Protagoras

Soc.

But neither there nor elsewhere do I admit that the powerful are strong, only that the strong are powerful; for I hold that power and strength are not the same, but that one of them, power, comes from knowledge, or from madness or rage, whereas strength comes from constitution and fit nurture of the body. So, in the other instance, boldness and courage are not the same, and therefore it results that the courageous are bold, but not that the bold are courageous; for boldness comes to a man from art, or from rage or madness, like power, whereas courage comes from constitution and fit nurture of the soul.Do you speak of some men, Protagoras, I asked, as living well, and others ill? Yes.Then do you consider that a man would live well if he lived in distress and anguish? No, he said. Well now, if he lived pleasantly and so ended his life, would you not consider he had thus contrived to live well? I would, he said. And, I suppose, to live pleasantly is good, and unpleasantly, bad? Yes, he said, if one lived in the enjoyment of honorable things. But, Protagoras, will you tell me you agree with the majority in calling some pleasant things bad and some painful ones good? I mean to say—Are not things good in so far as they are pleasant, putting aside any other result they may have; and again, are not painful things in just the same sense bad—in so far as they are painful? I cannot tell, Socrates, he replied, whether I am to answer, in such absolute fashion as that of your question, that all pleasant things are good and painful things bad: I rather think it safer for me to reply, with a view not merely to my present answer but to all the rest of my life, that some pleasant things are not good, and also that some painful things are not bad, and some are, while a third class of them are indifferent—neither bad nor good. You call pleasant, do you not, I asked, things that partake of pleasure or cause pleasure? Certainly, he said. So when I put it to you, whether things are not good in so far as they are pleasant, I am asking whether pleasure itself is not a good thing. Let us examine the matter, Socrates, he said, in the form in which you put it at each point, and if the proposition seems to be reasonable, and pleasant and good are found to be the same, we shall agree upon it; if not, we shall dispute it there and then. And would you like, I asked, to be leader in the inquiry, or am I to lead? You ought to lead, he replied, since you are the inaugurator of this discussion.

Soc.

Well then, I proceeded, will the following example give us the light we need? Just as, in estimating a man’s health or bodily efficiency by his appearance, one might look at his face and the lower part of his arms and say: Come now, uncover your chest too and your back and show them, that I may examine you thoroughly—so the same sort of desire comes over me in regard to our inquiry. Observing your condition to be as you describe in respect of the good and the pleasant, I am fain to say something like this: Come, my good Protagoras, uncover some more of your thoughts: how are you in regard to knowledge? Do you share the view that most people take of this, or have you some other? The opinion generally held of knowledge is something of this sort—that it is no strong or guiding or governing thing; it is not regarded as anything of that kind, but people think that, while a man often has knowledge in him, he is not governed by it, but by something else—now by passion, now by pleasure, now by pain, at times by love, and often by fear; their feeling about knowledge is just what they have about a slave, that it may be dragged about by any other force. Now do you agree with this view of it, or do you consider that knowledge is something noble and able to govern man, and that whoever learns what is good and what is bad will never be swayed by anything to act otherwise than as knowledge bids, and that intelligence is a sufficient succor for mankind? My view, Socrates, he replied, is precisely that which you express, and what is more, it would be a disgrace for me above all men to assert that wisdom and knowledge were aught but the highest of all human things. Well and truly spoken, I said. Now you know that most people will not listen to you and me, but say that many, while knowing what is best, refuse to perform it, though they have the power, and do other things instead. And whenever I have asked them to tell me what can be the reason of this, they say that those who act so are acting under the influence of pleasure or pain, or under the control of one of the things I have just mentioned. Yes, Socrates, he replied, I regard this as but one of the many erroneous sayings of mankind.

Soc.

Come then, and join me in the endeavor to persuade the world and explain what is this experience of theirs, which they call being overcome by pleasure, and which they give as the reason why they fail to do what is best though they have knowledge of it. For perhaps if we said to them: What you assert, good people, is not correct, but quite untrue—they might ask us: Protagoras and Socrates, if this experience is not being overcome by pleasure what on earth is it, and what do you call it? Tell us that. Why, Socrates, must we consider the opinion of the mass of mankind, who say just what occurs to them? I fancy, I replied, that this will be a step towards discovering how courage is related to the other parts of virtue. So if you think fit to abide by the arrangement we made a while ago—that I should lead in the direction which seems best for elucidating the matter—you must now follow; but if you would rather not, to suit your wishes I will let it pass. No, he said, your plan is quite right: go on to the end as you began. Once more then, I proceeded, suppose they should ask us: Then what do you call this thing which we described as being overcome by pleasures? The answer I should give them would be this: Please attend; Protagoras and I will try to explain it to you. Do you not say that this thing occurs, good people, in the common case of a man being overpowered by the pleasantness of food or drink or sexual acts, and doing what he does though he knows it to be wicked? They would admit it. Then you and I would ask them again: In what sense do you call such deeds wicked? Is it that they produce those pleasures and are themselves pleasant at the moment, or that later on they cause diseases and poverty, and have many more such ills in store for us? Or, even though they have none of these things in store for a later day, and cause us only enjoyment, would they still be evil just because, forsooth, they cause enjoyment in some way or other? Can we suppose, Protagoras, that they will make any other answer than that these things are evil, not according to the operation of the actual pleasure of the moment, but owing to the later results in disease and those other ills? I think, said Protagoras, that most people would answer thus. Then in causing diseases they cause pains? And in causing poverty they cause pains? They would admit this, I imagine. Protagoras agreed.

Soc.

