Love as Desire for Goodness
Plato’s renowned piece of literature, "The Symposium", is outstanding with its speeches of love, which transforms to desire. According to Aristophanes, love is what drives us to look for our better half and that it is what makes us whole again. He also suggests that love is a primordial wound imposed to us by the gods as a penalty for our arrogance. Since those ancient ages, everyone is half of what he or she is destined to be. This theory proposed by Aristophanes gives room for criticism; for instance, why did the gods use love to punish mankind? As a matter of fact, love can only be termed as a blessing for all of us; since, everyone yearns to be loved by someone or to love someone. Would it be sound for people to embrace punishment? Aristophanes’ idea of love to be a punishment does not seem realistic.

When Socrates enters into the dialogue, he refers to Aristophanes concept, although he adds one thing that changes everything; he states that we do not desire anything if it’s not good whether half or whole. According to Socrates, besides being complete, love is also defined by goodness. Does it mean that there is no love anywhere else except where there is goodness? According to Socrates, love is pulled towards goodness and nothing else. Indeed, when we love something we only desire to seize the goodness in it. It is from this scenario that Plato develops his first description of love; that love is a longing for continuous possession of the good. Plato demonstrated innovation and creativity through the coining of this definition. It is true that love is desire; since human beings are basically avaricious in nature.

Plato deems that everything besides human beings is driven by the urge to acquire what is good; hence, this implies that the universe is incessant in love and compassion. Plato reasons that it is through love that the world goes round. However, does it mean even those people who kill and harm their fellow