy, but instead lives in the moment and pursues entertainment, then death will creep up on them and they will have little, in their own eyes, to show for their life. They may find themselves regretful in the end, suffering at the thought of dying, because they cannot die happy. Those who do not account for death in the way they live run the risk of suffering in this way. Though, it's possible for someone to not know what it would take for them to die happy until after they have already achieved it, perhaps even ironically thanks to their ignoring death, living in the moment, and pursuing entertainment.

A disadvantage for the non-Christian is that achievements are not a reliable method of transcendence. It requires a great deal of luck to be able to achieve one's essential personal goal. Some folks will find it impossible not to desire something too ambitious, and will thus be stuck in unfulfilled desires. The Christian, on the other hand, need only believe, and from their beliefs come hope.

Paradoxically, as in the case of the Christian martyr, both horrendous suffering and existential completeness can be found in a person at the same time. Hope, from believing the best is yet to come, allows one to endure suffering, so of course a hope-based existential completeness is compatible with horrendous suffering. But does this mean that only a hope-based existential completion can withstand horrendous suffering?

I don't think so. "Die happy" needn't be taken so literally. Even Jesus, a paradigm of existential completion, didn't die happy in a strict sense. What matters is whether, in addition to your suffering, there is the added suffering of feeling incomplete, like you didn't do what you set out to do. As long as you feel complete, the most important pain is avoided. Achievement-based existential completion is just as compatible with a painful death as a hope-based one. Death is the worst the world can do to you, and for those who can die happy, not even the worst can impede their happiness. Feeling fundamentally safe in this way generates a profound inner peace, even in the face of death and suffering, even for the one without hope in a life to come.

Socrates on skepticism of argument, Phaedo, 90

"It would be pitiable, Phaedo, he said, when there is a true and reliable argument and one that can be understood, if a man who has dealt with such arguments as appear at one time true, at another time untrue, should not blame himself or his own lack of skill but, because of his distress, in the end gladly shift the blame away from himself to the arguments, and spend the rest of his life hating and reviling reasonable discussion and so be deprived of truth and knowledge of reality."

"Yes, by Zeus", I said, "that would be pitiable indeed."

"This then is the first thing we should guard against, he said. We should not allow into our minds the conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it; much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness, you and the others for the sake of your whole life still to come, and I for the sake of death itself."

Socrates, Phaedo, 82 - 83

"The lovers of learning know that when philosophy gets hold of their soul, it is imprisoned in and clinging to the body, and that it is forced to examine other things through it as through a cage and not by itself, and that it wallows in every kind of ignorance.

Philosophy sees that the worst feature of this imprisonment is that it is due to desires, so that the prisoner himself is contributing to his own incarceration most of all.

As I say, the lovers of learning know that philosophy gets hold of their soul when it is in that state, then gently encourages it and tries to free it by showing them that investigation through the eyes is full of deceit, as is that through the ears and the other senses. Philosophy then persuades the soul to withdraw from the senses in so far as it is not compelled to use them and bids the soul to gather itself together by itself, to trust only itself and whatever reality, existing by itself, the soul by itself understands, and not to consider as true whatever it examines by other means, for this is different in different circumstances and is sensible and visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and invisible. 

The soul of the true philosopher thinks that this deliverance must not be opposed and so keeps away from pleasures and desires and pains as far as he can; he reflects that violent pleasure or pain or passion does not cause merely such evils as one might expect, such as one suffers when one has been sick or extravagant through desire, but the greatest and most extreme evil, though one does not reflect on this."

"What is that, Socrates?", asked Cebes.

"That the soul of every man, when it feels violent pleasure or pain in connection with some object, inevitably believes at the same time that what causes such feelings must be very clear and very true, which it is not."

What is virtue? What does it mean to be wise?

To answer this question, here is a similar question: What is intelligence? What does it mean to have intelligence versus not having it?

We associate intelligence with many things: the ability to recognize patterns, grasp concepts, process information, memorize and recall, to solve puzzles, solve problems, invent things, to be creative, to think outside the box, to avoid making mistakes, and so on. We also associate intelligence with knowledge—an awareness of a collection of important or complex truths, which leads to an understanding of how things work in life. Intelligence is associated with success, and stupidity with failure.

