Tyrants and Orators Have the Least Power

Socrates

Is this a question you're asking, or are you stating the opening of some argument?

Polus

I'm asking, yes.

Socrates

It doesn't even seem to me that they're regarded as such.

Polus

What? Don't they have the greatest power in their cities?

Socrates

No — not if by "having power" you mean something good for the one who has it.

Polus

Well, that is what I mean.

Socrates

Then it seems to me that orators have the least power of anyone in the city.

Polus

What? Don't they, like tyrants, put to death anyone they want, and confiscate property and banish from their cities anyone they see fit?

Socrates

By the dog, Polus, I honestly can't tell, with each of these claims of yours, whether you're stating your own opinion, or asking me a question.

Polus

Well, I'm asking you.

Socrates

Very well, my friend — but then are you asking me two things at once?

Polus

How, two things?

Socrates

Didn't you just say something like this — that orators put to death anyone they want, just like tyrants, and confiscate property and drive out of their cities anyone they see fit?

Polus

I did.

Socrates

Well, I tell you these are two questions, and I'll answer you on both. Because I say, Polus, that both orators and tyrants have the least power of anyone in their cities, just as I was saying a moment ago — since they don't do, so to speak, anything they want, but only what seems best to them.

Polus

Well then, isn't that having great power?

Socrates

No — not according to Polus.

Polus

I don't say that? I certainly do.

Socrates

By the— no, not you, since you said having great power was a good thing for the one who has it.

Polus

Yes, I did say so.

Socrates

So you think it's a good thing, if someone does what seems best to him without having any sense? And you call that having great power?

Polus

No, I don't.

Socrates

Then will you prove that orators have sense, and that rhetoric is a craft and not flattery, by refuting me? But if you leave me unrefuted, the orators who do what seems best to them in their cities, and the tyrants too, will have gained nothing good by it — while power, as you say, is a good thing, and doing what seems best without sense you yourself agree is a bad thing — or don't you?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

So how could orators or tyrants have great power in their cities, unless Polus refutes Socrates and shows that they do what they want?

Polus

This man—

Socrates

I say they don't do what they want — so refute me.

Polus

Didn't you just agree, [earlier than this], that they do what seems best to them?

Socrates

Yes, and I still agree now.

Polus

Then don't they do what they want?

Socrates

I say they don't.

Polus

While doing what seems best to them?

Socrates

I do say that.

Polus

That's outrageous and absurd, Socrates.

Socrates

Don't speak ill of me, my excellent Polus — to greet you in your own style — but if you're in a position to question me, show that I'm lying; if not, answer the questions yourself.

Polus

Well, I'm willing to answer, so I can find out what you mean.

Socrates

Do you think people want the very thing they're doing at any given moment, or that other thing for the sake of which they do what they do? For instance, those who drink medicine prescribed by doctors — do you think they want the very thing they're doing, drinking the medicine and being in pain, or that other thing, being healthy, for the sake of which they drink it?

Polus

Clearly, being healthy.

Socrates

In the same way, people who sail the sea and carry on any other kind of business don't want the very thing they're doing at each moment — after all, who wants to sail, run risks, and have troubles — but rather, I think, the thing for the sake of which they sail: growing rich, since it's for wealth's sake that they sail.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So isn't it the same way with everything? If someone does something for the sake of something else, doesn't he want not the thing he's doing, but that other thing for the sake of which he's doing it?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Now, is there anything among existing things that isn't either good, or bad, or in between the two — neither good nor bad?

Polus

That must be so, Socrates.

Socrates

And you'd say that wisdom, health, wealth, and other such things are good, and their opposites are bad?

Polus

I would.

Socrates

And by things that are neither good nor bad, do you mean things that sometimes share in the good, sometimes in the bad, and sometimes in neither — for instance, sitting, walking, running, and sailing, and again, stones and sticks and other such things? Isn't that what you mean? Or do you call something else neither good nor bad?

Polus

No, those are what I mean.

Socrates

Now, when people do these in-between things, do they do them for the sake of the good things, or the good things for the sake of the in-between ones?

Polus

The in-between things, surely, for the sake of the good ones.

Socrates

So it's in pursuit of the good that we walk, when we walk, thinking it's better to do so, and in pursuit of the same thing, the good, that we stand still, when we stand — or isn't that so?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And so too, if we put someone to death, or banish someone, or confiscate property, we do it thinking it's better for us to do these things than not?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So it's for the sake of the good that people do all these things, when they do them.

Polus

I agree.

Socrates

And didn't we agree that whatever we do for the sake of something else, we don't want the things themselves, but that other thing for the sake of which we do them?

Polus

Absolutely.

Socrates

So we don't want to slaughter people, or banish them from their cities, or confiscate property, simply as such — rather, if these things are beneficial, we want to do them, but if they're harmful, we don't want to. For we want the good things, as you say, and we don't want the things that are neither good nor bad, nor the bad things either. Isn't that so? Do you think I'm telling the truth, Polus, or not? Why don't you answer?

Polus

The truth.

Socrates

Then if we agree on this, whenever someone puts a person to death, or banishes him from the city, or confiscates his property, whether he's a tyrant or an orator, thinking it's better for himself, though it actually turns out worse, that man, surely, is doing what seems best to him — isn't that so?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Then is he also doing what he wants, if these things really turn out to be bad? Why don't you answer?

Polus

Well, I don't think he's doing what he wants.

Socrates

Then is there any way such a man has great power in that city, if having great power is something good, by your own admission?

Polus

There isn't.

Socrates

So what I was saying is true — that it's possible for a man doing what seems best to him in a city neither to have great power nor to do what he wants.

Polus

As if you, Socrates, wouldn't accept being free to do whatever seems good to you in the city rather than not, and as if you don't envy someone when you see him put to death whoever he pleased, or confiscate property, or throw someone in prison.

Socrates

Justly, or unjustly?

Polus

Whichever way he does it, isn't it enviable either way?

Socrates

Mind your words, Polus.

Polus

Why?

Socrates

Because you shouldn't envy people who aren't enviable, or the wretched — you should pity them.

Polus

What? Is that how you think it is with the men I'm talking about?

Socrates

Of course it is.

Polus

So a man who puts to death whomever he pleases, justly putting him to death, seems to you wretched and pitiable?

Socrates

Not to me — but not enviable either.

Polus

Didn't you just say he was wretched?

Socrates

The one who kills unjustly, my friend, is wretched, and pitiable besides — the one who kills justly, merely not enviable.

Polus

Surely the man who dies unjustly is pitiable and wretched.

Socrates

Less so than the one who kills him, Polus, and less so than the one who dies justly.

Polus

How can that be, Socrates?

Socrates

Like this — doing wrong happens to be the greatest of evils.

Polus

Is that really the greatest? Isn't suffering wrong greater?

Socrates

Not in the least.

Polus

So you would rather suffer wrong than do it.

Better to Suffer Than to Do Wrong: The Paradox and Archelaus

Socrates

For my part, I'd want neither — but if it were necessary to do wrong or to suffer wrong, I'd choose to suffer wrong rather than do it.

Polus

Then you wouldn't accept being a tyrant?

Socrates

No — not if by being a tyrant you mean what I mean.

Polus

Well, I mean exactly what I meant a moment ago — being free in the city to do whatever seems good to you, killing and banishing and doing everything according to your own judgment.

