Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The "proper qualities" of a human being
As part of his defense, Socrates brings up the differences between the "proper qualities" of a horse and the "proper qualities" of a human being. Explain what these differences are. Explain why it is not enough to describe a human being as a list of such qualities.
18 comments:
There is more to being a human than physical attributes and capabilities. Horses don't have minds like humans do. Human minds are quite complex. Horses don't have to think about things like how to please the people around them. They don't feel guilt or depression the way humans do. They don't wake up some days feeling like they can conquer the world and other days feeling like the world's collapsing around them. When we think of a horse, we think of this beautiful creature - it should be strong, fast, obedient, reliable. Humans do share these qualities, but it goes so much deeper than that. A horse is strong and fast because it was taught to be that way and it is beautiful because someone made it beautiful. Some humans struggle every day to feel beautiful, and some aren't fast enough or strong enough because there's more to life than just to be those things. A horse's life is predetermined. A human's life is subjective. I could probably go on forever with this, but I wouldn't want to bore you...
I agree with Sibely; but i also wanted to summarize my own thoughts. Horses do have personalities, and characteristics, but much of that is manipulated my human beings. In other words, we train them to cooperate with us and work well, etc. Horses' desires are quite obvious. Finding out the qualities of a human being is quite "unlist-able"
because since we're intelligent beings, we have different desires and lifestyles, and the fact that we're all different contributes to it.
----Fahmida Ferdousi
So humans are natrualy more advanced beings then horses. A horse live a simple live. Being the greatest in speed and strenth and otehr physically mesurable assets basically makes up the good life of a horse.
We can have the same assets but our lives still wouldn't be a good one with all the physically mesurable assets. Us humans find true happieness in aquireing(sp?) what we want. Love, matieral, money, and otehr things are all a part of our nature to want. We want these things. These thigns make us happy thus we want,desire,need these things which are much ahrder to get then sometihng like barley for a horse...neyyyyyy :D
Socrates brings up the differences between the "proper qualities" of a horse and the "proper qualities" of a human being. Proper qualities of a horse would be physical strength, including the ability to dash, along with many other strength and aesthetic preferences. Proper qualities of a human go much deeper than beauty or strength. Humans judge each by character and values rather than just physical qualities. It would be simply impractical to describe a human being with a list as one does with a horse. The proper human being has many character traits,and values that make them unique. If a person lacks one of these traits it does not make them a improper person. This leads me to my other point, "proper"-ness is completely subjective in humans, what may constitute a proper person to one man or woman, tends be variant with other peoples ideas. Thus any argument of a proper person is arbitrary one. While a proper horse is a completely objective, provable one.
The proper qualities of a horse is simple, it needs to be fast, obedient, and strong. Humans also need these qualitites to some extent. The difference between the two though, is that unlike a horse, which leads a very simplistic life, humans choose to live a life that is complex. Humans are usually never satisfied with what they have because there are always more things out there for a human to want. Our emotions and our intellect drive us to want more. A horse on the other hand cares mainly if it has lived the life a normal horse would live. Humans differ so much though, which makes it impossible to experience all the world has to give us. We know the task is impossible but unless we've tried we are not satisified, but there isn't enough time in the world for us to experience all of it.
Some of the ideal proper qualities of a horse are, strength, speed, endurance, obidience, and hard work. These ideal qualities for a horse will also be good qualities for a human. But the difference between humans and horses are humans are more complex.
So these physical qualities only define a minscule part of our being. We also have mental traits and qualities as well.Since horses have a small brain capacity and less complex society there is no need for mental qualities. Where as humans depend on them more than horses and another reason for this is our social structure. As well as our desires for various luxuries and emotions. This is why it isnt enough to describe humans with physical qualities.
- Arman Warner
As we pointed out in class, that doesn't seem to be many differences between the "proper qualities" of a horse and the "proper qualities" of a human being. But what i think the differences are that weren't noted is that the "proper qualities" of a horse is based on the ideas of what a horse should be in the perspective of a human being. The "proper qualities" of a human being are based on the ideas that society has in its perspective.
It is not enough to describe a human being as a list of such qualities because, as human beings, we want to see more things happen to ourselves then what was just listed on that list of qualities, so, in that sense, humans wouldn't compare themselves to horses on those quailites because humans always want to see themselves better off than anything else, more or less, horses.
Proper qualities of a horse and a human are very different. In addition, human beings cannot be described as just a list of qualities. Humans have not just qualities, but also thoughts. Humans have hopes and dreams, which cannot be described as a "proper quality." While horses have "proper qualities" of physical features such as muscle strength and endurance. On the other hand, human beings have "proper qualities" of not only physical features, although also mental features.