Intelligence then is something like: your mental capacity, or mental powers. The more mental powers you have, the smarter you are, and the fewer mental powers you have, the less smart you are.

Wisdom could be just a synonym for intelligence: To be wise is to be smart. Or we could say wisdom is something more specific than intelligence—wisdom is a subcategory of mental powers. On this view, to be wise is to be smart (that is, to have a specific mental capacity is to have mental capacity in general), but to be smart is not necessarily to be wise. (Compare: Having a strong imagination is smart, but being smart does not entail having a strong imagination.)

One way to think of wisdom on this view is that wisdom is the specific mental power of figuring out the golden mean for any given virtue. This ‘figuring out’ means 1) the ability to identify and understand the golden mean between two vices, and 2) being able to choose the golden mean, to have an understanding strong enough that it instills within you a confidence such that you cannot help but will yourself to live out the golden mean. So (1) and (2) are two parts of one category: the category of understanding.

Virtue then is the disposition to choose the golden mean. Bravery is the disposition to be brave, to choose the golden mean between cowardice and recklessness. Patience is the disposition to be patient, to choose the golden mean between impatience and indecision.

Wisdom and virtue are nearly the same thing. Wisdom is a mental power—the power to figure out and/or comprehend the golden mean. Virtue is the disposition to choose the golden mean, which comes from having wisdom.

If someone is wise (if they have the understanding), then they will be virtuous (possessing a disposition to choose the golden mean), and if someone is virtuous, then they will be wise, as one cannot have a disposition to choose the golden mean without having an ability to recognize and understand the golden mean. For some people, this is not an overly conscious effort; some people understand what the golden mean is for a given virtue on instinct or intuition. Mental activity occurs subconsciously, like when a mathematician figures out the solution to a problem suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, because the brain does work that the mind doesn’t see. So the understanding of wisdom needn't be explicitly conscious or reflective.

Just as wisdom is a specific kind of mental capacity, and is thus an instance of intelligence, a virtue, such as bravery, is a specific kind of virtue, and is thus an instance of wisdom (and is thus an instance of intelligence).

This view is compatible with Socrates’ view that virtue is a kind of knowledge (Protagoras 345 - 360). Many people might think that virtue is doing what’s right even when it’s difficult to do so. But I think Socrates would say that everyone is always choosing what’s least difficult. For the brave person, it would actually be more difficult for them to choose to be cowardly. It is exactly the difficulty of one choice outweighing another that explains why that person made that choice. The virtue does not lie in the ability to do what’s hard, but rather the virtue lies in what comes easy for the person. The fact that being cowardly is so difficult for a person that they’d rather face pain or death, that tells us something about the bravery of this person.

Socrates argues that virtue cannot be taught, and yet paradoxically argues that it’s a kind of knowledge, and knowledge can be taught. Here’s one suggestion to resolve the paradox: Virtue can be taught to a degree, but because virtue is grounded in wisdom, and wisdom in intelligence, at some point virtue is simply a matter of capacity, and capacities cannot be taught. Compare a student in a math class. We certainly need math teachers to teach us math. But at some point you either can do it or you can’t, and teachers cannot teach talent or a passion for math. They can inspire some students, and encourage them to pursue math, but ultimately those things fall on the student.

Socrates and Protagoras on moral responsibility and motivation

From "Protagoras" in the Complete Works of Plato (with section letters removed):

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. . . For Simonides was not so uneducated as to say that he praised all who did nothing bad willingly, as if there were anyone who willingly did bad things. I am pretty sure that none of the wise men thinks that any human being willingly makes a mistake or willingly does anything wrong or bad. They know very well that anyone who does anything wrong or bad does so involuntarily. . . .

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. . . “Would you say, Protagoras, that some people live well and others live badly?”

“Yes.”

“But does it seem to you that a person lives well, if he lives distressed and in pain?”

“No, indeed.”

“Now, if he completed his life, having lived pleasantly, does he not seem to you to have lived well?”

“It seems that way to me.”

“So, then, to live pleasantly is good, and unpleasantly, bad?”