Socrates

My blessed friend, catch me up on the argument as I make it. For if I, in the crowded marketplace, taking a dagger under my arm, were to say to you, Polus — I've just now acquired a certain wonderful power, even a tyranny — since if it seems to me that one of these men you see here needs to die right away, this man will be dead, whoever I decide on; and if it seems to me that one of them needs his head broken, his head will be broken right away; and if I decide his cloak should be torn, it will be torn — that's how much power I have in this city — well, if I showed you the dagger when you doubted me, you'd probably say, on seeing it, Socrates, in that way everyone would have great power, since a house could be burned down that way, whichever one you liked, and the Athenians' dockyards too, and their triremes, and all their ships, public and private alike — but that isn't what having great power means, doing whatever seems good to you — or do you think it is?

Polus

No, certainly not that way.

Socrates

Can you say, then, why you criticize that kind of power?

Polus

I can.

Socrates

Why is that? Tell me.

Polus

Because a man who acts that way is bound to be punished.

Socrates

And being punished isn't a bad thing?

Polus

Certainly it is.

Socrates

So it turns out, my amazing friend, that [having great power] is a good thing after all, in your view, only if doing what seems best to him is also followed by acting beneficially — and that, it seems, is what having great power really is; if not, it's a bad thing, and no power at all. And let's consider this too — don't we agree that sometimes it's better to do the things we were just talking about, killing people and driving them out and confiscating property, but sometimes not?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

This much, then, it seems, is agreed by both of us.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So when do you say it's better to do these things? Tell me, what boundary do you draw?

Polus

No, you answer that [same] question yourself, Socrates.

Socrates

Well, I say, Polus, if you'd rather hear it from me, that when someone does these things justly, it's better, and when unjustly, worse.

Polus

You're a hard man to refute, Socrates — but couldn't even a child refute you and show that you're not telling the truth?

Socrates

Then I'll be very grateful to the child, and just as grateful to you, if you refute me and free me from talking nonsense. But don't grow tired of doing a friend a favor — go on and refute me.

Polus

Well, Socrates, there's certainly no need for me to refute you with ancient history — recent events, things that happened just yesterday, are enough to refute you and show that many people who do wrong are happy.

Socrates

What events do you mean?

Polus

You do see this Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, ruling Macedonia?

Socrates

If not seeing him, at least I hear about him.

Polus

Does he seem to you happy, or wretched?

Socrates

I don't know, Polus — I've never met the man.

Polus

What? You'd know if you met him, but otherwise, on the spot, you can't tell that he's happy?

Socrates

No, by Zeus, certainly not.

Polus

Clearly then, Socrates, you'll say you don't even know whether the Great King is happy.

Socrates

And I'll be telling the truth — since I don't know how he stands with respect to education and justice.

Polus

What? Does all happiness depend on that?

Socrates

That's what I say, Polus — I say that a fine and good man or woman is happy, and an unjust and wicked one is wretched.

Polus

So by your account, this Archelaus is wretched?

Socrates

Yes, my friend — if he's unjust.

Polus

But how is he not unjust? He had no right at all to the rule he now holds, being born of a woman who was a slave to Alcetas, Perdiccas's brother — by justice he was Alcetas's slave, and if he'd wanted to do what's just, he'd still be serving Alcetas, and he'd be happy by your own account. But as it is, he's become wonderfully wretched, since he's committed the greatest wrongs — first, he summoned this very man, his own master and uncle, as if to give back the rule that Perdiccas had taken from him, made him and his son Alexander, his own cousin and nearly his own age, his guests, got them drunk, threw them into a wagon, led them out by night, cut their throats, and made them both disappear. After doing this wrong, he failed to notice that he'd become the most wretched of men, and felt no regret for it; but a little later, given the chance to become happy by justly raising his brother — Perdiccas's legitimate son, a boy of about seven, to whom the rule belonged by right — and giving him back the throne, he refused, and instead threw him into a well, drowned him, and told the boy's mother Cleopatra that he'd fallen in chasing a goose and died. So now, since he's committed the greatest wrongs of anyone in Macedonia, he's the most wretched of all Macedonians, not the happiest, and there's probably some Athenian — starting with you, — who'd rather become any other Macedonian whatsoever than become Archelaus.

Socrates

And right at the start of our conversation, Polus, I praised you for seeming to me well trained in rhetoric, but for having neglected the art of discussion — and now, is this really any different, the argument by which even a child could refute me, and by which you now think I've been refuted, when I say the wrongdoer isn't happy? Where does that follow, my good man? In fact I don't agree with you on any of this.

Polus

That's because you're not willing to, since it does seem to you the way I say.

Socrates

My blessed friend, you're trying to refute me the way rhetoricians do, like the men in the law courts who think that's how refutation works. There too, one side thinks it refutes the other whenever it produces many reputable witnesses for what it says, while the side arguing the opposite produces only one witness, or none at all. But this kind of refutation is worth nothing when it comes to the truth — sometimes a man can be falsely accused by many people who seem to be somebody. And right now, on the point you're making, nearly everyone will agree with you and say the same things, Athenians and foreigners alike, if you want to produce witnesses against me that I'm not telling the truth; you can call on, if you like, Nicias son of Niceratus and his brothers with him, whose tripods stand in a row in the Dionysium; or, if you like, Aristocrates son of Scellias, whose fine offering stands at the Pythian temple; or, if you like, the whole house of Pericles, or any other family here you care to choose. But I, being just one man, don't agree with you — you're not compelling me, but you're bringing forward many false witnesses against me and trying to drive me out of my property and out of the truth. But unless I can produce you yourself as a single witness agreeing with what I say, I don't think I've proved anything worth mentioning about the matters our argument concerns; and I don't think you have either, unless I testify for you being just one man alone, and you let all these others go their way. So this is one kind of refutation, as you and many others think it is; but there's another kind too, which I in turn believe in. Let's set them side by side and see whether they differ from each other at all. For in fact the matters we're disputing aren't at all small — they're pretty much the very things it's finest to know and most shameful not to know, since the heart of the matter is knowing or not knowing who is happy and who is not. To begin with the very point our argument is about right now: you think it's possible for a man doing wrong and being unjust to be happy, given that you consider Archelaus unjust yet happy. Should we take it that this is your view?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

But I say it's impossible. That's one point we disagree on. Very well then — will the wrongdoer be happy if he actually meets with justice and punishment?

Polus

Not in the least — in that case he'd be the most wretched of all.

Proving Injustice Worse Than Suffering It

Socrates

But if the wrongdoer doesn't pay the penalty, will he be happy, on your account?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

But in my opinion, Polus, the wrongdoer — the unjust man — is wretched in every case, but more wretched if he doesn't pay the penalty and doesn't meet with punishment for his wrongdoing, and less wretched if he does pay the penalty and gets his due from gods and men.

Polus

That's a strange thing to try to say, Socrates.

Socrates

I'll try to make you say the same as I do, my friend; after all, I consider you a friend. Right now, this is what we disagree about — you take a look too. I said earlier that doing wrong is worse than suffering it.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Whereas you say suffering it is.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And I said that wrongdoers are wretched, and you refuted me.

Polus

Yes, by Zeus.

Socrates

So you think, Polus.

Polus

And I think truly.

Socrates

Perhaps. And you, in turn, say wrongdoers are happy, if they don't pay the penalty.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

But I say they're the most wretched, and those who pay the penalty less so. Do you want to refute this too?

Polus

But that's even harder to refute than the last one, Socrates.

Socrates

Not at all, Polus — impossible, in fact; the truth is never refuted.

Polus

What do you mean? If a man doing wrong is caught plotting to set himself up as tyrant, and once caught is racked and mutilated and has his eyes burned out, and after suffering many other great torments of every kind himself, and watching his own children and wife suffer them too, is finally crucified or coated in pitch and burned — will this man be happier than if he escapes, sets himself up as tyrant, and lives out his life as ruler in the city doing whatever he wants, envied and counted happy by the citizens and by other foreigners too? Is that what you're saying is impossible to refute?

