The unconscious hedonism of the many in the Protagoras
May 19, 2008 draft
Tobita Chow
A section towards the end of Plato’s Protagoras features the idea of a sort of
hedonism: the thesis that ‘good’ and ‘pleasure’ are just two names for the same thing
(and similarly for ‘bad’ and ‘pain’). This idea is brought up and articulated by Socrates,
who manages to bring his various interlocutors to assent to this hedonist thesis (first the
many, in an imagined conversation; then Protagoras and the other sophists present). But
the text does not make it immediately obvious whether Socrates himself is to be
interpreted as a hedonist (call this a “prohedonist” interpretation), or whether we should
rather interpret him as judging his interlocutors to be hedonists and using the hedonist
thesis as a premise against them, in ad hominem fashion, without ever committing
himself to the thesis (call this an “antihedonist” interpretation).1 .The debate surrounding
this question is pretty old. Mill in 1834 is sensitive to the question, although his answer
to it is ambiguous.2 Grote in 1888 is a convinced prohedonist, and criticizes a number of
other writers for thinking otherwise; most are his contemporaries, but one of his targets
hails from the 15th century.3 In this paper, I aim to make what I hope to be a decisive
contribution to the antihedonist side of the debate. Based on my interpretation of this
section of the text, I will then go on to point towards some further consequences,
concerning Socrates’ moral psychology and the nature of the Socratic method.
The “prohedonist” / “antihedonist” terminology is from Zeyl, “Socrates and hedonism”.
“The Protagoras”, in Collected Works XI, pp.39-61. Mill claims that hedonism “is as emphatically
maintained against Protagoras by Socrates, in the dialogue, as it ever was by Epicurus or Bentham” (p. 61),
but also that “Socrates merely plays with opinions throughout” (p. 45).
3
Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, pp. 314-316; the 15th century writer is Marsilio Ficino,
mentioned at p. 314n1.
1
2
1
I.
Overview of the dialogue
The question lurking in the background of most of the dialogue is: can virtue be
taught? Socrates thinks that it can’t be taught (319a-320b). Protagoras responds with a
combination of muthos and logos to the effect that virtue can be taught, and that indeed
he is a particularly good teacher of virtue (320c-328b). Socrates then raises the question
of the unity of virtue: are the different virtues, or different parts of virtue (knowledge,4
courage, piety, temperance, and justice), separable from one another, or unlike one
another (329c-330b)? Protagoras initially maintains that the different parts of virtue are
distinct, such that a person might have any one of the virtues independently of the others.
Socrates argues against this thesis in a series of arguments (330b-334c), which give way
to a breakdown in the discussion, and an eight-way discussion about how the discussion
should proceed (334c-338e). Protagoras gets a chance to question Socrates, which leads
to a competitive bout of poetry interpretation (338e-347a). Shortly thereafter Socrates
returns to the question of the unity of virtue, and then we see that Protagoras has been led
to grant that knowledge, temperance, justice, and piety “resemble one another fairly
closely, but courage is altogether different from all the rest” (349d). Socrates mounts an
attack on the claim that courage is distinct from knowledge (349e-350c), which is then
rebutted by Protagoras (350c-351a).
Socrates, apparently changing topic fairly
drastically, then Protagoras asks whether “some men live well, and others badly” (351b).
This brings us to the part of the dialogue which is my focus here. Socrates asks a
couple of apparently leading questions, first securing Protagoras’ agreement that a person
does not live well “if he lives distressed and in pain”, and then that one who has lived his
4
In the Protagoras, as elsewhere, no distinction is made between epistêmê, sophia, and phronêsis.
2
whole life pleasantly to the end has lived well (351b). This leads to the following
exchange:
So, then, to live pleasantly is good, and unpleasantly, bad?
Yes, so long as he lived having taken pleasure in honourable things.
What, Protagoras? Surely you don’t, like most people, call some pleasant things
bad and some painful things good? I mean, isn’t a pleasant thing good just insofar as
it is pleasant, that is, if it results in nothing other than pleasure; and, on the other hand,
aren’t painful things bad in the same way, just insofar as they are painful?
And to this Protagoras cautiously gives his considered opinion that, “on the one hand,
there are pleasurable things which are not good, and on the other hand, there are painful
things which are not bad but some which are, and a third class which is neutral—neither
bad nor good” (351d). Socrates repeats nearly the very same question, “I am asking
whether pleasure itself is not a good”, and this time Protagoras responds by inviting
Socrates to lead an investigation into the matter.