“Yes, so long as he lived having taken pleasure in honorable things.”

“What, Protagoras? Surely you don’t, like most people, call some pleasant things bad and some painful things good? I mean, isn’t a pleasant thing good just insofar as it is pleasant, that is, if it results in nothing other than pleasure; and, on the other hand, aren’t painful things bad in the same way, just insofar as they are painful?”

“I don’t know, Socrates, if I should answer as simply as you put the question—that everything pleasant is good and everything painful is bad. It seems to me to be safer to respond not merely with my present answer in mind but from the point of view of my life overall, that on the one hand, there are pleasurable things which are not good, and on the other hand, there are painful things which are not bad but some which are, and a third class which is neutral—neither bad nor good.”

“You call pleasant things those which partake of pleasure or produce pleasure?”

“Certainly.”

“So my question is this: Just insofar as things are pleasurable are they good? I am asking whether pleasure itself is not a good.”

“Just as you always say, Socrates, let us inquire into this matter, and if your claim seems reasonable and it is established that pleasure and the good are the same, then we will come to agreement; otherwise we will disagree.” 

“Do you wish to lead this inquiry, or shall I?”

“It is fitting for you to lead, for it is you who brought up the idea.”

“All right, will this help to make it clear? When someone evaluates a 

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man‘s health or other functions of the body through his appearance, he looks at the face and extremities, and might say: ‘Show me your chest and back too, so that I can make a better examination.’ That’s the kind of investigation I want to make. Having seen how you stand on the good and the pleasant, I need to say something like this to you: Come now, Protagoras, and reveal this about your mind: What do you think about knowledge? Do you go along with the majority or not? Most people think this way about it, that it is not a powerful thing, neither a leader nor a ruler. They do not think of it in that way at all; but rather in this way: while knowledge is often present in a man, what rules him is not knowledge but rather anything else—sometimes anger, sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain, at other times love, often fear; they think of his knowledge as being utterly dragged around by all these other things as if it were a slave. Now, does the matter seem like that to you, or does it seem to you that knowledge is a fine thing capable of ruling a person, and if someone were to know what is good and bad, then he would not be forced by anything to act otherwise than knowledge dictates, and intelligence would be sufficient to save a person?”

“Not only does it seem just as you say, Socrates, but further, it would be shameful indeed for me above all people to say that wisdom and knowledge are anything but the most powerful forces in human activity.”

“Right you are. You realize that most people aren’t going to be convinced by us. They maintain that most people are unwilling to do what is best, even though they know what it is and are able to do it. And when I have asked them the reason for this, they say that those who act that way do so because they are overcome by pleasure or pain or are being ruled by one of the things I referred to just now.”

“I think people say a lot of other things erroneously too, Socrates.”

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“Come with me, then, and let’s try to persuade people and to teach them what is this experience which they call being overcome by pleasure, because of which they fail to do the best thing when they know what it is. For perhaps if we told them that what they were saying isn’t true, but is demonstrably false, they would ask us: ‘Protagoras and Socrates, if this is not the experience of being overcome by pleasure, but something other than that, what do you two say it is? Tell us.’ ”

“Socrates, why is it necessary for us to investigate the opinion of ordinary people, who will say whatever occurs to them?”

“I think this will help us find out about courage, how it is related to the other parts of virtue. If you are willing to go along with what we agreed just now, that I will lead us toward what I think will turn out to
be the best way to make things clear, then fine; if you are not willing, I will give it up.”

“No, you are right; proceed as you have begun.”

“Going back, then; if they should ask us: ‘We have been speaking of “being overcome by pleasure.” What do you say this is?’ I would reply to them this way: ‘Listen. Protagoras and I will try to explain it to you. Do you hold, gentlemen, that this happens to you in circumstances like these—you are often overcome by pleasant things like food or drink or sex, and you do those things all the while knowing they are ruinous?’ They would say yes. Then you and I would ask them again: ‘In what sense do you call these things ruinous? Is it that each of them is pleasant in itself and produces immediate pleasure, or is it that later they bring about diseases and poverty and many other things of that sort? Or even if it doesn’t bring about these things later, but gives only enjoyment, would it still be a bad thing, just because it gives enjoyment in whatever way?’ Can we suppose then, Protagoras, that they would make any other answer than that bad things are bad not because they bring about immediate pleasure, but rather because of what happens later, disease and things like that?”