Socrates

You're just trying to scare me again, noble Polus, and that's not refuting — a moment ago you were just calling witnesses. Still, remind me of one small thing. Did you say plotting unjustly to become tyrant?

Polus

I did.

Socrates

Well then, neither of them will ever be happier than the other — neither the one who's gotten hold of the tyranny unjustly nor the one who pays the penalty — since, between two wretched men, neither could be happier — but the one who escapes and becomes tyrant is the more wretched of the two. What's this, Polus? Are you laughing? Is this some other kind of refutation, laughing whenever someone says something, instead of refuting it?

Polus

Don't you think you've been refuted, Socrates, when you say things no human being would agree to? Go ahead, ask any of these men here.

Socrates

Polus, I'm not one of the politicians — last year, when I was chosen by lot to sit on the council, and my tribe held the presidency and I had to put a matter to the vote, I made a fool of myself, because I didn't know how to conduct a vote. So don't tell me now either to put these men here to the vote, but if you have no better refutation than that, hand the argument over to me in my turn, as I was just saying, and try the kind of refutation I think is needed. For when I make a claim, I know how to produce just one witness — the very man I'm arguing with — and I let the majority go hang, and I know how to put it to the vote of just one man, but with the majority I don't even hold a discussion. So see whether you're willing, in your turn, to submit to a refutation by answering what you're asked. For I do think that I myself, and you, and everyone else, believe that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, and not paying the penalty worse than paying it.

Polus

But I don't think that — not about myself, and not about anyone else. Would you actually choose to suffer wrong rather than do it?

Socrates

So would you, and so would everyone else.

Polus

Far from it — neither I nor you nor anyone else would.

Socrates

Then won't you answer?

Polus

Certainly; in fact I'm eager to hear what you'll say.

Socrates

So tell me, so you'll know, just as if I were asking you from the beginning — which do you think is worse, Polus, doing wrong or suffering it?

Polus

Suffering it, in my view.

Socrates

And what about this? Which is more shameful, doing wrong or suffering it? Answer.

Polus

Doing wrong.

Socrates

Then it's also worse, if it's more shameful.

Polus

Not in the least.

Socrates

I see; apparently you don't think fine and good are the same thing, or bad and shameful.

Polus

No, I don't.

Socrates

And what about this? Do you call all fine things fine — bodies, colors, shapes, sounds, and practices — every time, without looking to anything? Take fine bodies first — don't you call them fine either in view of their use, whatever each is useful for, or in view of some pleasure, if they make the people looking at them enjoy the sight? Can you name anything about physical beauty outside these two?

Polus

I can't.

Socrates

Then don't you call everything else fine the same way too — shapes and colors — either because of some pleasure, or because of benefit, or both?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

And sounds too, and everything in music, the same way?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And surely fine things in the realm of laws and practices are no exception either — they're fine by being beneficial or pleasant or both.

Polus

No, they aren't.

Socrates

Then the beauty of studies is the same way too?

Polus

Certainly; and you're defining it well now, Socrates, defining the fine by pleasure and good.

Socrates

Then the shameful is the opposite — by pain and bad?

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

So whenever, of two fine things, one is finer than the other, it's finer by exceeding in one of these two, or in both — either in pleasure or in benefit or in both.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

And when, of two shameful things, one is more shameful than the other, it will be more shameful by exceeding in pain or in bad — or isn't that necessary?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Come now, what did we just say about doing wrong and suffering it? Didn't you say that suffering wrong is worse, and doing wrong more shameful?

Polus

I did.

Socrates

So if doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, then it must either be more painful — more shameful by exceeding in pain — or in bad, or in both? Isn't that necessary too?

Polus

How could it not be?

Socrates

First, then, let's consider whether doing wrong exceeds suffering it in pain, and whether wrongdoers feel more pain than those who are wronged.

Polus

Not at all, Socrates, not that.

Socrates

Then it doesn't exceed it in pain.

Polus

No, it doesn't.

Socrates

Then if not in pain, it can't exceed in both any longer.

Polus

It doesn't appear so.

Socrates

So it's left with the other.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

In bad.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

Then, exceeding in bad, doing wrong would be worse than suffering it.

Polus

Clearly so.

Socrates

Now wasn't it agreed by most people, and by you, earlier on, that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

But now it's turned out to be worse.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

So would you actually choose the worse and more shameful thing over the lesser? Don't hesitate to answer, Polus; you won't be harmed at all; just answer bravely, submitting to the argument the way you'd submit to a doctor, and either say yes or no to what I ask.

Polus

No, I wouldn't choose it, Socrates.

Socrates

Would anyone else?

Polus

Not, I think, on this argument.

Socrates

So I was telling the truth, that neither I, nor you, nor anyone else on earth would choose to do wrong rather than suffer it; because it happens to be worse.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

So you see, Polus, when one refutation is set beside the other, they're nothing alike — everyone else agrees with you except me, but you alone are enough for me, agreeing and testifying by yourself, and I put it to the vote of you alone and let the rest go hang. Let's leave that as settled between us, then; and next let's consider the second point we disputed — whether the wrongdoer's paying the penalty is the greatest of evils, as you thought, or whether not paying it is greater, as I, in turn, thought.

Let's look at it this way; do you call paying the penalty and being justly corrected for doing wrong the same thing?

Polus

I do.

Punishment as Medicine for the Soul

Socrates

Can you say that just things aren't all fine, insofar as they're just? Think it over and tell me.

Polus

Yes, I think they are, Socrates.

Socrates

Now look at this too; if someone does something, must there also be something that's affected by the one doing it?

Polus

I think so.

Socrates

And does it suffer whatever the doer does, and in just the way the doer does it? Here's what I mean; if someone strikes, must something be struck?

Polus

It must.

Socrates

And if the one striking, strikes hard or fast, must the thing struck be struck in that same way?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So the thing struck undergoes just the kind of experience the striker produces?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Then if someone burns something, must something be burned?

Polus

How could it not?

Socrates

And if someone burns it intensely or painfully, must the thing burned be burned just as the burner burns it?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Then if something cuts, isn't it the same account? Because something is cut.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And if the cut is large or deep or painful, does the thing cut get just that kind of cut the cutter makes?

Polus

It appears so.

Socrates

So in short, see whether you agree with what I just said, about everything — that whatever the doer does, the sufferer suffers just that.

Polus

Yes, I agree.

Socrates

Now that this is agreed, is paying the penalty a matter of suffering something or doing something?

Polus

It has to be suffering, Socrates.

Socrates

At the hands of someone doing it, then?

Polus

How could it not be? At the hands of the one correcting him.

Socrates

And does the one who corrects rightly correct justly?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Doing just things, or not?

Polus

Just things.

Socrates

Then the one being corrected, in paying the penalty, suffers just things?

Polus

It appears so.

Socrates

And just things have been agreed to be fine, haven't they?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So of these two, one does fine things, and the other — the one being corrected — suffers them.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Then if they're fine, are they also good? Because they're either pleasant or beneficial.

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

So the one paying the penalty suffers good things?

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

So he's benefited?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

The benefit I have in mind? Does he become better in his soul, if he's justly corrected?

Polus

Likely so.

Socrates

So the one paying the penalty is rid of a badness of soul?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So is he rid of the greatest evil? Look at it this way; in a man's property, do you see any badness other than poverty?

Polus

No, just poverty.

Socrates

And in the body's condition? Would you say weakness and disease and ugliness and things like that are its badness?

Polus

I would.

Socrates

Then you think there's a corresponding badness in the soul too?

Polus

How could there not be?