What someone would look for in a horse would be physical details like strength or agility. while though humans share the same desired qualities, we also look for less physical details like intelligence or wisdom.
If we had only looked at a humans desired qualities, we would not be able to make any comparisons about how the horses dont care about things like emotions and other mental qualities.
I like what Adrian said about how it's our values and character traits that make us proper humans. Do horses have values? And if they do, who decides for them that these are good values or bad values? Humans?
As human beings, there will always be society looming over us checking to see if we're 'acceptable' or not. It's the same way a horse trainer/breeder is. If the horse is being insufficient, it will train it harder. If a human is being immoral, society will target us and force its beliefs on us to try to mold us into what they want us to be.
Not only are human minds complex, but their lives are even more complex. Horses have daily schedules bestowed upon them by their breeders. Humans shape their own lives that may or may not be bombarded by society's wants/needs.
Horses and humans have many similar qualities that can be considered "good," such as strength, speed and obedience. However, what separates us from horses is the fact that we think for ourselves and hold our own opinions on specific matters, instead of just living up to what you were raised to do, as a horse does. If there were a checklist of good qualities, you could check them off one by one for a horse. On the other hand, if you had a checklist like this for humans, you could only check it off to a certain extent; for example, you couldn't check off how intelligent or wise someone is, and many of the items on the list would be matters of opinion, such as political views. You can't check these off as yes or no, because they rely entirely on what the person belives.
The proper qualities of a horse would be things like agility speed and good teeth and more but these kinds of things do nothing to describe the personality of the horse but as far as we at this time know there is a difference in humans that is a personality or a soul as in what you are not what you do but the way that your thinking charges how you act and this is needed when describing humans. We need such things to describe us and the relationship of how those things affect the person or people and make us what we are.
leopold
It is completly impractical to judge a human in the same manner/ qualities as a horse. One would judge a horse and say that it has qualities simply based on physical attributes such as strength and speed. From this people can easily come to a conclusion as to whether a horse is of good quality or not. However this is completly different with humans. One cannot conclude that a human is of good quality because he is fast or strong or anything physical for that matter. To judge a person, one has to base it off of personality, morals, and such things that are not visivle. But because people have different views on what is good and not, it is hard to come to a conclusion as to whether a person has proper qualities.
-Santiljan Vukaj
Socrates brings up differences in "proper qualities" between humans and horses for his defense. It has been decided that the "proper qualities" of a horse are the ability to do work efficiently, the ability to run fast, looking beautiful, and others. Humans go well with this list, but the "proper qualities" of humans are beyond the "proper qualities" of horses. Humans are intellectually better than horses. So, as of their "proper qualities" in addition to being able to work well and etc., are like the ability to think effectively, being creative and innovative,and being moral in their actions and many more. It can be concluded that the lives of humans are much more complex than those of horses, and therefore, the "proper qualities" of horses can't compare with those of humans.
Candy Lin
The Proper qualities of horses and human beings are different and similar at the same time. We can consider a horse "good" when it meets the standard of the physical qualities of a horse,such as speed and strength. Even though human also have those physical qualities that are similar to the horses, but human, instead, cannot be considered "good" no matter how beautiful or powerful they are. The proper qualities of a human being is more mentally than physically. Which means that the "goodness" of human cannot be measured and determined in anyway.
The difference between human qualities and horse qualities is not exactly complicated. Horses are all bred for the same reason: To be strong, healthy, obedient and fast. These are traits that can be easily measured; Can you pull a carriage, win a race, obey your master, and live a long life? Congratulations, here's a sugar cube. A human, however, can be bred, no, raised for various reasons, depending on who their teacher was. They could learn to be sneaky, clever, strong, honest, whatever. And things like honesty and sneakiness are not things that can easily be measured, especially not when they're applied to humans. This is because all people think differently, and someone a person considers to be clever might be considered dumb by another. Besides all this, all people are just plain different from one another, and just categorizing a person by the talents he possesses takes away from the person that he is.
Sorry. The above comment belonged to Louis.
The proper qualities of a horse are more about their physical characteristics while humans are judged on alot more than their physique. Humans are judged on their personality, their actions and how accountable thay are for their actions. A horse is bred to have certain qualities: speed, efficiency and strength, whereas, it is much more difficult to determine the proper qualities of humans. For instance courts were established to help define individuals' accoutability for their actions. This does assist in determining the proper qualities of humans but even this is not sufficient.
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