The Apology By Plato And Tao Te Ching - 2111 Words

Many decisions involve a considerable amount of contemplation and reasoning. These decisions include the ethical dilemmas we encounter every day on an individual and global scale, such as contemplating whether capital punishment is just or unjust. Ethics is often confused with factors that are not cohesive with our true self but that are induced from society. Ethics is not feelings, religion, science, or following the law and cultural norm. Ethics is, however, a set of moral behaviors that tell us what is right and wrong in different situations. Through writings such as The Apology by Plato and Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu we are can more clearly get a picture of what it means to be ethical and how to respond to ethical dilemmas. In Plato’s The Apology, Socrates supports the fairness and justice ethical approach by recognizing that all equals must be treated equally. Socrates went in search of politicians, poets, and craftsmen; all people claiming to have a higher status an d greater intelligence because of their skills. However, through cross-examination he found that these men were not superior to the common man. In fact, he realized that believing one has a specialized type of knowledge actually limits human wisdom. We must realize that one person is not superior to another simply because of their occupation, education, race, or gender. No two people are the same; the politicians, poets, craftsmen, and the common man are all very different, but nonetheless, theyShow MoreRelated The Fine Arts are Essential for the Attainment of Human Excellence1582 Words   |  7 Pagesthe purity and profundity of the art is lost in â€Å"bearing witness to its own validity.† The goal, thus, is to have the experience of satori each time the act of painting or sculpting occurs, and letting it do the art. Te Taoist tradition also supports this as, from the Tao Te Ching, â€Å"a good artist lets his intuition / lead him wherever it wants,† (Lao Tzu 27). Now, it is still important to know the various techniques associated with the art form in particular. For only if a craft knowledge is attained