Socrates

And don't you call this injustice, and ignorance, and cowardice, and things like that?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So, since there are three things — property, body, and soul — you've named three corresponding kinds of badness: poverty, disease, injustice?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Which of these kinds of badness is the most shameful? Isn't it injustice, and in a word, the badness of the soul?

Polus

By far.

Socrates

And if it's the most shameful, is it also the worst?

Polus

What do you mean, Socrates?

Socrates

Like this; from what's been agreed before, the most shameful thing is always most shameful by producing the greatest pain, or harm, or both.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

And haven't we just agreed that injustice, and the soul's badness taken as a whole, is the most shameful?

Polus

Yes, it's been agreed.

Socrates

Then either it's the most distressing, and is the most shameful by exceeding in distress, or in harm, or in both?

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

So is being unjust and unrestrained and cowardly and ignorant more painful than being poor or sick?

Polus

I don't think so, Socrates, not judging by that.

Socrates

So it must be by some extraordinary, tremendous harm and astonishing badness, exceeding everything else, that the soul's badness is the most shameful of all — since it's not by pain, on your own account.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

But surely whatever exceeds in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil there is.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So injustice, and lack of restraint, and the soul's other badness, are the greatest evil there is?

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

So what craft rids someone of poverty? Isn't it moneymaking?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And of disease? Isn't it medicine?

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

And of badness and injustice? If you're not so ready with that, look at it this way; where, and to whom, do we take people whose bodies are sick?

Polus

To the doctors, Socrates.

Socrates

And where do we take wrongdoers and the unrestrained?

Polus

To the judges, you mean?

Socrates

To pay the penalty, isn't that right?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

So don't those who correct rightly correct by making use of a kind of justice?

Polus

Clearly so.

Socrates

So moneymaking rids us of poverty, medicine of disease, and justice of lack of restraint and injustice.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

So which of these [that you mention] is the finest?

Polus

Which ones do you mean?

Socrates

Moneymaking, medicine, justice.

Polus

Justice is far superior, Socrates.

Socrates

Then, in turn, it must produce the most pleasure or the most benefit, or both, if it's the finest?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So is being treated by a doctor pleasant, and do people being treated enjoy it?

Polus

I don't think so.

Socrates

But it is beneficial. Isn't it?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Because he's rid of a great evil, so it's worth enduring the pain in order to be healthy.

Polus

How could it not be?

Socrates

So would a person be happiest in body this way — being treated — or by never being sick in the first place?

Polus

Clearly, by never being sick.

Socrates

So happiness, it seems, wasn't ridding oneself of an evil, but never having acquired it in the first place.

Polus

That's so.

Socrates

And what about this? Of two people who have an evil, either in body or in soul, which is more wretched — the one being treated and getting rid of the evil, or the one not being treated, but keeping it?

Polus

The one not being treated, it seems to me.

Socrates

Then wasn't paying the penalty a ridding of the greatest evil, badness?

Polus

Yes, it was.

Socrates

Because it chastens them, and makes them more just, and judicial correction becomes a kind of medicine for badness.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So the happiest person is the one who has no badness in his soul, since that turned out to be the greatest of evils.

Polus

Clearly so.

Socrates

And second, presumably, the one who's rid of it.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

And that was the one being admonished, and reproved, and paying the penalty.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So the one living worst is the one who has [injustice] and isn't rid of it.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

And isn't this the very man who, doing the greatest wrongs and making use of the greatest injustice, manages things so that he's neither admonished nor corrected nor made to pay the penalty — the way you say Archelaus and the other tyrants and orators and men of power have arranged things for themselves?

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

Because these men, my excellent fellow, have managed just about the same thing as if someone gripped by the worst diseases managed to avoid paying his doctors the penalty for what's wrong with his body, and refused treatment, fearing like a child the burning and the cutting, because it's painful. Or don't you think so too?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

Not knowing, it seems, what health and the excellence of the body actually are. Because, based on what we've just agreed, Polus, those who run from paying the penalty are probably doing something like this too — seeing only the pain of it, but being blind to the benefit, and not knowing how much more wretched it is to live with an unhealthy soul than with an unhealthy body — a soul that's rotten and unjust and unholy — which is why they do everything they can to avoid paying the penalty and being rid of the greatest evil, arranging money and friends and making themselves as persuasive as possible; and if what we've agreed is true, Polus, do you notice what follows from the argument? Or would you like us to work it out together?

Polus

If you think we should.

Socrates

So does it follow that injustice, and doing wrong, are the greatest evil?

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

And surely paying the penalty turned out to be a ridding of this evil?

Polus

It seems so.

Socrates

And not paying it is a persistence of the evil?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So doing wrong is second in magnitude among evils; but the wrongdoer's not paying the penalty is by nature the greatest and first of all evils.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

So wasn't this, my friend, what we disputed — you counting Archelaus happy, the man doing the greatest wrongs and paying no penalty at all, while I believed the opposite: that whoever it is, Archelaus or anyone else on earth, who does wrong and doesn't pay the penalty, deserves to be wretched beyond all other men, and that the wrongdoer is always more wretched than the one wronged, and the one who doesn't pay the penalty more wretched than the one who does? Wasn't that what I was saying?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Then hasn't it been proved that it was true?

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

Well then; if this is true, Polus, what great use is rhetoric? From what we've just agreed, a man must above all guard himself against doing wrong, on the grounds that he'd have evil enough on his hands. Isn't that so?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

But if he does wrong, either himself or someone else he cares about, he should go there of his own accord, as fast as he can, to pay the penalty, to the judge just as he'd go to a doctor, hurrying so that the disease of injustice doesn't sit there festering and turn the soul incurable — or how should we put it, Polus, if the earlier agreements still hold for us? Mustn't this agree with what came before, exactly this way and no other?

Polus

Well, what else are we to say, Socrates?

Socrates

So when it comes to defending his own injustice, or that of his parents, or his friends, or his children, or a wrongdoing country, rhetoric is of no use to us at all, Polus — unless someone should suppose the opposite : that a man ought to accuse himself most of all, and then his own household, and anyone else among his friends who happens to be doing wrong at any given time, and not hide the wrongdoing but bring it out into the open, so that he pays the penalty and becomes healthy, forcing himself and others not to shrink back but to offer himself up, shutting his eyes and bravely, the way one offers oneself to a doctor for cutting and burning, pursuing what's good and fine and not counting the pain — if he's done something deserving a beating, offering himself to be beaten, if deserving imprisonment, to be bound, if a fine, paying it, if exile, going into exile, if death, dying — being himself the first accuser, both of himself and of the rest of his household, and using rhetoric for this very purpose, so that once the wrongdoings are made plain, they may be rid of the greatest evil, injustice. Shall we say this, or not, Polus?

Polus

It seems strange to me, Socrates, but I suppose it agrees with what came before.

Socrates

Then either those earlier points must be given up, or these must necessarily follow?

Polus

Yes, that's how it stands.

Socrates

But turning it around the other way — if one really must do harm to someone, whether an enemy or anyone else, provided he himself isn't wronged by the enemy, since that's what has to be guarded against — but if the enemy wrongs someone else, then every means must be prepared, in what one does and what one says, so that he doesn't pay the penalty and never comes before the judge; and if he does come, one must contrive a way for the enemy to escape and avoid paying the penalty — so that if he ⟨has⟩ stolen a great deal of gold, he keeps it instead of giving it back, and spends it on himself and his own people unjustly and godlessly, and if he's done things deserving death, that he not die — best of all, never, but remain immortal in his wickedness, and failing that, that he live for as long a time as possible in that condition. It's for purposes like these, Polus, that rhetoric seems useful to me, since for the man who isn't going to do wrong, I don't think its use amounts to much — if indeed it has any use at all, since in what came before it turned out to have none anywhere.

