Socrates on Evil And Ignorance

1. Socrates on Evil And Ignorance

2. Introduction • Sources • Socrates (470-399) wrote nothing • Aristophanes: Clouds • Xenophon: Memorabilia • Plato wrote many dialogues starring Socrates

3. Introduction • Sources • Socrates (470-399) wrote nothing • Aristophanes: Clouds • Xenophon: Memorabilia • Plato wrote many dialogues starring Socrates • Can we trust what Plato says? (‘Socratic Problem’) • Assume that early dialogues give Socrates’ views

4. Introduction • Sources • Socrates (470-399) wrote nothing • Aristophanes: Clouds • Xenophon: Memorabilia • Plato wrote many dialogues starring Socrates • Can we trust what Plato says? (‘Socratic Problem’) • Assume that early dialogues give Socrates’ views • Euthyphro, Apology, Protagoras, Meno, and Crito

5. Method • Sophists in the background Combine two trends • Extensive foreign contacts leads to cultural relativism. (Custom is king of all.)

6. Method Herodotus When [Darius] was king of Persia, he summoned the Greeks who happened to be present at his court, and asked them what they would take to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. They replied that they would not do it for any money in the world. Later, in the presence of the Greeks, and through an interpreter, so they could understand what was said, he asked some Indians, of the tribe called Callatiae, who do in fact eat their parents’ dead bodies, what they would take to burn them. They uttered a cry of horror and forbade him to mention such a dreadful thing. One can see by this what custom can do, and Pindar, in my opinion, was right when he called it ‘king of all’.

7. Method • Sophists in the background Combine two trends • Extensive foreign contacts leads to cultural relativism. (Custom is king of all.)

8. Method • Sophists in the background Combine two trends • Extensive foreign contacts leads to cultural relativism. (Custom is king of all.) • Importance of Law leads to demand for teachers of argument – Sophists

9. Method • Sophists in the background Combine two trends • Extensive foreign contacts leads to cultural relativism. (Custom is king of all.) • Importance of Law leads to demand for teachers of argument – Sophists • Proud to declare that they could make the worse case appear to be the better case

10. Method • Sophists in the background Result • Ethical relativism.

11. Method • Sophists in the background Result • Ethical relativism. • Protagoras: ‘Man is the measure of all things.’ Aristotle explains: [w]hat seems to any man to be the case really is the case. But if this is so, it follows that the same thing both is and is not, or is bad and good, and so with what I said in all other opposite statements; for things often appear to be beautiful to some and the contrary to others, and what appears to each man is the measure.

12. Method • Sophists in the background Result • Ethical relativism. • Thrasymachus: ‘Justice is the interest of the strong.’ The Athenians explain to the Melians: So far as right and wrong are concerned they think that there is no difference between the two, that those who still preserve their independence do so because they are strong, and that if we fail to attack them it is because we are afraid.

13. Method • Elenchus • Socrates professes ignorance

14. Method • Elenchus • Socrates professes ignorance • The Oracle at Delphi calls him the wisest • He enquires of those who claim to know • He finds that they don’t know • At least Socrates knows that he doesn’t know

15. Method • Elenchus • Socrates professes ignorance • The Oracle at Delphi calls him the wisest • He enquires of those who claim to know • He finds that they don’t know • At least Socrates knows that he doesn’t know • The search for truth is a collaboration • Sophists treat argument as a competitive sport

16. Method • Elenchus • Question and answer session with the following rules and goals: • Socrates asks all the questions. • The interlocutor must answer every question. • A definition or principle in moral philosophy is sought from the interlocutor. • Socrates seeks clarification, gaining assent for various propositions. • These propositions are used to show that the proposed definition or principle is unsatisfactory.

17. Method • Elenchus • Tends to look aimless • Tends to end without a conclusion • Nevertheless we think there are some Socratic doctrines

18. Doctrine • Vengeance is always unjust • In the Homeric Tradition wrongdoing ought to be repaid in kind. • Justice was conventionally defined as helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies. • In the Crito, Socrates argues against this view of justice. • He begins by comparing a healthy body with a healthy soul, and argues:

19. Doctrine • Vengeance is always unjust Socrates: And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be depraved, which is improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body? (Crito 47e)

20. Doctrine • Vengeance is always unjust • Crito agrees that Not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued. A good life is a just and honourable one. Doing wrong is always evil and dishonourable. • Socrates concludes We must do no wrong.

