1. Philosophise: try to understand what is ‘right’ and ‘good’.
2. Practise self-restraint.
3. Do what you know to be right (or at least try to).
4. Be indifferent to non-ethical things.
5. Find the ethical value in the everyday.
6. Look after your soul-diet.
One. Philosophise: try to understand what it ‘right’ and ‘good’. Reflect on your values, your ethical beliefs, subject them to some questioning. You’re not expected to find the right and final answer – not even Socrates managed that – but you want to feel confident that what you hold to be true has a good chance of actually being so. If your values do not stand up to scrutiny, question why you hold to them.
The process is the goal here, rather than the outcome. It’s likely nothing will change as a result of the process: you begin thinking that kindness is good and cruelty bad, and you end thinking the same. The goal is not to change your mind. What the process does is force you to focus on what you really value. That focus makes those things easier to see clearly, and that clear-sightedness helps you to live in a way that is truer to what you really value. All-too-often we are vulnerable to getting distracted by things that, if we reflected honestly we’d realise, we don’t really value. It would be a shame to live in a way that is determined by things we don’t really value, when living differently, in a way more true to ourselves, is just a brief philosophical reflection away.
Two. Practise self-restraint. If there were only one piece of practical advice that Socrates offers, it would be this. It’s an idea that appears time and time again across all sources that we have for Socrates and seems to have been the most influential idea amongst many of his followers. Without the ability to control your appetites, you will forever be a slave to your desires. These desires will blind you to what you truly value and repeatedly lead you astray. The ability to exercise self-restraint does not come without practice, so you must deliberately take opportunities to exert self-control when opportunities arise.
Appetites are not limited to food and drink and sex. We also have an appetite for wealth, possessions, reputation, power. An inability to control our desires for these things will inevitably lead us astray, and the more you give these desires free rein, the harder they become to control. An inability to control our desires leaves us enslaved to them, and they are a poor and tyrannical master. What’s worse, they have a tendency to blind us to wisdom, which ought to be our true master.
Pleasure will make you feel like pleasure is all that matters. Approval and praise will make you feel like approval is all that matters. Being clever makes you feel like being clever is all that matters. Wealth and status will make you feel like wealth and status is all that matters. None of these things are a real reflection of what really matters, but you will be led to believe that they are because your body knows no other way. It has the power to convince you that things are fearful when they are not, harmful when they are not, desirable when they are not. You must exercise your powers of reason, expose these faulty beliefs through Socratic questioning, then exert some self-restraint to stop following these faulty beliefs, or else continue living in a way that is inconsistent with yourself.
Therefore, if you want to live in a way that is consistent with yourself, then you should try your best to be a master of your own appetites. You might find that you need nothing more than this practice in order to live well as a human being, because everything else comes naturally once you exert some self-restraint. Amongst Socrates’ followers, this seed of an idea took root and grew into a philosophical school of thought in its own right, finally flourishing in ‘Cynicism’. We will leave the question of whether that is the best expression of the Socratic philosophical way of life for later. But the core idea remains compelling, regardless of its expression: Until you try to be content with less, you will always be troubled with needing more.
Three. Do the right thing. Or at least try to. As we’ve seen, everything depends on living a decent life. Ill-gotten gains are not really gains at all. Gains are only good when they are well deserved. If you do what you know to be wrong, you will incur a debt in terms of soul-health. You might end up sick, or worse, scarred and mutilated. Perhaps those scars can be healed, but prevention is the best form of cure; it is better to start healthy and stay healthy, and that means always trying to do the right thing.
As with self-restraint, we don’t need a monk-like perfection here. Moderation is possible. Maybe a useful analogy is drinking alcohol: we sometimes agree (knowingly or not) to take a hangover as the price to pay for a good night before; so possibly some misdeeds are akin to a kind of soul-hangover, easily cured by the passage of time. You say something hurtful that you didn’t mean, for example, but it’s not the end of the world: you can forgive and be forgiven without too much difficulty. But just as habitual excess of alcohol can lead to increased tolerance, routine hangovers, and further health issues, so too can routine misdeeds lead to increased tolerance (you stop seeing the hurtfulness in what you say), routine hangovers (conflict and guilt becomes routine), and further health issues (shame is debilitating, relationships break down). Keeping your soul healthy is the most important thing to keep in mind, and that means prioritising the ethical. Once again, the practised ability to exert self-restraint is helpful here.
Four. Don’t value what doesn’t matter. If you acknowledge the priority of the ethical, you are free to be indifferent to non-ethical things. Don’t care so much about wealth, prestige, property, or even seemingly pro-social things like popularity or the good opinions of other people. None of these things matter to the health of your soul as much as being a good person. That realisation can be liberating.
Are you frustrated at not getting the recognition you deserve? Why? What matters is that you deserve it. Reward is accidental, not necessary for the value in the thing rewarded. People are rewarded for bad things as much as good. Reward in itself doesn’t say anything about whether it was deserved. Why want the reward when it doesn’t mean anything? Sure, it’s nicer to have than not have, but what really matters is that you deserve it. The more you can hold on to that idea, the less frustrating it will be when your good work is not recognised with reward.
Five. Find the value in what you do. Most of us are already doing things all the time that are ethically important. We are mostly polite, kind, caring, considerate, altruistic, loyal, hard-working, etc., etc. We mostly try to do right by people most of the time. Too often we ignore the value in these things, letting them become part of the background noise. But prioritising the ethical shows us that they are what really matters. If we ignore that value then we are condemning ourselves to live in a world without value. We need to see that value if we are to feel the soul-health benefits.
With this view, what can seem like an empty and frustrating day can become packed with healthy value. A kind word, a helpful effort, an act of self-restraint. Adopting the perspective of the ethical reveals a lot of value in everyday things; none of it is particularly remarkable, which is why it’s easily ignored, but it would be a shame to let it go to waste.
So don’t see your boring job as a daily grind, see it as a diligent providing for your family, or a hard-earned independence and self-sufficiency. Don’t see it as a presentation that didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, see it as a courageous overcoming of your apprehension. Don’t see it as a bad grade, see it as an honest reflection of your efforts and abilities; would you rather get a better grade and not deserve it?
There’s ethical value everywhere, driving and guiding everything we do. If only we recognised and cultivated it, we would find so much more to value in the world. This value is truly priceless: it costs nothing and yet is worth everything.
Six. Ensure your soul-diet is nutritious. Give some thought to which influences are good or bad for you, in relation to the health of your soul. A candidate here would be the broad range of things that could come under the umbrella term ‘media’: films and tv, music, literature, podcasts, news, social, etc. Consider them, consider their impact on the health of your soul, and lean towards those that are good nourishment. Lean away from those that do you harm. Find antidotes to the poison.
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