240616 What I learned in my studies this morning 4

Today's Meditation(s):

Discourses, 2.26.4-5, 7(Waterfield)

This seems more than difficult.

Trying to convince a starving mother not to steal to feed her children because she's aiming for worldly goals not up to her rather than for virtue to protect her soul . . . human psychology is not wired this way.

Many people can be, are, convinced that theirs is not the right approach, but the only option they have. It's sin or die. Viciousness or extinction.

I can blame myself all I want, but this is asking that we teach a person in dire straits the whole of philosophy so as to overcome their innate reproductive and parental instincts.

Yes, philosophy is, in part, about learning to do exactly that, but now it's the difference between teaching a student who has time to study and a student who spends all their energy simply surviving.

Is philosophy only for Veblen's leisure class? See also....