Ancient philosophy a new history of western philosophy volume 1 (new history of western philosophy) ( PDFDrive ) 286
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ETHICS
of the way in which the virtues intertwine and form a unity. Actions that
exhibit courage are of course diVerent actions from those that exhibit
temperance; but what they express is a single, indivisible state of soul. If
we say that courage is the science of what is good and bad in respect of
future dangers, we have to agree that such a science is only possible as part
of an overall science of good and evil (La. 199c). The individual virtues are
parts of this science, but it can only be possessed as a whole. No one, not
even Socrates, is in possession of this science.1
We are, however, given an account of what it would look like, and it is
rather a surprising account. Socrates asks Protagoras, in the dialogue
named after him, to accept the premiss that goodness is identical with
pleasure and evil is identical with pain. From this premiss he oVers to prove
his contention that no one does evil willingly. People are often said to have
done evil in the knowledge that it was evil because they yielded to
temptation and were overcome by pleasure. But if ‘pleasure’ and ‘good’
mean the same, then they must have done evil because they were overcome by goodness. Is not that absurd (354c–5d)?
Knowledge is a powerful thing, and the knowledge that something is
evil cannot be pushed about like a slave. Given the premiss that Protagoras
has accepted, knowledge that an action is evil must be knowledge that,
taken with its consequences, the action will lead to an excess of pain over
pleasure. No one with such knowledge is going to undertake such an
action; hence the person acting wrongly must lack the knowledge. Nearby
objects seem larger to vision than distant ones, and something similar
happens in mental vision. The wrongdoer is suVering from the
illusion that the present pleasure outweighs the consequent pain. What
is needed is a science that measures the relative sizes of pleasures and pains,
present and future, ‘since our salvation in life has turned out to lie in the
correct choice of pleasure and pain’ (356d–357b). This is the science of good
and evil that is identical with each of the virtues, justice, temperance, and
courage (361b).
1 Here I am indebted to a number of articles by Terry Penner, summed up in his essay
‘Socrates and the Early Dialogues’, in R. Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992).
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