Without much of a segue, Socrates then asks Protagoras whether he agrees with
the many in their opinion that knowledge can be dragged around like a slave by anger,
pleasure, pain, love, fear, and so on (352b-c). Protagoras agrees that this is the opinion of
the many, and voices his disagreement with that opinion (352c-d). Socrates compliments
Protagoras on his response, and goes on to elaborate:
[The many] maintain that most people are unwilling to do what is best, even thought
they know what it is and are able to do it. And when I have asked them the reason
for this, they say that those who act that way do so because they are overcome by
pleasure or pain or are being ruled by one of the things I referred to just now. (352d-e)
Socrates then invites Protagoras to join with him in a mock discussion with an imagined
audience of the many, in order to convince them that they are wrong about this
experience they call “being overcome”. At first Protagoras protests that the exercise is
3
pointless, but Socrates promises that it will shed light on the question of the unity of
virtue, and Protagoras acquiesces. (352e-353b)
Socrates opens the mock discussion by imagining that the many ask him what he
thinks this experience of “being overcome” is. Socrates does not doubt that the majority
are characterizing a genuine phenomenon with that phrase; rather, he doubts that they are
characterizing that phenomenon in the right way. And before he provides what he takes
to be the correct characterization of the phenomenon, he first argues that the many are
hedonists (with Protagoras in agreement throughout).
Socrates arrives at the claim that the many are hedonists by examining the
experience of “being overcome”. He proposes that this experience occurs when the many
are “overcome by pleasant things like food or drink or sex” which they (claim to) know
to be “ruinous” (353c). That is, “being overcome” involves things which are pleasant,
but bad. The many consider these pleasures to be bad because of what happens later,
after the immediate pleasures have been enjoyed:
“disease and things like that”,
“diseases and poverty” (353d, e). And the many find these consequences to be bad “on
account of nothing other than the fact that they result in pain and derive us of other
pleasures” (353e-354a). Socrates then moves on to consider those things which the many
call good, but painful. The many consider good painful things to include: “athletics and
military training and treatments by doctors such as cautery, surgery, medicines and
starvation diet” (354a), and these things are good because “they ultimately bring about
health and good condition of bodies and preservation of cities and power over others and
wealth” (354b). And the many consider these consequences to be bad “because they
result in pleasure and in the relief and avoidance of pain”.
4
Socrates goes on to propose to the many the conclusion that:
“you pursue
pleasure as being good and avoid pain as bad”, and “it’s pain that you regard as bad, and
pleasure you regard as good” (354c); indeed they use “pleasant” and “good” as two
names for the same thing, and similarly for “painful” and “bad” (355b-c). So the many
are hedonists in this way. And the key assumption is that, for the many, all evaluations of
good and bad bottom out in considerations of pleasure and pain—pleasure and pain the
only teloi they use to call things good or bad (354b, 354d, 354e). Socrates repeatedly
notes that this conclusion would be lost upon the specification of some other telos, but he
imagines (and Protagoras agrees) that the many will be unable to provide anything of the
sort. This happens three times in short succession (354d, 354e, 355a).
Socrates then tells the many that their original characterization of the experience
of “being overcome” is “ridiculous”: it is ridiculous to speak of someone who has
knowledge of the good which is overcome by immediate pleasure. Now, it is generally
thought that Socrates tries to provide an argument against the possibility of akrasia
somewhere around this point of the dialogue; I find this to be a fairly difficult interpretive
issue, and it’s tangential to the point of this paper, so I’m going to set it aside here.5
Instead I’d like to focus on what Socrates takes to be the correct way to describe the
5
In brief, here are the difficulties I see here. The issue of akrasia concerns psychological necessity. So if
akrasia is under discussion here, then the question at issue here must be: is it psychologically necessary
that knowledge cannot be overcome by pleasure or pain? But it seems to me that Socrates slips between
language which could plausibly be read as indicating psychological necessity, and language which is more
plausibly read as more protreptic (expressing prudential or otherwise normative necessity), or something in
between. At various points I am unclear whether Socrates is saying that it is a matter of psychological
necessity that one acts as one knows to be best, or making recommendations without saying anything about
psychological necessity, or running the two sorts of moves together (with or without knowing it).
Considerations along these lines have led Weiss (“Hedonism in the Protagoras”, XXX) to claim that the
issue of psychological necessity, and hence the issue of akrasia, is never at issue at any point in the
imagined debate with the many. According to her, Socrates’ discussion of knowledge with the many is
thoroughly and solely protreptic. This position seems too strong to me, but I am happy to take it as an
indication of the difficulty of figuring out what role the issue of akrasia is playing in this part of the
dialogue.