The Conversation with Callicles

Callicles Interrupts: Nature Against Convention

Callicles

Tell me, Chaerephon — is Socrates serious about this, or is he joking?

Chaerephon

To me, Callicles, he seems to be in dead earnest — but there's nothing like asking him yourself.

Callicles

By the gods, I do want to. Tell me, Socrates, should we take you right now to be serious, or joking? Because if you're serious, and what you're saying happens to be true, wouldn't human life be turned upside down, and aren't we doing, it seems, the exact opposite of everything we ought to?

Socrates

Callicles, if human beings didn't all share some feeling — one thing for some, another thing [or] the same for others — but each of us instead felt something private, unlike what anyone else feels, it wouldn't be easy to point out to another person one's own feeling. I say this because it occurs to me that you and I happen to be in the same condition right now — each of us in love with two things at once: I with Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, and with philosophy, you with two loves, the Athenian people and the son of Pyrilampes. So I notice that every time, clever as you are, whatever your darling says, and however he says things stand, you're unable to contradict him — you keep flipping this way and that; in the assembly, if you say something and the Athenian people deny that's how it is, you change your position and say what they want, and you go through the same thing with that handsome young son of Pyrilampes. You're incapable of opposing your darlings' wishes and words, so that if someone, hearing you say the things you say because of them, were amazed at how strange they are, you might tell him, if you wanted to speak the truth, that unless somebody stops your darlings from this kind of talk, you'll never stop saying it yourself either. So you should expect to hear the same sort of thing from me too, and don't be surprised that I say these things — instead, stop philosophy, my darling, from saying them. Because it's philosophy, my dear friend, that's saying what you're hearing from me now, and she's far less fickle than my other darling; that son of Cleinias says different things at different times, while philosophy always says the same, and what she's saying is exactly what you find so surprising — and you were there yourself when it was said. So either refute her — as I was just saying — and show that doing wrong, and doing wrong without paying the penalty for it, isn't the worst of all evils; or, if you leave that unrefuted, then by the dog, the god of the Egyptians, Callicles will not agree with Callicles, but will be out of tune with himself his whole life long. And yet, my excellent friend, I think it better for my own lyre to be out of tune and off pitch, and for a chorus I might direct — and for the vast majority of people to disagree with me and say the opposite — than for me, one single man, to be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself.

Callicles

Socrates, you seem to me to be showing off in argument like a true crowd-pleaser; and right now you're playing to the crowd because Polus suffered the very thing he accused Gorgias of suffering at your hands. He said, I gather, that when Gorgias was asked by you whether, if someone who wanted to learn rhetoric came to him not already knowing what's just, Gorgias would teach him, Gorgias grew ashamed and said he would teach him, because of people's custom of getting angry if you say no — that because of this admission he was forced to contradict himself, and that you were delighted with exactly that — and that he made fun of you, rightly, as it seemed to me at the time; but now Polus himself has suffered this very same thing all over again. And for that very reason I don't admire Polus, for conceding to you that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering wrong; because it was that very admission that got him tangled up by you in the argument and left with his mouth shut, too ashamed to say what he actually thought. Because in truth, Socrates, you lead people into this crude, crowd-pleasing stuff, all while claiming to be chasing the truth — things that aren't fine by nature at all, only by convention. And for the most part nature and convention are opposed to each other; so if a person feels ashamed and doesn't dare say what he actually thinks, he's forced to contradict himself. You've caught on to this clever trick, and you use it to cheat in argument: if someone speaks by convention, you press him with questions about nature, and if he speaks about nature, you switch to convention. Take, for instance, this business of doing wrong and suffering wrong — when Polus was speaking of what's more shameful by convention, you chased the argument down the line of nature. Because by nature, whatever is worse is also more shameful, and that's suffering wrong, while by convention it's doing wrong. For this experience — suffering wrong — isn't even something that happens to a real man; it happens to some slave, for whom it would be better to die than to live, since when he's wronged and trampled on he's unable to defend himself, or anyone else he cares about. No, I think the ones who make the laws are the weak and the many. So they make their laws with themselves and their own advantage in mind, and that's how they hand out their praise and their blame; they scare the stronger sort of men, the ones capable of getting more, so that these men won't get more than they do, and they say that getting more than one's share is shameful and unjust, and that this is what doing wrong means — seeking to have more than others; because, I think, being the lesser men themselves, they're content if they get an equal share. That's exactly why seeking to have more than the many is called unjust and shameful by convention, and they call it doing wrong; but nature herself, I think, reveals the opposite — that it's just for the better man to have more than the worse, and the more capable more than the less capable. This is shown to be so in many places — among the other animals, and among whole cities and races of men, where justice has been decided on exactly these terms: that the stronger should rule the weaker and have more. For by what justice did Xerxes march against Greece, or his father against the Scythians? Or one could mention countless other cases just like these. No, I think these men act according to the nature of what's just — yes, by god, according to the law of nature — though perhaps not according to the one we lay down among ourselves; we mold the best and strongest of our own kind, taking them while they're still young, like lion cubs, and by chanting spells and casting charms over them we enslave them, telling them they must have an equal share and that this is what's fine and just. But if, I think, a man is born with a nature strong enough for it, he shakes all this off, breaks through it, escapes it — he tramples our writings and our tricks and our incantations and all our laws that go against nature, rises up, and stands revealed as our master, the slave turned ruler, and right there the justice of nature bursts into the light. It seems to me that Pindar too shows exactly what I'm saying, in the song where he says—

and this, he says—

that's roughly how it goes — I don't know the song by heart — but it says that he drove off Geryon's cattle neither by paying for them nor by their owner giving them, on the ground that this is what's just by nature, and that cattle and all other possessions belong, by right, to the better and stronger man, and not to the worse and weaker.

So that's how the truth stands, and you'll come to know it if you finally leave philosophy behind and move on to greater things. Because philosophy, Socrates, is a charming thing if a person takes it up in moderation at the right age; but if he lingers in it longer than he should, it's the ruin of a man. Because even if someone is extremely gifted by nature, if he keeps doing philosophy well past the right age, he inevitably ends up without experience of everything a man needs experience of if he's going to turn out fine, good, and well regarded. Such men end up with no experience of the laws that govern the city, none of the language they need to deal with people in their private and public dealings, none of human pleasures and desires — in short, no experience of character at all. So whenever they enter into some private or public business, they become ridiculous — just as, I think, politicians become ridiculous whenever they turn to your kind of discussions and arguments. For what Euripides says turns out to be true — every man shines brightest in the thing he's good at, and hurries toward that,

