Is it better to do evil?

philosophy essay for 1st year uni.

Cameron R. I. Boyd October 13/09 
PHIL 101/01 
Professor Baugh 
Is it better to suffer than to do Evil? 
This is an essay in response to the question “is it better to suffer than to do evil?” of “The Western World” by Penguin Custom Editions.* 

Is it really more beneficial to suffer evil than to evil? It is, actually. We hear the basic understanding of the idea held behind it everywhere; in church, school, at home and in the media. “Turn the other cheek” and “Be the bigger man and walk away” are phrases that are often thrown around by parents while raising children, But the idea has been thrown around and so loosely followed for so long that it is no longer taken seriously. The meaning of virtue being worth all the pain and suffering possible in the world has been diluted through the some 2,356 years between when Plato presented the idea of suffering being better than doing wrong to Callicles in one of his writings, and now. 
Having pleasure is synonymous with having a disciplined and ordered soul and being a good and virtuous person. Pleasure is meant to be sought as a means to good (Page 19), which means that one should do good deeds because they’re good deeds, and he finds happiness in them. If there is the presence of good, then we are good, if we are good we are in the presence of an excellent thing, ethereal or physical, whose excellence comes from a predetermined order of the situation. This means the soul has a predetermined order of self discipline to it, making the man who owns it act accordingly towards god and his fellow man. The good man with the orderly soul will do good in all his actions, causing him to be enviable and happy, whereas the wicked man with the disorderly and undisciplined soul will be wretched (Page 20). The wicked man will not act fairly towards others and will not please god as well as he could. His having an undisciplined soul disallows him to do good things. If a man with an undisciplined soul wished to do good actions, his first step would have to be to mend his soul. He would have to take the mess it would be, and put some sort of order to it, making priorities and morals. With morals comes virtue and discipline, acting on those two key things is the next step to being a virtuous person. 
The wicked and wretched man, or group of people, with an undisciplined soul or virtue-lacking ideology will need correction before they will be able to find love (Page 20). Most people would agree that love is happiness, for the most part, and vice versa. This being true, rather than punishment being paid to a wrong-doer, correction should be made. This would point the wrong doer in the right direction, with the intent to pursue happiness through good and virtuous ways, rather than through undisciplined greed. With correction, the disorderly soul may be able to find happiness and love in their social life. A man who falls victim to his wants and thirsts and lusts and greed will not find the happiness of god or man, and will have no such social life where he would be able to find love. A corrected man would be virtuous and enjoyable, allowing him to have a social life, where through which he would be able to find such love happiness like never before while he was ruled by his selfish wants. 
The people who are happy are happy because they are virtuous and orderly, and the unhappy people are unhappy because they are wicked and selfish, causing them to have no social life in which they could find true happiness and love(Page 20). Happy people pursue good for pleasure, making them virtuous as well as happy, which is free to be and virtue can be found and used in any situation. Unhappy people pursue pleasure to be happy, letting their basic wants and greed control what they do, making them disorderly, which makes them unhappy. Having an undisciplined soul is like being controlled by a wild animal, while having a disciplined soul is having the ability to think and consider, and to choose the virtuous path. 
To inflict wrong upon someone is to inflict greater wrong on yourself. “...to inflict any wrong upon me and mine brings more hard and disgrace upon the wrong-doer than upon me who suffer the wrong.” (Page 21) Socrates argues that doing wrong is the second most thing that does wrong to themselves, whereas the worst thing is to do wrong and go uncorrected for it. This is because when someone does wrong, they are feeding that animalistic soul they have, and if they go on without being corrected in what they did, that animal received no reprimand for its actions, and has no reason to not do such a thing again. In the same respect, if someone does wrong to another, the recipient of the wrong doing is obligated to try to correct the assailants’ actions, if the victim were a virtuous person. Correction of an undisciplined soul is putting order to it, making the person change their priorities, like previously stated, they would pursue good for happiness rather than pleasure for happiness, which would make them a virtuous person. 
So if a wrong doer was to wrong a virtuous man, the virtuous man may be hurt, but is still virtuous, still good and happy, no matter what wrong was just put upon him. He will be able to find solace in the love and friendship he has, and will be at peace through all things. The wrong doer, however, has just dug himself that much deeper into a pit of egocentric ideas and actions, and if he does not get corrected for doing such things, then he will most likely wrong someone again, digging himself deeper and deeper into his hole. The virtuous man would still be unscathed as far as his soul is concerned, and if he were to help the wrong-doer, then he would be only reaffirming his status as a virtuous person and polishing up his soul. This being so, it truly is better to suffer than to do wrong. It may even be said that as long as one does the truly virtuous thing and helps correct their wrong doer, it is better to suffer than not to. Suffering would only give opportunity to more possible acts of virtue.