5
experience of “being overcome”.
He claims that the many, who pursue/avoid
pleasure/pain as good/bad, are dragged this way and that by the “power of appearance”
(that is, the power of appearances of pleasure and pain), which “often makes us wander
all over the place in confusion, often changing our minds about he same thing and
regretting our actions and choices” (356d). When they experience what they call “being
overcome”, they are confronting conflicting appearances of the relevant object or act as
(say) a source of immediate pleasure, but also as a source of greater pain further in the
future; and they call the object ‘bad’ on account of that latter appearance.
As the solution to the difficulties of confusion and regret which are the effects of
the power of appearance, Socrates offers a kind of knowledge, the art of measuring
pleasures and pains, which (he promises) “would make the appearances lose their power
by showing us the truth” (356d-e). Naturally the many lack any such form of knowledge.
So what they are really suffering from is ignorance, and Socrates suggests that they give
their money to sophists like Protagoras, in order that they might be cured of their
ignorance in return (357c-e).
At this point Protagoras and the other sophists present all happily agree to the
hedonist thesis, and the rest of Socrates’ analysis (358a-b). This soon turns out to be an
unfortunate move for Protagoras. Socrates goes on to identify what is good with what is
honourable and what is bad with what is dishonourable (358b), and (following an
unexplained transition from the claim that no one goes for what one knows to be worse,
to the claim that no one goes for what one believes to be worse (358b-d)) then defines the
fear as the expectation of something bad. From this, he argues that, cowardly people
avoid honourable and good things (like war) because of ignorance; so cowardice is
6
ignorance, and courage is knowledge. With this, courage is identified with knowledge,
and so also with the rest of virtue, and Protagoras’ attempt to maintain real distinctions
between the different parts of virtue suffers complete collapse. Socrates then gleefully
notes that a stunning reversal has occurred: having successfully argued that all of virtue
is knowledge, he has undermined his original assertion that virtue can’t be taught. He
encourages Protagoras to continue their discussion, so that they might together clean up
this mess, but Protagoras wants nothing more to do with Socrates (indeed, he’d already
wanted out of the conversation back at 333e), and the dialogue ends.
II.
Two standard anti-hedonist moves
The debate over what to make of Socrates’ relationship to the thesis of hedonism
has gotten fairly convoluted over the years, and I won’t be able to do justice to the full
depth of easy side of the dialectic here. But here are two main points made by those
urging an antihedonist interpretation.
First, as we’ve seen, in 354d-355a Socrates
repeatedly emphasizes that the many can back out by specifying some way of making
value judgments which is not based on pleasure and pain. He seems to be going to great
lengths to call attention to the fact that he’s talking about their beliefs, not his own. And,
so the claim goes, his statements of the hedonist thesis throughout are can similarly be
understood as attributions of hedonism to others, rather than expressions of his own
hedonism.6 In response to the first antihedonist point, it has been noted that focusing on
6
Two phrases in the text threaten to make trouble for this claim. The first is the egô gar legô which
Socrates attaches to the statement of hedonism at 351c. According to Zeyl, though, this would necessitate
reading the statement as expressing Socrates’ own view only if it were followed by an indirect statement,
and what follows is a direct question (“Socrates and hedonism”, p. 266n16). The second phrase (noted by
the prohedonist Hackforth in “Hedonism in Plato’s Protagoras”, p.41n4) is at 353e-354a, where Socrates
presents a hedonist statement prefaced by: “Does it not seem to you, gentleman, as Protagoras and I are
saying…”. But Taylor (Plato: Protagoras, p.176) notes that this phrase is ambiguous: one could read it as
7
the beliefs of his interlocutors is just Socratic business as usual. This is what Socrates
does all the time. Furthermore, when he argues his interlocutor into agreeing with a
conclusion, it’s generally because he has what he thinks to be an argument for the
conclusion which he himself finds to be compelling and is himself inclined to believe that
the conclusion is true.7
Second, antihedonists claim that Socratic hedonism doesn’t fit in with the rest of
the Platonic corpus. 8 For many antihedonists, this seems the key consideration which
tips the debate in favour of antihedonism.9 There are two standard prohedonist responses
to this sort of move. One is to just to say that this point is quite indecisive, since there is
no reason to suppose that the Protagoras must be consistent with other dialogues on this
particular point; after all, in general, the corpus as a whole yields a good mix of
continuities and discontinuities from dialogue to dialogue, and it seems possible to
understand this as an example of such a discontinuity.10 The other response is to call into
question the claim that hedonism in the Protagoras really conflicts with the positions
espoused by Socrates in other dialogues.11
Socrates attributing hedonism to himself and to Protagoras, or as Socrates saying (on behalf of himself and
of Protagoras) that the hedonist statement seems to be true to the many. Zeyl picks up on the ambiguity
and goes further, arguing that, given the context, the latter reading makes more sense (ibid., p.255). At the
moment my Greek isn’t good enough to come to my own decision on whether Zeyl is right on these issues,
so at the moment I’m going to accept his claims on authority.