21. Doctrine • Vengeance is always unjust • Socrates argues S: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many – is that just or not? C: Not just. S: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him? C: Very true. S: Then we ought not retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. (Crito 49c)

22. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • And ignorance is evil • A ‘Socratic Paradox’ • ‘virtue’ = ‘aretê’, a type of excellence in function

23. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge Surely virtue makes us good. And if we are good, we are benefited, for all that is good benefits. Is that not so? So virtue is something beneficial? Let us then examine what kinds of thing benefit us, taking them up one by one: health, we say, and strength, and beauty, and also wealth. We say that these things, and others of the same kind, benefit us, do we not?

24. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge Yet we say that these same things also sometimes harm one. Do you agree or not? Let us now look at the qualities of the soul. There is something you call moderation, and justice, courage, intelligence, memory, munificence, and all such things.

25. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge Consider whichever of these you believe not to be knowledge but different from it; do they not at times harm us, at other times benefit us? Courage, for example, when it is not wisdom but like a kind of recklessness: when a man is reckless without understanding he is harmed, when with understanding he is benefited.

26. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge The same is true of moderation and mental quickness; when they are learned and disciplined with understanding they are beneficial, but without understanding they are harmful. Therefore, in a word, all that the soul undertakes and endures, if directed by wisdom, ends in happiness, but if directed by ignorance, it ends in the opposite.

27. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge If then virtue is something in the soul and it must be beneficial, it must be knowledge, since all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither beneficial nor harmful, but accompanied by wisdom or folly they become beneficial or harmful. This argument shows that virtue, being beneficial, must be a kind of wisdom. (Meno, 87c-88d)

28. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • To have virtue, is to know how to live well. • Virtue knowledge isn’t theoretical knowledge of what is right. • Virtue knowledge is knowledge of how it is to our benefit to do the right thing.

29. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • We always act for our own benefit. S: Do you not think, my good man, that all men desire good things? M: I do not. S: But some desire bad things? M: Yes.

30. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • We always act for our own benefit. S: Do you mean that they believe the bad things to be good, or that they know they are bad and nevertheless desire them? M: I think there are both kinds. S: Do you think, Meno, that anyone, knowing that bad things are bad, nevertheless desire them? M: I certainly do…..

31. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • We always act for our own benefit. S: Well then, those who you say desire bad things, believing that bad things harm their possessor, know that they will be harmed by them? M: Necessarily.

32. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • We always act for our own benefit. S: And do they not think that those who are harmed are miserable to the extent that they are harmed? M: That too is inevitable. S: And that those who are miserable are unhappy? M: I think so.

33. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge • We always act for our own benefit. S: Does anyone wish to be miserable and unhappy? M: I do not think so, Socrates. S: No one then wants what is bad, Meno, unless he wants to be such. For what else is being miserable but to desire bad things and secure them? M: You are probably right, Socrates, and no one wants what is bad. (Meno 77b-78b)

34. Doctrine • Virtue is knowledge and knowledge is virtue • To have virtue, is to know how to live well. • We always act for our own benefit.

35. Doctrine • No-one knowingly does wrong “Well gentlemen,” I said, “what about this? Aren’t all actions praiseworthy which lead to a painless and pleasant life? And isn’t praiseworthy activity good and beneficial?” They agreed.

36. Doctrine • No-one knowingly does wrong “So if what is pleasant is good,” I said, “no one who either knows or believes that something else is better than what he is doing, and is in his power to do, subsequently does the other, when he can do what is better. Nor is giving in to oneself anything other than error, nor controlling oneself anything other than wisdom.” They all agreed. “Well now. Is this what you mean by error, having false opinions and being mistaken about matters of importance?” They all agreed to that as well.

37. Doctrine • No-one knowingly does wrong Now surely,” I said, “no one freely goes for bad things or things he believes to be bad; it’s not, it seems to me, in human nature to be prepared to go for what you think to be bad in preference to what is good. And when you are forced to choose one of two evils, nobody will choose the greater when he can have the lesser. Isn’t that so?” (Protagoras, 358d4)

38. Doctrine • A just person can suffer no harm • A good person is a virtuous person • Virtue is a kind of excellence • A good life is an excellent life • Harm is a diminution of this excellence • A good person will not suffer this diminution • A good person cannot be harmed