Philosophy Therories of Right and Wrong

A detailed Summary of Philosophy Therories of Right and Wrong

When a person is born, they do not know the difference between right and wrong. The word philosophy means the love of knowledge. In order to gain any substantial amount of knowledge, people must question the events in the world around them by asking how or why questions. Socrates, and Aristotle, two well-known philosophers, would explain how someone would acquire knowledge by explaining the principles of right and wrong.

Socrates thinking is told through his student, Plato, who wrote down his teachers' thoughts, since Socrates did not write anything down. Socrates believed that things are born with knowledge intact much like instinct. Therefore, he believed that before we are born our soul knows everything, but when we are born our mind is a "blank slate". As we grow day by day, we recollect the knowledge from our soul. The only logical place knowledge from the soul would reside is in the un-conscience depths of the human mind. Before this knowledge can be recollected, it must first be aquatinted with the world of "forms", also referred to as experience. Plato believed that people lead past lives. His theory was based on the idea that a person's mind contains knowledge from past lives deep in

its memory. True knowledge in this world consists of remembering, reminiscence, or recollection. What the mind or soul once knew is raised to present awareness by a process of recollection aided by the technique of dialect, also known as the Socratic method. It is often said that we are born with concepts and it is these concepts that structure our minds, beliefs, and action. Socrates was able to show that young uneducated people know some truths not because someone taught the uneducated person, but because the person naturally knew the relationship of various ideas and how those ideas related to each other. This type of recollection allows people to have ideas which they become conscience of and then form a judgement of right or wrong. Socrates believed that once knowledge is learned, people will remember that knowledge and apply it when the need arises by focusing on other forms of conscience knowledge and using our minds abilities to recollect past knowledge. Socrates believed that people are born with knowledge of right and wrong. However, people need to experience situations in order to recall this un-conscience knowledge which Socrates thought resided in a persons mind or soul.

Hume's beliefs are somewhat different from his secsessor Socrates. Hume believed that when we were born, we knew nothing and all knowledge we gain in our lives is learned on a day to day basis. His theory was based on the fact that as we grow, we learn the difference between right and wrong from our experiences. The present comes from the senses and the past is in our memory. Hume shows how knowledge begins from the experiences we encounter through our five senses. It is said of Hume "...it is

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Approximate Word count = 1142
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Religion