“I think that is how most people would answer.”

“ ‘And in bringing about diseases and poverty, do they bring about pain?’ I think they would agree.”

“Yes.”

“ ‘Does it not seem to you, my good people, as Protagoras and I maintain, that these things are bad on account of nothing other than the fact that 

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they result in pain and deprive us of other pleasures?’ Would they agree?”

Protagoras concurred.

“Then again, suppose we were to ask them the opposite question: ‘You who say that some painful things are good, do you not say that such things as athletics and military training and treatments by doctors such as cautery, surgery, medicines, and starvation diet are good things even though painful?’ Would they say so?”

“Yes.”

“ ‘Would you call these things good for the reason that they bring about intense pain and suffering, or because they ultimately bring about health and good condition of bodies and preservation of cities and power over others and wealth?’ Would they agree?”

“Yes.”

“ ‘These things are good only because they result in pleasure and in the relief and avoidance of pain? Or do you have some other criterion in view, other than pleasure and pain, on the basis of which you would call these things good?’ They say no, I think.”

“And I would agree with you.”

“ ‘So then you pursue pleasure as being good and avoid pain as bad?’ ”

“Yes.”

“ ‘So this you regard as bad, pain, and pleasure, you regard as good, since you call the very enjoying of something bad whenever it deprives us of greater pleasures than it itself provides, or brings about greater pains than the very pleasures inherent in it? But if you call the very enjoying of something bad for some other reason and with some other criterion in view than the one I have suggested, you could tell us what it is; but you won’t be able to.’ ”

“I don’t think they’ll be able to either.”

“ ‘And likewise concerning the actual state of being in pain? Do you call the actual condition of being in pain good, whenever it relieves pains greater than the ones it contains or brings about greater pleasures than its attendant pains? Now, if you are using some other criterion than the one I have suggested, when you call the very condition of being pained good, you can tell us what it is; but you won’t be able to.’ ”

“Truly spoken.”

“Now, again, gentlemen, if you asked me: ‘Why are you going on so much about this and in so much detail?’ I would reply, forgive me. First of all, it is not easy to show what it is that you call ‘being overcome by

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pleasure,’ and then, it is upon this very point that all the arguments rest. But even now it is still possible to withdraw, if you are able to say that the good is anything other than pleasure or that the bad is anything other than pain. Or is it enough for you to live life pleasantly without pain? If it is enough, and you are not able to say anything else than that the good and the bad are that which result in pleasure and pain, listen to this. For I say to you that if this is so, your position will become absurd, when you say that frequently a man, knowing the bad to be bad, nevertheless does that very thing, when he is able not to do it, having been driven and overwhelmed by pleasure; and again when you say that a man knowing the good is not willing to do it, on account of immediate pleasure, having been overcome by it. Just how absurd this is will become very clear, if we do not use so many names at the same time, ‘pleasant’ and ‘painful,’ ‘good’ and ‘bad’; but since these turned out to be only two things, let us instead call them by two names, first, ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ then later, ‘pleasant’ and ‘painful.’ On that basis, then, let us say that a man knowing bad things to be bad, does them all the same. If then someone asks us: ‘Why?’ ‘Having been overcome,’ we shall reply. ‘By what?’ he will ask us. We are no longer able to say ‘by pleasure,’—for it has taken on its other name, ‘the good’ instead of ‘pleasure’—so we will say and reply that ‘he is overcome . . .’‘By what?’ he will ask. ‘By the good,’ we will say, ‘for heaven’s sake!’ If by chance the questioner is rude he might burst out laughing and say: ‘What you’re saying is ridiculous—someone does what is bad, knowing that it is bad, when it is not necessary to do it, having been overcome by the good. So,’ he will say, ‘within yourself, does the good outweigh the bad or not?’ We will clearly say in reply that it does not; for if it did, the person who we say is overcome by pleasure would not have made any mistake. ‘In virtue of what,’ he might say, ‘does the good outweigh the bad or the bad the good? Only in that one is greater and one is smaller, or more and less.’ We could not help but agree. ‘So clearly then’ he will say, ‘by “being overcome” you mean getting more bad things for the sake of fewer good things.’