but wherever he's weak, he runs from that and abuses it, while he praises the other, out of goodwill toward himself, thinking that in this way he's praising himself. No, I think the best course is to share in both. It's fine to take part in philosophy for the sake of education, up to a point, and there's nothing shameful in a young boy doing philosophy; but once a man is already older and still philosophizing, the whole business becomes ridiculous, Socrates, and I, for one, react to men who philosophize exactly the way I react to men who lisp and play childish games. Because when I see a small child, one for whom that kind of talk is still appropriate, lisping and playing, I'm delighted — it seems charming to me, free and fitting for the child's age; but when I hear a little boy speaking clearly and carefully, it strikes me as a harsh thing, it grates on my ears, and it seems to me somehow fit for a slave; and whenever someone hears a grown man lisp, or sees him playing games, it looks ridiculous, unmanly, and deserving of a beating. Well, I feel this exact same thing toward men who philosophize. When I see philosophy in a young boy, I admire it — it seems fitting to me, and I take that person to be a free man, while the one who doesn't philosophize is unfree and will never think himself worthy of anything fine or noble; but when I see an older man still doing philosophy, not putting it aside, that man, Socrates, already seems to me to need a beating. As I was just saying, this is what happens to such a man — even if he's remarkably gifted, he becomes unmanly, fleeing the center of the city and the marketplaces, where the poet says men become distinguished, and instead he ends up burrowing away, living out the rest of his life whispering in a corner with three or four boys, never once uttering anything free, grand, or worthwhile. Now, Socrates, I'm fairly well disposed toward you — I'm probably in the same position right now as Euripides' Zethus was toward Amphion, whom I mentioned a moment ago. Because things like this occur to me to say to you, just as they occurred to him to say to his brother — that you're neglecting, Socrates, what you ought to be taking care of, and that you're twisting a nature of soul as noble as yours into some boyish shape, and that you'd be unable to bring a properly framed argument to a courtroom debate, or grasp anything plausible and persuasive, or come up with a bold plan on someone else's behalf. And yet, my dear Socrates — and don't be annoyed with me over this; I'll speak out of goodwill toward you — don't you think it's a shameful condition to be in, the one I think you're in, and the one all the others are in who keep pushing on further and further into philosophy? Because right now, if someone grabbed hold of you, or of any other man of your sort, and dragged you off to prison, claiming you'd done wrong when you'd done no wrong, you know perfectly well you wouldn't have any idea what to do with yourself — you'd get dizzy and stand there gaping, with nothing to say, and if you went up before the court and happened to draw some thoroughly worthless and vicious prosecutor, you'd be put to death, if he wanted to press for the death penalty. And yet how is this wisdom, Socrates, when a craft takes a naturally gifted man and makes him worse — unable to help himself, unable to save himself or anyone else from the gravest dangers, stripped of his entire property by his enemies, and living in his own city, quite literally, without any honor at all? A man like that — if I may put it a bit crudely — can be slapped across the face and the one who hits him pays no penalty for it. So take my advice, my good man — give up your refutations, practice the fine art of practical affairs, and practice whatever will get you a reputation for good sense, leaving these clever little exercises to other people, whether we should call them nonsense or drivel, the kind of thing that will leave you living in an empty house; and stop admiring men who spend their time on these petty refutations, and admire instead the men who have a good life, a good reputation, and plenty of other good things.

The Many Prove Collectively Stronger Than the One

Socrates

If I happened to have a golden soul, Callicles, don't you think I'd be glad to find one of those touchstones people test gold with — the very best one — so that I could bring my soul up against it, and if it agreed that my soul had been properly cared for, I'd know for certain that I was in good shape and needed no other test?

Callicles

Why are you even asking that, Socrates?

Socrates

I'll tell you — I think that in running into you just now I've run into exactly that kind of stroke of luck.

Callicles

How so?

Socrates

I know perfectly well that if you agree with me about the things my soul holds an opinion on, those things are already the truth itself. Because I realize that anyone who's going to test properly whether a soul is living rightly or not needs three things, all of which you happen to have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness. I run into plenty of people who aren't able to test me because they're not wise the way you are; others are wise, but they're unwilling to tell me the truth because they don't care about me the way you do; but these two strangers here, Gorgias and Polus, are wise and they're my friends, but they're rather short on frankness and more prone to embarrassment than they ought to be — how could they not be? Both of them have reached such a pitch of embarrassment that, out of sheer embarrassment, each of them dares to contradict himself in front of a great many people, and about the most important matters at that. But you have all these things that the others lack — you've been well enough educated, as plenty of Athenians would say, and you're well disposed toward me. What evidence am I using? I'll tell you. I know that the four of you, Callicles, have become partners in wisdom — you, Teisander of Aphidnae, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholarges; and I once overheard you deliberating about how far one ought to pursue wisdom, and I know that the view that won out among you was not to be eager to philosophize down to the last precision, and you urged one another to be careful not to become wiser than you needed to be and ruin yourselves without noticing it. So when I hear you giving me the same advice you gave your closest companions, that's sufficient evidence to me that you're truly well disposed toward me. And as for being the kind of man who speaks frankly and isn't embarrassed, you say so yourself, and the speech you gave a little while ago backs you up on it. So this is clearly how things stand right now regarding these matters — if you agree with me on something in the argument, it will already have been sufficiently tested by both of us, and there will be no need to bring it before any further test. Because you'd never concede it either from lack of wisdom or from excess of embarrassment, and you wouldn't concede it to deceive me either — you're my friend, as you say yourself. So in truth, any agreement between you and me will already have reached the very end of the truth. And the finest inquiry of all, Callicles, concerns exactly what you criticized me over — what kind of man one ought to be, and what one ought to pursue, and up to what point, both as an older man and as a younger one. As for me, if I'm doing something wrong in my own life, you should know well that I'm not erring on purpose, but out of my own ignorance; so, since you've already begun to admonish me, don't stop now — show me clearly what it is I ought to be pursuing, and how I might acquire it, and if you ever catch me agreeing with you now, and then, later on, not doing the same things I agreed to, consider me a complete fool and never bother admonishing me again afterward, as being worth nothing at all. So tell me again, from the beginning — how do you and Pindar say the just thing stands, according to nature? That the stronger should take by force what belongs to the weaker, the better man should rule the worse, and the superior man should have more than the inferior one? Is that anything different from what you say justice is, or am I remembering correctly?

Callicles

Well, that's what I was saying then, and that's what I'm saying now.

Socrates

Do you call the same man better and stronger? Because even then I wasn't able to figure out what exactly you meant. Do you call the stronger men the better ones, and say the weaker must obey the stronger — which is what you seemed to me to be showing earlier too, when you said that big cities attack small ones according to what's just by nature, because they're stronger and more powerful, on the assumption that the stronger, the more powerful, and the better are the same thing — or can someone be better while also weaker and less powerful, and stronger while also more corrupt, or is the definition of the better and of the stronger one and the same? Just make this itself clear to me — are the stronger, the better, and the more powerful the same thing, or different?

Callicles

I'm telling you clearly — they're the same thing.

Socrates

So then the many are stronger than the one by nature? And it's the many who make the laws against the one, just as you were saying a moment ago.

Callicles

How could they not be?

Socrates

So the conventions of the many are the conventions of the stronger.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And so the conventions of the better men too? Because the stronger are far better, according to your account.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So then their conventions are fine by nature, since they belong to the stronger?

Callicles

I say so.

Socrates

So then, do the many believe this — just as you were saying a moment ago — that it's just to have an equal share, and more shameful to do wrong than to suffer it? Is that so, or not? And mind you don't get caught out being embarrassed here yourself. Do the many believe, or not, that it's just to have an equal share rather than more, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Don't grudge me an answer to this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me, I can already treat it as settled, coming as it does from a man competent to judge.

Callicles

Well, the many do believe that.

Socrates

So it's not only by convention that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, and that having an equal share is just — it's by nature too; which means you run the risk of not having spoken the truth earlier, and of accusing me wrongly when you said that convention and nature are opposed, something I supposedly know and exploit to cheat in argument, dragging anyone who speaks by nature over to convention, and anyone who speaks by convention over to nature.

Callicles

This man will never stop talking nonsense. Tell me, Socrates — aren't you embarrassed, at your age, to go hunting for words, and to treat it as a windfall whenever someone makes a slip of the tongue? Do you really think I mean anything different by "the stronger" than "the better"? Haven't I been telling you for a while now that I say the better and the stronger are the same thing? Or do you think I mean that if a mob of slaves and every sort of worthless person gets together — worth nothing except perhaps for physical strength — and they say something, that's automatically a valid convention?

Socrates

All right, wisest of men, Callicles — is that what you're saying?

Callicles

That's exactly it.

