Socrates Inquiry Method - Essay Example

March 9, Philosophy First Part: Freud is called the Socrates of our 20th Century (Leonard 208). Consequently, Freud would adhere to Freud’s concepts. Socrates would adhere to Freud’s espousing human beings are by nature freedom loving. People have the primary desire to do whatever they desire in life. The desires include freely practicing their diverse religious beliefs, based on their psychological upbringing. Today, there are many religions in the world, including Islam, Jewish Faith, Christian faith, Hinduism, Confucianism, and others. Socrates’ inquiry method will explain why society must ensure the practice of religion should not endanger the lives of other individuals, including keeping peace and order among its inhabitant (Quinodoz 235). Likewise, Socrates adheres to Freud’s concept of man’s nature (Quinodoz 235). Man’s nature includes the primary desire to kill. Preventing the person from killing the enemy soldier during war will make the person very sad. The person is sad because a living enemy will have a chance to kill the person. With a dead enemy, the person has more chances for survival. However, society will not grant man the authority to kill anyone except for self defense reasons as law enforcers or soldiers. Sometimes, drivers want to kill another driver for bumping and damaging the car during busy traffic situations (Drassinower 156). Socrates’ inquiry method makes each inquisitive person understand why society is preventing man’s nature from being freely implemented. Further, Socrates adheres to the Freud’s concept of man’s nature primary desire to have sex. A person who has sex with another person, especially of the opposite gender, makes the person happy. Preventing such person from having sex will make the person unhappy. Socrates’ inquiry method makes each inquisitive person understand why society is preventing man’s normal desire to have sex (Quinodoz 235). Furthermore, Socrates will adhere to Freud’s espousing society institutes laws to prevent people from becoming happy. The states’ instituting laws that prevent the person from killing one’s enemies, the society is directly making the person unhappy. Society institutes laws in order to keep order in society. The laws institute a justice system. The law requires that all criminals shall be brought to justice. Consequently, justice courts will try the cases. Both accusers and the suspected criminals will present their evidences to the court jury and judge. The courts will decide whether the suspect is guilty of the crime of not. When the court case decision is not guilty, the court sets the suspected person free to roam the city. When the court case decision shows the suspect is guilty of murder, rape, robbery, or any other crime, the court implements the correct punishments for the crime. The correct punishment could be money to be paid to the victims, incarceration or life imprisonment. In other courts, death penalty is meted to the heinous crime convicted person. Socrates’ inquiry method will help resolve the conflict between the person’s superego and ego, failure to do so may result in civilization discontent (Quinodoz 235). Additionally, Socrates’ value_of inquiry method helps create understanding among the parties concerned. By asking questions to the confused persons of society, the people will learn to understand why society implemented the laws. For example, the inquiry to a person may say: why do you him killed? The person will say, because he raped my daughter. Socrates will ask, what will happen if the relatives of the rapist will learn that you killed the rapists? The person will reply, they may kill me or bring me to court. The value of inquiry helps the person realize that society imposed the laws in order to prevent people from creating chaos in society (Brown 1). In the same manner, Socrates’ value _of inquiry method allows the government leaders to explain to the people the purpose for the laws. By sending questions to the law makers or political leaders in society, the political leaders are able to innovate or renovate the current laws. For example, an inquiry value question may determine whether the current penalties or punishments imposed on the criminal elements are able to reduce or eliminate certain crimes. If the answer is in the negative, the government law makers and other political leaders may increase the penalties for certain crimes to reduce future crime incidents. Socrates’ drawing a square on a sand and asks the boy if the drawing made was a square. The Socrates value of inquiry went further when Socrates asked if the lines passing through the middle of the square are of equal level to gather more information (Brown 1). Second Part As Sigmund_Freud, the culture-based superego concept does not significantly take into consideration the persons’ mental process (Boulton 246). Freud emphasizes that all individuals have the capacity to obey whatever society imposes on the