Socrates and the Five Virtues

By Emeroy Bernardo


This is an old paper I found when I was in college in 2008 that I wanted to share. You may or may not agree with what was said, these were simply expressed thoughts and shared memories.

Socrates is known for being one of the wisest men who ever lived and is considered one of the founders of Western Philosophy. He wrote nothing about himself or anything he believed in. Socrates is known for changing how the idea of the soul and, like many fifth-century Greeks, believed in five cardinal moral virtues: wisdom, justice, piety, courage, and moderation. But unlike most people, Greeks and people today, he believed that these five are connected with one another. Socrates dedicated himself to the care of the soul. He believed that a life of the superficial was a life cheated.

Socrates once stated, “The successful care of the soul brings with it many good things that are not immediately apparent. Though the wicked sometimes do seem to prosper, and their happiness is an illusion.” This statement reminds me of “good things come to those who wait.” It also reminds me of the many people today and how many are so engulfed with instant gratification or “living life in the fast lane.”

So many people are caught up with living the party life that they don’t realize that all the parties, clubs, drinking, drugs, and crazy events or adventures they go to is not only an illusion, but will all amount to nothing. They are simply pleasures of the moment; they won’t matter the following day or following week. They are people seeking happiness outside of the soul and outside of the self. Socrates was talking about looking inward to find happiness, not outward, which is what a lot of people seem to be doing nowadays. The momentary pleasures of the outward world quickly come and go, but the bliss of the inward being comes slow, but lasts for a life time and eternity.

Socrates believed in knowing when enough is enough. Living a life of moderation brings balance in a person’s life. Some may confuse living a life of moderation means living a life of prudence or precaution, as people living those lives are very careful in making decisions and taking actions. Those people are the ones that tend to miss many opportunities that come by them.

Living a life of temperance is simply knowing ones limits. A person who would want to lose weight would take into mind not only what they’re eating, but the amount as well. I’m known to have a very sarcastic and sometimes a mean sense of humor among my group of friends. I recall making one of my friends cry because of it. I learned that not everyone can handle the same level of my humor as some other people can. So since then I’ve had to calibrate how my humor is with certain people. If a friend is sensitive, I’ll still deliver the same joke, but deliver it differently whereas if it were a friend who can take my sense of humor, he’d fire right back at me with another joke.

Courage is the ability to face fear or despair. Courage takes many forms nowadays. A person living in harsh conditions and still making it through the day takes courage; a person speaking in front of a crowd takes courage. It took courage for me to continue my dance group, Elements of Style Under the Influence (ESUI), of now four years. After three years of being together, there was a decline in numbers and morale. We had gone from a group of about twelve down to three. I felt like the group wasn’t getting anywhere, we weren’t getting that much gigs like we did the year before. I was on the verge of quitting so I can just focus on school. The summer of 2007 was supposed to be the last performance of ESUI. When my friend had asked us to perform for her college dance show, I had decided to give the group one last chance before I finally threw in the towel. The gig was offered to me at October, and the performance wasn’t until December. When we had started practicing during the first month, we only had about eight, by mid-November we had about twelve. We had a total of 18 people in the group when we performed that night in December. A friend and co-founder had returned to the group and is now helping me coordinating the group. We saw the growth in the group and the potential to be a legitimate dance group. I decided to stay after that performance, and since then, our numbers have gone from 18 to 30. We’ve had many performances keeping us busy. From local night clubs in Hollywood to competitions in Las Vegas, the group was finally going towards the direction we had intended it in the beginning. It had taken courage for me to continue the group during the decline, and even more so when I had decided to give the group another chance.

Justice; The principle of right action, or the administering of deserved punishment or reward. I personally believe that every action has its consequence, and that one way or another a person will get what they deserve. Karma is what some would call it. I recall making a right turn onto an on ramp on a red light, deliberately ignoring the sign that said no right on red as I was in a hurry to get back home. That small decision to break a traffic rule back fired on me; I was pulled over immediately after I got onto the freeway and had gotten a ticket. I had paid for not obeying the traffic law. Even though it wasn’t a major law broken, it was the mere fact that I disobeyed it; I had to pay for it.