Socrates

Well, my good man, I myself have suspected for a while now that this is roughly what you mean by "the stronger," and I've been asking because I'm eager to know clearly what you mean. Because surely you don't think two men are better than one, or that your own slaves are better than you, just because they're physically stronger than you. So tell me again, from the beginning, who you mean by "the better," since it's not the stronger? And, my extraordinary friend, teach me a bit more gently, so I don't run off and leave your school.

Callicles

You're being sarcastic, Socrates.

Socrates

By Zethus, Callicles — the very character you used a moment ago to poke fun at me — no, come on, tell me: who do you mean by "the better"?

Callicles

The superior men, that's who.

Socrates

Do you see, then, that you're just uttering words yourself and explaining nothing? Won't you tell me whether by "the better and the stronger" you mean the more intelligent, or some other people?

Callicles

Yes, by god, that's exactly who I mean, and emphatically so.

Socrates

So then, on your account, one intelligent man is often stronger than ten thousand unintelligent ones, and he ought to rule while they're ruled, and the ruler ought to have more than the ruled; this seems to me to be what you mean to say — and I'm not hunting for a slip of the tongue — if the one man is stronger than the ten thousand.

Callicles

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Because I think this is what's just by nature — that the man who is better and more intelligent should both rule and have more than his inferiors.

Socrates

Hold on right there. What exactly are you saying now? If we were all together in one place, as we are now, a whole crowd of us, and we had plenty of food and drink in common, and we were all sorts — some strong, some weak — and one of us, being a doctor, were more knowledgeable than the rest about these things, and were, as is likely, stronger than some of us and weaker than others, wouldn't this man, being more intelligent than we are, turn out to be better and stronger than us in this area?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So should he then have a greater share of this food than the rest of us, because he's better — or should the distribution all be up to him as ruler, while when it comes to using it up and consuming it for his own body he shouldn't get more than his share, unless he means to suffer for it, but should get more of some things and less of others — and if he happens to be the weakest of all, should the best man get the least of all, Callicles? Isn't that how it is, my good man?

Callicles

You're talking about food and drink and doctors and nonsense; that's not what I mean at all.

Socrates

Don't you mean the more intelligent man by "the better"? Say yes or no.

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And shouldn't the better man have more?

Callicles

Not of food or drink, no.

Socrates

I see — clothes then, perhaps, and the best weaver ought to have the biggest cloak and go around wearing the most and the finest clothes?

Callicles

What clothes are you even talking about?

Socrates

All right, shoes then — clearly the man who is most intelligent and best at this ought to get more than his share. The shoemaker, perhaps, ought to walk around wearing the biggest and the most shoes.

Callicles

What shoes? You won't stop talking nonsense.

Socrates

Well, if you don't mean things like that, maybe you mean something like this — say, a man who's skilled, fine, and good when it comes to farming; perhaps he ought to get more seed than his share, and use as much seed as possible on his own land.

Callicles

You keep saying the same things over and over, Socrates.

Socrates

Not only that, Callicles — I also keep saying them about the same things.

Callicles

By the gods, you literally never stop talking about shoemakers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them.

Socrates

Then won't you tell me in what area the stronger and more intelligent man justly gets more than his share by having more? Or will you neither put up with my suggestions nor tell me yourself?

Callicles

I've been telling you for a while now. First of all, by "the stronger" I don't mean shoemakers or cooks, but the men who are intelligent about the business of the city, about how it should best be run — and not only intelligent, but also courageous, capable of carrying out whatever they've thought through, and not the sort to give up out of softness of soul.

Socrates

Do you see, my excellent Callicles, that your accusation against me and my accusation against you aren't the same? You say I always say the same things, and you find fault with me for it; but I find fault with you for the opposite reason — that you never say the same thing twice about the same subject, but first you defined the better and the stronger as the physically stronger, then as the more intelligent, and now you've come around with something else again — now you say the braver men are the stronger and the better. So, my good man, just tell me plainly, once and for all, who exactly you mean by the better and the stronger, and in what respect, and be done with it.

Callicles

I already told you — the men who are intelligent about the business of the city, and courageous. Because it's fitting for these men to rule the cities, and this is what justice is — for these men, the rulers, to have more than the others, the ruled.

Socrates

And what about this? What about themselves, my friend? Are they rulers of themselves, or ruled?

Callicles

What do you mean?

Socrates

I mean each man ruling himself; or is there no need at all for a man to rule himself, only to rule others?

Callicles

What do you mean by ruling himself?

Socrates

Nothing complicated — just what most people mean: being moderate and in control of oneself, ruling over the pleasures and desires within oneself.

Hedonism Declared, and the Coward's Equal Pleasure

Callicles

How sweet you are — you call the moderate ones fools.

Socrates

How could it [not]? There's no one who wouldn't know that isn't what I mean.

Callicles

Yes, very much so, Socrates. How could a man ever be happy while he's a slave to anything? But this is what's fine and just by nature — I'll say it to you now, speaking frankly — that the man who's going to live rightly should let his own appetites grow as large as possible and not restrain them, and when they're as large as possible, be capable of serving them through courage and intelligence, and satisfy them with whatever he happens to desire at any time. But most people, I think, can't do this — that's why they criticize men like that out of shame, hiding their own inability, and call lack of restraint shameful, exactly what I said before, enslaving the men who are naturally superior; and because they themselves can't secure enough to fill their pleasures, they praise moderation and justice, out of their own lack of manhood. Since for those who from the start happened to be sons of kings, or were naturally capable of securing some rule or tyranny or domination for themselves, ⟨what⟩ could truly be more shameful and worse than moderation and justice for men like this — men who could enjoy good things with nothing standing in their way, and yet bring upon themselves as master the law and the talk and the blame of the common crowd? Or how would they not turn out wretched, brought low by the so-called fineness of justice and moderation, giving no more to their own friends than to their enemies — and that while ruling their own city? No, the truth, Socrates — the very thing you claim to be pursuing — is this: luxury and lack of restraint and freedom, when they have support behind them, that is virtue and happiness; everything else, all this finery, is just conventions men have agreed on, against nature, nonsense and worth nothing.

Socrates

That's no cowardly way to pursue the argument, Callicles, speaking as frankly as you do — you're plainly saying now what everyone else thinks but isn't willing to say. So I ask you not to let up in any way, so that it can really become clear how one ought to live. Now tell me: you say the appetites shouldn't be restrained, if a person is going to be what he should be, but that he should let them grow as large as possible and provide them fulfillment from wherever he can, and that this is virtue?

Callicles

Yes, that's what I say.

Socrates

Then it's not right to say that those who need nothing are happy.

Callicles

Because on that view stones and corpses would be the happiest of all.

Socrates

Well, on your account life is a strange thing indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if Euripides is telling the truth in these lines, where he says—

And it may be that we really are dead — I have in fact heard from the wise that we are dead right now, that the body is a tomb for us, and that the part of the soul in which our appetites live happens to be the kind of thing that can be talked around and flipped upside down, and that some clever storyteller — a Sicilian, perhaps, or an Italian — twisting the name for the sake of the pun, called it, because it is so persuadable and so easily swayed, a jar, and called the mindless the uninitiated — and that in the mindless, this same part of the soul where the appetites are, its unrestrained and leaky part, he compared, on account of its greed, to a jar full of holes. This man, then, is showing you the opposite, Callicles — that among those in Hades, playing on the "unseen" in the name, the most wretched would be exactly these uninitiated ones, and that they would carry water into that leaky jar using another vessel just as full of holes, a sieve. The sieve, so the man who told me this said, stands for the soul — he likened the soul of the mindless to a sieve because it's full of holes, since it can't hold anything, thanks to its faithlessness and forgetfulness. This is all admittedly rather strange, but it shows what I want to point out to you, in case I can somehow persuade you to change your mind and choose, instead of the insatiable and unrestrained life, the orderly life, one content and satisfied with whatever is at hand each time. So, am I persuading you at all, and getting you to change your mind that the orderly are happier than the unrestrained, or would you not shift your position even if I told many more such tales?

