Phil 120: Short paper 1
In his book “The Republic”, Plato [3][4] argues that human beings can only achieve happiness by performing their proper function. I think this argument is weak because human beings do not have well-ordered soul.
Plato states that every thing on earth has proper function that it needs to perform to make them considered to be good. A proper function of a thing is the unique work that can only be done by specific object. Human beings’ proper function is to have a well-ordered soul. If a person has a well-ordered soul, she will be just. Also, a human being is happy if her soul is well-ordered. Thus, only a just person can be happy. [1][3][4]
The proper function of human being is to have a well ordered soul and a well ordered soul can be defined as being a good example of her kind or do something good rationally that is good for living. This premise indirectly support Plato’s foundation premise (a human being is happy if her soul is well-ordered) which supports the conclusion of his argument [1]. Invention, a unique function that only human can perform, may not be considered as having a well-ordered soul. It is because we have invented many things that harm ourselves, like addictive drugs. Although addictive drugs, like heroin, amphetamine and morphine, provides us natural high and intense euphoria [2], they are indeed harmful to our body since we start to take them for recreational use. We know that addictive drug is not good for us, but we start to crave for the natural high since the first dose of it. Our irrational desire for the short term happiness from those drugs overrides our rational thought that we should stay away from something harmful to our health. Consequently, it sh ...