A friend of mine had to pay for his crimes towards the girls he’s dated and cheated on. When he was in his early years in high school, he was known around the school as being a “player.” Throughout high school, he eventually became known for being a player around the city. Eventually he built a reputation for being a player among few other cities such as Cerritos, and West Covina. Lately, even though he manages to go out with the girl he is interested in, they are very cautious when it comes to dating him. Some don’t even consider him at all after they find out the truth about him. It comes to show that everyone will pay for the injustices we’ve done sooner or later whether we like it or not.

Piety is known as spirituality and reverence to something greater to one’s self. And it is shown in many ways in today’s world. People show reverence towards their parents, many towards celebrity, others toward nature, and many to a higher power such as God, Allah, and Buddha. I am what my brother called me once, pious. I do my best to show reverence towards God. Before I got into college and got busy with my dance group, I used to be the president of a youth group during high school. I used to give testimonials, help lead retreats, and give food to the poor.

Giving to people really made me feel great about myself; and knowing that there’s something much bigger and more important aside from the small things that go on in my life made me worry less about everything. As I grew in my faith, there have been many things that have caused me to question God’s existence, but in the end have just grown in my faith. I learned recently that even St. Mother Teresa lived in doubt during her early years in missionary. In a letter she wrote to Rev. Michael Van Der Peet saying, “The silence and the emptiness is so great—that I look, and do not see,-Listen, but do not hear.” I’ve decided that I no matter what religion or scientific research I’m curious to learn about, it won’t affect my belief in God, but accept it as a form of knowledge that will help me expand my faith.

Wisdom is the gained knowledge, experience, and understanding of what is write and true and the capacity to act on them. When I was in middle school, I used to very trusting and very naïve in choosing my friends. I was unfortunately one of those kids who wanted to be accepted by the cool kids. I felt like I was out casted by many people in the school. I had many friends and was fairly popular during grade school, but when I finally started middle school, I felt like I had no one. Throughout seventh grade I had very little friends and was practically a loner most of the time sitting on a set of stairs near my history class. I had become paranoid and thought that people were constantly talking behind my back, and had become angry towards everyone around me.

Towards the beginning of eighth grade, I had come to realize that no one was out casting me, but I was doing it to myself. I made some new friends in the beginning of eighth grade; I had a group of friends who were extremely geeky. But I wanted something more; I wanted to be part of the popular kids in school, and I was practically willing to do anything to get in. They started accepting me more when I banged my head on the desk a few times and let one of them kick me in the genitals (thank God I was sagging my pants then so their foot never reached it). When I was finally able to hang out where the cool kids hung out and sat at, I had abandoned my old group of friends. I recall one of them saying “Oh I see how it is; you’re too cool to hang out with us now. It’s ok, we understand.” The statement had left me on a guilt trip, but it wasn’t enough for me to leave my new found acceptance among this group of people. But as I continued to hang out with them, I had come to find that they did things that I wasn’t too crazy about. I had learned that they were not only doing drugs but were sexually active. One of them had stolen my skate rail from my garage when I was skateboarder. After seeing their true nature, I left them in hoping to make amends with my old group of friends. That wasn’t exactly the case though as a handful of them were still angry at what I did to them and had shunned me away from the group. I learned one of the many important lessons that many cheesy teen movies try to teach during those years: be yourself, I shouldn’t have to conform just to fit in.

We live in a world filled with people who are constantly trying to pursue happiness through temporary pleasures. They spend too much time looking for happiness outside of themselves, when it actually is within their selves. A lesson Socrates tried to teach us when he stated, “the successful care of the soul brings with it many good things that are not immediately apparent. Though the wicked sometimes do seem to prosper, and their happiness is an illusion.” Maybe this is what Parmenides meant when he was teaching that we cannot trust our senses because the so called pleasures they bring us is an illusion. But like Heraclitus taught about opposites, day cannot be without night and life without death. So maybe we first need to learn what illusions we are living in our life before we are enlightened by the truth within.


Want more from Emeroy? Go to www.emeroy.com and emeroy.blogspot.com!

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