Callicles

That's truer, Socrates.

Socrates

Come now, let me give you another image, from the same school as the one just now. Consider whether this is what you mean about each life, the moderate one and the unrestrained one: suppose two men each had many jars — one man's healthy and full, one of wine, one of honey, one of milk, and many others full of many things, but the streams feeding each of these were scarce and hard to come by, procured only with much painful effort; so this first man, once he'd filled his jars, would draw no more from them and give them no further thought, but would be at ease on their account; while the other man, though he too could get the streams, with just as much difficulty, had jars that were cracked and full of holes, and was forced to keep filling them, night and day, or else suffer the worst pains — given that each life is like this, do you say the unrestrained man's life is happier than the orderly man's? Am I persuading you at all by saying this, to agree that the orderly life is better than the unrestrained one, or am I not persuading you?

Callicles

You're not persuading me, Socrates. Because that man who's filled his jars has no more pleasure left at all — that's exactly what I was saying just now, living like a stone once he's filled up, feeling neither joy nor pain any longer. No, living pleasantly consists in having as much as possible flowing in.

Socrates

Then isn't it necessary, if a lot is flowing in, that a lot is also flowing out, and that the holes for the outflow are pretty big?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So now you're describing the life of some stone-curlew, not a corpse's or a stone's. Now tell me: do you mean something like this — being hungry, and eating while hungry?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And being thirsty, and drinking while thirsty?

Callicles

Yes, and having all the other appetites too, and being able to satisfy them, and enjoying it — that's living happily.

Socrates

Well said, my excellent fellow — keep going the way you started, and don't get embarrassed. And it seems I mustn't get embarrassed either. So first tell me: is it possible to live happily by scratching, if one is scabby and itchy and has plenty to scratch with, spending one's whole life scratching?

Callicles

What a strange man you are, Socrates, and simply a crowd-pleaser.

Socrates

That's exactly why, Callicles, I managed to shock Polus and Gorgias and make them embarrassed, but you won't be shocked or embarrassed, because you're a brave man. Just answer, that's all.

Callicles

Well then, I say that even the man who scratches would live pleasantly.

Socrates

Then if pleasantly, also happily?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

What if it's only his head he itches — or why do I even keep asking you this? Watch what you'll answer, Callicles, if someone asks you everything that follows from this, one thing after another. And, taking all such things to their conclusion, isn't the life of catamites terrible and shameful and wretched? Or will you dare to say that they're happy, as long as they have plenty of what they need?

Callicles

Aren't you ashamed, Socrates, to drag the discussion into things like this?

Socrates

Am I the one dragging it there, my noble friend, or is it whoever claims, without qualification, that those who feel pleasure — however they feel it — are happy, and refuses to distinguish which pleasures are good and which are bad? But even now, tell me: do you say the pleasant and the good are the same thing, or is there some pleasant thing that isn't good?

Callicles

So as not to contradict myself, in case I'd have to say they're different, I say they're the same.

Socrates

You're ruining our earlier agreements, Callicles, and you won't be able to examine the truth properly with me any longer, if you're going to speak against what you actually believe.

Callicles

So do you, Socrates.

Socrates

Well then, neither of us is doing right, if I'm doing that, nor are you. But, my good man, consider whether the good might not simply be feeling pleasure in every case — because many shameful things clearly follow from what was just hinted at, if that's really so, and many other absurdities besides.

Callicles

So you think, Socrates.

Socrates

But do you really maintain this, Callicles?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Then shall we take up the argument on the assumption that you're serious?

Callicles

Yes, very much so.

Socrates

Come then, since that's how it seems to you, distinguish these things for me — you do call something knowledge, don't you?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And didn't you just say a moment ago that there's such a thing as courage, along with knowledge?

Callicles

Yes, I did.

Socrates

So weren't you speaking of these as two different things, courage as distinct from knowledge?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

What about this? Are pleasure and knowledge the same, or different?

Callicles

Different, surely, wisest of men.

Socrates

And is courage also different from pleasure?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

Come then, let's remember this: that Callicles of Acharnae said the pleasant and the good are the same, but knowledge and courage are different both from each other and from the good.

Callicles

And Socrates of Alopece doesn't agree with this. Or does he?

Socrates

He doesn't agree — and I don't think Callicles does either, once he looks at himself properly. Tell me: don't you think those who fare well have had the opposite experience from those who fare badly?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So if these are opposite to each other, must things stand with them the way they stand with health and disease? Because a person surely isn't healthy and sick at the same time, and doesn't get rid of health and disease at the same time either.

Callicles

What do you mean?

Socrates

Take, for instance, whatever part of the body you like and examine it. A person gets sick in the eyes, something called ophthalmia, right?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

He's surely not healthy in those same eyes at the same time, is he?

Callicles

Not in the least.

Socrates

But what about when he gets rid of the ophthalmia? Does he then also get rid of the health of his eyes, and end up rid of both at once?

Callicles

Not at all.

Socrates

That would be strange, I think, and unreasonable — wouldn't it?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

So I think he gets and loses each of the two in turn?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the same goes for strength and weakness?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And speed and slowness?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And does he also get good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery, in turn, getting rid of each in turn as well?

Callicles

Surely, in every case.

Socrates

So if we find some things a person gets rid of and has at the same time, clearly those things can't be the good and the bad. Do we agree on this? Think it over carefully and answer.

Callicles

I agree, extraordinarily so.

Socrates

Let's go back to what we agreed on earlier. Did you say being hungry is pleasant or painful? I mean hunger itself.

Callicles

Painful, I'd say — though eating while hungry, I say, is pleasant .

Socrates

I understand — but hunger itself is painful, at any rate. Or isn't it?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And thirst too?

Callicles

Very much.

Socrates

Shall I keep asking more of these, or do you agree that every lack and every appetite is painful?

Callicles

I agree — just stop asking.

Socrates

Very well — and do you say that drinking while thirsty is anything other than pleasant?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So in what you're describing, the thirsty part is surely in pain?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the drinking is a filling of the lack, and a pleasure?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So you're saying the enjoyment is in the drinking?

Callicles

Exactly.

Socrates

While thirsty, that is.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

While in pain?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Do you see what follows, that you're saying he's enjoying himself while in pain at the same time, when you say he drinks while thirsty? Or doesn't this happen at the same place and the same time, whether you mean the soul or the body? Because I don't think it makes any difference. Is this so, or not?

Callicles

It is.

Socrates

But you say it's impossible to fare well and fare badly at the same time.

Callicles

Yes, I do.

Socrates

But you've agreed that it's possible to feel pleasure while in distress.

Callicles

So it seems.

Socrates

So feeling pleasure isn't the same as faring well, nor is being in distress the same as faring badly — which means the pleasant turns out to be different from the good.

Callicles

I don't know what sophistries you're up to, Socrates.

Socrates

You do know it, but you're playing innocent, Callicles — go on a bit further still [since you're knowingly talking nonsense], so you can see how wise you sound, lecturing me. Doesn't each of us stop being thirsty and start feeling pleasure through drinking, at the same time?

Callicles

I don't know what you mean.

Gorgias

Don't say that, Callicles — answer, if only for our sake, so the discussion can be brought to a conclusion.

Callicles

But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias — he keeps asking about petty, worthless things and refuting people over them.

Gorgias

But what difference does that make to you? It's not your reputation at stake here anyway, Callicles — so submit yourself to Socrates, and let him refute you however he wants.