Then does it seem to you, my friends, as Protagoras and I assert, that the only reason why these things are evil is that they end at last in pains, and deprive us of other pleasures? Would they admit this? We both agreed that they would. Then again, suppose we should ask them the opposite: You, sirs, who tell us on the other hand that good things are painful—do you not give such instances as physical training, military service, and medical treatment conducted by cautery, incision, drugs, or starvation, and say that these are good, but painful? Would they not grant it? He agreed that they would. Then do you call them good because they produce extreme pangs and anguish for the moment, or because later on they result in health and good bodily condition, the deliverance of cities, dominion over others, and wealth? They would assent to this, I suppose. He agreed. And are these things good for any other reason than that they end at last in pleasures and relief and riddance of pains? Or have you some other end to mention, with respect to which you call them good, apart from pleasures and pains? They could not find one, I fancy. I too think they could not, said Protagoras. Then do you pursue pleasure as being a good thing, and shun pain as being a bad one? He agreed that we do. So one thing you hold to be bad—pain; and pleasure you hold to be good, since the very act of enjoying you call bad as soon as it deprives us of greater pleasures than it has in itself, or leads to greater pains than the pleasures it contains. For if it is with reference to something else that you call the act of enjoyment bad, and with a view to some other end, you might be able to tell it us but this you will be unable to do. I too think that they cannot, said Protagoras. Then is not the same thing repeated in regard to the state of being pained? You call being pained a good thing as soon as it either rids us of greater pains than those it comprises, or leads to greater pleasures than its pains. Now if you have in view some other end than those which I mention when you call being pained good, you can tell it us; but you never can. Truly spoken, said Protagoras. Once more then, I proceeded; if you were to ask me, my friends, Now why on earth do you speak at such length on this point, and in so many ways? I should reply, Forgive me: in the first place, it is not easy to conclude what it is that you mean when you say overcome by pleasures; and secondly, on this point hang all our conclusions.

Soc.

But it is still quite possible to retract, if you can somehow contrive to say that the good is different from pleasure, or the bad from pain. Is it enough for you to live out your life pleasantly, without pain? If it is, and you are unable to tell us of any other good or evil that does not end in pleasure or pain, listen to what I have to say next. I tell you that if this is so, the argument becomes absurd, when you say that it is often the case that a man, knowing the evil to be evil, nevertheless commits it, when he might avoid it, because he is driven and dazed by his pleasures; while on the other hand you say that a man, knowing the good, refuses to do good because of the momentary pleasures by which he is overcome. The absurdity of all this will be manifest if we refrain from using a number of terms at once, such as pleasant, painful, good, and bad; and as there appeared to be two things, let us call them by two names—first, good and evil, and then later on, pleasant and painful. Let us then lay it down as our statement, that a man does evil in spite of knowing the evil of it. Now if someone asks us: Why? we shall answer: Because he is overcome. By what? the questioner will ask us and this time we shall be unable to reply: By pleasure—for this has exchanged its name for the good. So we must answer only with the words: Because he is overcome. By what? says the questioner. The good—must surely be our reply. Now if our questioner chance to be an arrogant person he will laugh and exclaim: What a ridiculous statement, that a man does evil, knowing it to be evil, and not having to do it, because he is overcome by the good! Is this, he will ask, because the good is not worthy of conquering the evil in you, or because it is worthy? Clearly we must reply: Because it is not worthy; otherwise he whom we speak of as overcome by pleasures would not have offended. But in what sense, he might ask us, is the good unworthy of the bad, or the bad of the good? This can only be when the one is greater and the other smaller, or when there are more on the one side and fewer on the other. We shall not find any other reason to give; So it is clear, he will say, that by being overcome you mean getting the greater evil in exchange for the lesser good. That must be agreed.

Soc.

Then let us apply the terms pleasant and painful to these things instead, and say that a man does what we previously called evil, but now call painful, knowing it to be painful, because he is overcome by the pleasant, which is obviously unworthy to conquer. What unworthiness can there be in pleasure as against pain, save an excess or defect of one compared with the other? That is, when one becomes greater and the other smaller, or when there are more on one side and fewer on the other, or here a greater degree and there a less. For if you should say: But, Socrates, the immediately pleasant differs widely from the subsequently pleasant or painful, I should reply: Do they differ in anything but pleasure and pain? That is the only distinction. Like a practised weigher, put pleasant things and painful in the scales, and with them the nearness and the remoteness, and tell me which count for more. For if you weigh pleasant things against pleasant, the greater and the more are always to be preferred: if painful against painful, then always the fewer and smaller. If you weigh pleasant against painful, and find that the painful are outbalanced by the pleasant—whether the near by the remote or the remote by the near—you must take that course of action to which the pleasant are attached; but not that course if the pleasant are outweighed by the painful. Can the case be otherwise, I should ask, than thus, my friends? I am certain they could state no alternative. To this he too assented. Since that is the case, then, I shall say, please answer me this: Does not the same size appear larger to your sight when near, and smaller when distant? They will admit this. And it is the same with thickness and number? And sounds of equal strength are greater when near, and smaller when distant? They would agree to this. Now if our welfare consisted in doing and choosing things of large dimensions, and avoiding and not doing those of small, what would be our salvation in life? Would it be the art of measurement, or the power of appearance? Is it not the latter that leads us astray, as we saw, and many a time causes us to take things topsy-turvy and to have to change our minds both in our conduct and in our choice of great or small? Whereas the art of measurement would have made this appearance ineffective, and by showing us the truth would have brought our soul into the repose of abiding by the truth, and so would have saved our life. Would men acknowledge, in view of all this, that the art which saves our life is measurement, or some other? It is measurement, he agreed.