Listen to part of a lecture in a philosophy class.
請聽一段哲學課上的演講。
The professor has been talking about ethics.
教授在講倫理學。
OK. If we're going to discuss goodness and justice—
如果我們要討論美德和正義——
what makes an individual good or a society just or virtuous—then we need to start with the ancient Greeks.
使個人善良或者使社會公正或純良的品德——那么我們需要從古希臘開始講。
So we'll start with Plato—Plato's philosophy.
我們從柏拉圖開始——柏拉圖的哲學思想。
Now, some of you may have studied Plato 's philosophy in some other course, so this might be easy.
你們有一些人也許已經在別的課程上學習過柏拉圖的哲學思想了,所以這應該會很簡單。
OK. At the risk of boring you, let me give you just an overview of Plato's ethical theory.
好了。冒著讓你們覺得厭煩的風險,我給你們概括下柏拉圖的倫理理論。
Plato says the soul has—and by “soul” he simply means that which animates the body, gives it life—
柏拉圖認為靈魂——他僅僅指賦予身體生命,使它有生氣的東西——
anyway, he says that the soul has three separate parts...called, um, “faculties,” which I'll come back to.
總之,他說靈魂有三個獨立的部分,稱為“能力”,我稍后會提到。
He believed that goodness in an individual was to be found when the three parts of the soul worked together,
他認為在靈魂的三個部分一起作用時,能發現個人的美德,
when they weren't in conflict, but existed in harmony.
當它們沒有沖突,處于和平狀態時。
A good or just person will have a soul in which the three faculties work well together.
一個善良或者正直的人,靈魂的這三個功能磨合得很好。
So, how does he arrive at that analysis?
那么,他是如何獲得那個分析的呢?
Well, he starts out in his very famous work, The Republic, um,
他在他的著作《理想國》里開始分析,
he starts out by saying it's very difficult to get a grasp on what the individual's soul looks like.
他說很難掌握個人的靈魂是什么樣子的。
So, to get some idea of what the individual human soul is like,
要想了解人類的靈魂,
he says we should study the structure of society—what kinds of people and activities every society has to have.
他說,我們應該研究社會的結構——每個社會都需要什么樣的人和社會活動。
He argues that every society has to have three groups of people: workers, soldiers, and leaders.
他說,社會必須有三種人:工人,士兵和領導者。
And each has a sort of defining characteristic.
每種人有都有其特征。
Every society has to have workers like farmers or, um, people who work in factories,
社會里都需要有工人,比如農民或者是在工廠里工作的人,
producing all the things that we need for everyday life.
來生產我們日常生活所需要的東西。
And according to Plato, the key feature of workers is that they're focused on their own desires or appetites—
據柏拉圖說,工人的主要特征是他們專注于自己的欲望或喜好——
interested in satisfying the needs of the body. So workers are associated with desire...OK?
樂于滿足身體的需要。所以工人與欲望聯系在一起。懂了嗎?
Now, if you live in a society that has a good amount of wealth—
那么,如果你生活在一個擁有巨大財富的社會里,
um, good agriculture, good industry—other societies are probably going to try to take it.
多產的農業,精良的工業——其他的社會也許正覬覦著它。
So you need a class of soldiers, who are supposed to protect the state from external threats.
那么就會需要士兵來保護國家免于外來威脅。
Well, these soldiers, well, they're going to be in dangerous situations quite frequently,
這些士兵,他們會經常處于險境,
so you need people with, um, a...a lot of high spirit—uh, an emotional type of individual.
所以就需要有著飽滿精神的人,感情強烈的個人。
Emotion is what characterizes this group.
所以這種人的特點是感情強烈。