DESCARTES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Technological knowledge perfects material things in nature that we use: things like water wheels, ships, or cooking stoves. Moral knowledge perfects something much more important and much more intimate to us, more close to home, so to speak, namely, our very actions, our lives. That is why it is more important than technology: because our lives are more important than the lives of ships or pots. DESCARTES: I do not deny that. SOCRATES: But that very same reason