individuals. Society imposes rules, policies, regulations, and laws on its residents and other transients. Freud requires each person must not determine the reason or basis for either obeying or disobeying society’s prescribed policies, laws, rules, and other statutes. Freud espouses the superego prescribed implementation of moral concepts. However, man’s id requires obeying uncoordinated instinct-based trends. The person’s ego focuses on mediating between the person’s id and persons’ superego. Consequently, the persons’ ego prioritizes obeying the moral laws. In the case of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount command to love one’s enemy as you, the command runs as a superego instruction, a morality issue (Boulton 246). However, the normal person’s instinct or id requires that one must defeat or kill the enemies. Consequently, the person’s ego makes both sides seek amicable settlement. Thus, each person must exert more than enough efforts to love one’s enemies. If such efforts fail to convert a current enemy to a new friend, then the friendship overtures must be replaced with adversarial acts. Such acts are necessary in order for survival. The enemy may not accept the friendly overtures and still continue to try to kill or main the friendly person. When this happens, there is a high probability that the friendly person may be killed or maimed in the process. Thus, the person must shift to adversarial mode. The adversarial mode includes defending oneself from being attacked or harmed by the enemy. The same adversarial mode may include necessarily killing the enemy to prevent the enemy from killing the friendly person. Moreover, Freud insists that the person’s superego concept dictates that the person must not think whether one should or should not implement the Sermon on the Mount instruction to love one’s enemy. The superego concept prohibits the person from having any reservations in the implementation of the command to love your enemy. This includes possibly offering signs that one want to make friends with the enemy. A person may have reservations such as the possibility that the enemy may shot to death the person who attempts to move closer to extend a hand of friendship. Another reservation occurs when the person intending to obey the command to love one’s enemy generates a possible scenario that the refusal of the enemy to reciprocate the friendship-based love overtures, hurting the person’s feelings (Boulton 246). Further, Freud opines Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount instructions are against basic human nature or instinct. Basic human nature is grounded on survival of the fittest. To survive, one must be the strongest person in a strength-based survival game. Lions kill cows for food because lions are stronger than the cows. However, survival is based on different factors. In war, the soldier with the more powerful submachine gun weapon has the better chance of defeating the enemy holding a ten inch knife (Boulton 246). Moreover, Feud feels that Jesus’ instructing people to love the enemy cause discontent to the people. Freud’s reasoning is based on human nature, id. Loving one’s enemy runs counter to human nature to freely kill and have sex. Freud espoused a person’s psychological instinct is to be aggressive to be erotic. Jesus’ love your enemies and other Mount sermon instructions run counter to the basic instinct of the normal person (Bauman 402). Consequently, Jesus’ instructions normally make people unhappy (Bauman 402). For example, a father sees his 10 daughter raped in front of his eyes. The father is able to get his gun and corners the rapist. The rapist stops the rape and holds his hand up in the air and pleads for mercy. The rapist claims he is insane and does not know he was doing. Holding the suspect at gunpoint inside the family home garage rape scene, the father is now filled with vengeful boiling hot anger. To the father, the rapist is the enemy. The father is now reminded of Jesus’ instructions to love the enemy, the rapist. The father is caught between revenge or giving the rapist enemy a love hug. If the father chooses the love the enemy, the father is sad because the rapist will go free. If the father chooses to kill the father and charge that the rapist trespassed and raped his daughter, the father is happy. However, the father violated Jesus’ command to love the enemy. Works Cited Bauman, Clarence. The Sermon on the Mount. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985. Print. Boulton, Wayne. From Christ to the World. Grand Rapids: B Eerdmans Press, 1994. Print. Brown, Stuart. Conceptions of Inquiry. New York: Routledge Press, 2005. Print. Drassinower, Abraham. Freuds Theory of Culture. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Print. Leonard, M. Socrates and the Jews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Print. Quinodoz, Jean. Reading Freud. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005. Print. Read More