Physician Of The Soul Analysis

According to Maimonides, a "physician of the soul" is when therapy and ethics meet to prescribe "a temporary ethic to enable the patient to acquire moral virtue" (299). These "wise men," who are "physicians of the soul" are there to balance the extreme character traits of the soul that are sick. When a person shows bad actions they must be cured by the soul doctor "to acquire moral virtue" (298). It is like when goes to a "physician of the body" with an infection, the doctor must prescribe medication and the patient who is infected must take the medicine in order to get better.
"Those whose bodies are sick taste the bitter as sweet and the sweet as bitter" (640), meaning that those whose soul has become ill imagine good to be bad and the bad …show more content…
A soul becomes ill by its "corrupt imagination. . . [that] confuses [the] good with [the] bad" (291), enabling one to choose vices over virtue. When one chooses these vices over virtue, it becomes a daily habit that tags as a bad character trait. It is as if one is an addict that takes a pill today, then takes two more tomorrow, and by next month is taking handfuls of pills at a time. When they took the single pill a day it made them healthy, but when they didn't take the pill or excessively took the pills they became ill. The soul becomes ill the same way. Humans are a creature of habit and routine, it is what makes the soul ill and is also what bounces the soul back to …show more content…
Even if one acknowledges their extreme vice, one still must be cured by the soul doctor because "knowledge alone does not suffice to effect the cure" (292). The treatment that the "physician of the soul" prescribes to cure a sick soul is a plan of action; by "The repetition of the appropriate actions over a period of time [that] can reshape the passions, producing new moral habits, so that reason can take command of the appetitive part of the soul" (296). "The appropriate actions" ordered to treat a sick soul are by an imaginary flow chart of curing one extreme vice with the opposite extreme vice to reach the equilibrium of virtue. Maimonides uses the example that if one portrays arrogance, then they must become pathetic by humiliation and the devaluing of oneself until they can find the equilibrium of humbleness. As a "wise man," who is a "physician of the soul," it is their duty to prescribe a course/plan of treatment to cleanse one of their moral vice and replenish it with moral