That settles that, then.

“So let’s now go back and apply the names ‘the pleasant’ and ‘the painful’ to these very same things. Now let us say that a man does what before we called ‘bad’things and now shall call ‘painful’ ones, knowing they are painful 

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things, but being overcome by pleasant things, although it is clear that they do not outweigh them. But how else does pleasure outweigh pain, except in relative excess or deficiency? Isn’t it a matter (to use other terms) of larger and smaller, more or fewer, greater or lesser degree? 

“For if someone were to say: ‘But Socrates, the immediate pleasure is very much different from the pleasant and the painful at a later time,’ I would reply, ‘They are not different in any other way than by pleasure and pain, for there is no other way that they could differ. Weighing is a good analogy; you put the pleasures together and the pains together, both the near and the remote, on the balance scale, and then say which of the two is more. For if you weigh pleasant things against pleasant, the greater and the more must always be taken; if painful things against painful, the fewer and the smaller. And if you weigh pleasant things against painful, and the painful is exceeded by the pleasant—whether the near by the remote or the remote by the near—you have to perform that action in which the pleasant prevails; on the other hand, if the pleasant is exceeded by the painful, you have to refrain from doing that. Does it seem any different to you, my friends?’ I know that they would not say otherwise.”

Protagoras assented.

“Since this is so, I will say to them: ‘Answer me this: Do things of the same size appear to you larger when seen near at hand and smaller when seen from a distance, or not?’ They would say they do. ‘And similarly for thicknesses and pluralities? And equal sounds seem louder when near at hand, softer when farther away?’ They would agree. ‘If then our well-being depended upon this, doing and choosing large things, avoiding and not doing the small ones, what would we see as our salvation in life? Would it be the art of measurement or the power of appearance? While the power of appearance often makes us wander all over the place in confusion, often changing our minds about the same things and regretting our actions and choices with respect to things large and small, the art of measurement in contrast, would make the appearances lose their power by showing us the truth, would give us peace of mind firmly rooted in the truth and would save our life.’ Therefore, would these men agree, with this in mind, that the art of measurement would save us, or some other art?”

“I agree, the art of measurement would.”

“What if our salvation in life depended on our choices of odd and even, when the greater and the lesser had to be counted correctly, either the same kind against itself or one kind against the other, whether it be near or remote?

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What then would save our life? Surely nothing other than knowledge, specifically some kind of measurement, since that is the art of the greater and the lesser? In fact, nothing other than arithmetic, since it’s a question of the odd and even? Would these men agree with us or not?”

Protagoras thought they would agree.

“Well, then, my good people: Since it has turned out that our salvation in life depends on the right choice of pleasures and pains, be they more or fewer, greater or lesser, farther or nearer, doesn’t our salvation seem, first of all, to be measurement, which is the study of relative excess and deficiency and equality?”

“It must be.”

“And since it is measurement, it must definitely be an art, and knowledge.”

“They will agree.”

“What exactly this art, this knowledge is, we can inquire into later; that it is knowledge of some sort is enough for the demonstration which Protagoras and I have to give in order to answer the question you asked us. You asked it, if you remember, when we were agreeing that nothing was stronger or better than knowledge, which always prevails, whenever it is present, over pleasure and everything else. At that point you said that pleasure often rules even the man who knows; since we disagreed, you went on to ask us this: ‘Protagoras and Socrates, if this experience is not d being overcome by pleasure, what is it then; what do you say it is? Tell us.’ If immediately we had said to you ‘ignorance,’ you might have laughed at us, but if you laugh at us now, you will be laughing at yourselves. For you agreed with us that those who make mistakes with regard to the choice of pleasure and pain, in other words, with regard to good and bad, do so because of a lack of knowledge, and not merely a lack of knowledge but a lack of that knowledge you agreed was measurement. And the mistaken act done without knowledge you must know is one done from ignorance. . . .”