A reading of Plato’s concept of the “good life” can seem like a justification of the philosopher and the philosopher’s role, as he saw it. To Plato, living the good life meant following an ethical code, and living according to moral ideas that the individual has arrived at through learning. This intrinsic education was, to Plato, the business of the philosopher, whose understanding of morality was a matter of learned study and contemplation. For Plato, the individual should no more try to understand morality on their own than he or she should try to build a house, alone and unaided.
To the philosopher, it is essential that the individual seek to accumulate a knowledge of morality; without it, the individual is vulnerable to temptation, as in the “Ring of Gyges,” which teaches that unless one has a divine character, temptation will ultimately expose one’s vulnerability (Plato, 2000, p. 39). It is the moral responsibility of the individual to take upon him or herself the important work of learning what it is to be moral and, so, how to go about living the good life. This is where the philosopher’s role becomes so important because, to Plato, without the philosopher’s vast knowledge, the unlearned individual would be utterly unprepared to live the good life.
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"Meaning Morality and the Good Life in Plato and Frankl".
It is significant that Plato offers no clear description of what exactly the good life is all about; “Instead, Plato largely confines himself to the depiction of the good soul and the good for the soul, evidently on the assumption that the state of the soul is the condition of the good life, both necessary and sufficient to guarantee it. And given that his approaches in different dialogues vary, readers have to fit together what often looks like disparate pieces of information” (Frede, 2013). It is to the benefit of the philosopher to avoid trying to set down a clear and objective definition of what the good life means; as it was, the “state of the soul” remained the province of the philosopher, whose duty it was to interpret what that should mean to the individual.
Victor Frankl, on the other hand, seeks to give us an objective framework from which to view existence. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl describes his psychological approach to life in Auschwitz, trying to use logic and reason to find a system of belief, a justification for continuing to live despite the bleakest circumstances imaginable. Key to Frankl’s “psychotherapeutic” approach is to intellectually and emotionally accept the proposition that there is some reason for having enthusiasm about life and about the future. By coming to this understanding within oneself, the individual is able to survive regardless of whether he or she is immersed in a moral or immoral situation. In this way, the subjectivity and uncertainty inherent in ethical relativism can be made tenable and the despair that comes with existential angst overcome. Frankl cites the terrible dissociation from feelings of freedom that awaited prisoners when liberated from their imprisonment; they were convinced that their new-found liberty would simply be taken away again (2006, p. 35). Frankl describes this as a numbness, in which the enormity of what they had experienced overcame their ability to mentally process what had just happened to them.
The ethical subjectivity of their situation prevented the prisoners from fully appreciating and reveling in their freedom. The Nazis had taken them all, had exterminated millions thoughtlessly, and effortlessly. In such an apparently amoral universe, what certainty was there that Frankl and his fellow survivors would not simply be victimized again? Consequently, Frankl writes about a fellow prisoner who, despite his own moral nature, emerges from the horrors of Auschwitz determined to visit his rage and sense of injustice on those who had victimized him. Thus, Frankl reminds us of Cephalus, who undoubtedly sees justice as something that happens as the result of action, of how one interacts with others regardless of the morality or immorality of the action (Plato, 2000, p. 2). Plato would have us understand that the good life lies within everyone’s reach, if we will only seek to arm ourselves with the knowledge necessary to pursue it. Thus, the knowledge needed to live ethically is within our reach, though we must seek the means by which it can be acquired. For Frankl, each person has the innate ability to find the meaning of the good life within him or herself. Doing so is a matter of identifying one thing, one objective that can give purpose to living. With purpose, a person becomes endowed with enthusiasm, drive and ambition, which gives each day meaning.
There are elements of both perspectives at work when it comes to realizing the “wealth” of the soul. Plato posits a scenario in which the good life can be had by the individual who is willing to seek knowledge, a worthwhile and honorable endeavor that brings an expansive view of the world. And yet, it cannot be denied that it is the subjective quality that exists within each person that gives shape to knowledge. This is the essence of Frankl’s philosophy; that one must use one’s intellect to determine what constitutes the good life based on one’s own experience and understanding of the world.
