For Aristotle, true freedom and liberty consists in ruling and being ruled in turn and not always insisting on fulfilling one's own personal desires at the cost of others. Thus, for Odysseus, true freedom can only come about when one is allowed to contribute to society for the betterment of everyone involved, a sure sign of moral correctness and rational thinking.

In addition, Aristotle stressed the importance of justice and goodness, for he believed that people possess a sort of inborn knowledge concerning what is right and what is wrong; however, irrational desires often overrule such knowledge and leads people to commit wrong acts or behave inappropriately. This conflict of desires in human beings could be overcome by achieving self-control via training the mind to win out over primitive instincts and passions. Thus, intelligence is the finest human quality and the mind is the true self, the god-like aspect of...
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