7
Irwin, Plato’s Ethics, §60.
8
Two obviously notable passages are Gorgias 492d-500d and Phaedo 69a-b, where Socrates directly
repudiates the pleasure-oriented life.
9
E.g., Zeyl, pp. 262-4. As Zeyl notes (p.261), this is also the diagnosis of the antihedonist position given,
in a critical spirit, by prohedonists like Grote (p.314); Crombie (An Examination of Plato’s Dialogues, I,
p.240); and Dodds (Plato: Gorgias, p. 21 n.3).
10
Grote, p.316; Hackforth, p.42.
11
For example, Taylor (p. 170) suggests that the hedonist thesis stated by Socrates in the Protagoras can be
distinguished from the thesis attacked by Socrates in the Gorgias. Nussbaum (The Fragility of Goodness,
XXX) claims that the hedonism of the Protagoras, considered in conjunction with the notion of the
hedonistic calculus provided by Socrates, can be understood as largely continuous with concerns found
elsewhere in the Platonic corpus. Irwin claims that Socratic hedonism is not only consistent with other
“early” dialogues, but supported by them—more on which later.
8
I’m pretty convinced by the prohedonist response to the first argument, but I think
that there is a version of this second antihedonist strategy strong enough to settle the
debate. But I think the argument needs to be made in a version which clearly defeats
both prohedonist responses, and that this is still left wanting.12 That is, what we need is
to identify some feature of the character[s] of Socrates in the other dialogues such that (a)
it clearly conflicts with the hedonism attributed to the many and (b) we have compelling
reason to read it into the Protagoras. And I think I have just the thing: what I will call
‘the Socratic ethical orientation’.
III.
The Socratic ethical orientation vs. the hedonism of the many
In the Apology, addressing the suggestion that he might be acquitted of the
charges against him, and avoid execution, on the condition that he cease practicing
philosophy, Socrates responds:
...if, as I say, you were to acquit me on those terms, I would say to you: “…I shall
not cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to
any one of you whom I happen to meet: …are you not ashamed of your eagerness to
possess as much wealth, reputation and honours as possible, while you do not care
for nor give thought to wisdom or truth or the best possible state of your soul?” Then,
if one of you disputes this and says he does care, I shall not let him go at once or
leave him, but I shall question him, examine him and test him, and if I do not think he
has attained the virtue that he says he has, I shall reproach him because he attaches
little importance to the most important things and greater importance to inferior
things. […] For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old
among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as
for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about
12
Zeyl tries to do this, but ultimately I find his efforts unconvincing—although he does make some of the
points I will make below.
9
virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually
and collectively.” (29d-30b)
Here Socrates claims that wisdom, truth, and virtue are crucial to the state of one’s soul,
and are the most important things, worthy of our greatest care. There is perhaps some
suggestion here that these all amount to the same thing, 13 but this is not worked out
explicitly in the Apology. For convenience, I’ll lump all of these together under the
heading of ‘the care of the soul’. Socrates contrasts the care of the soul with the concerns
of health, wealth, and social status. Socrates’ core commitment here, which he claims to
guide all of his philosophical activity (he does “nothing but” attempt to win others to this
position) is that one ought to pursue the care of the soul in preference to those other
inferior concerns of health, wealth, and social status.
This is the Socratic ethical
orientation.
Now, this is not just any old relative ranking of goods. In the last sentence of the
above quote, Socrates suggests that this ethical orientation is a necessary condition of
attaining anything of value. 14 No amount of health, wealth, or social status is valuable
without the care of the soul; one who cares for his soul should rather suffer any loss of
health, wealth, or social status than give up the care of the soul. And, indeed, Socrates is
demonstrably willing to suffer poverty (loss of wealth), exile (loss of social status), and
the death penalty at the hands of his fellow citizens (total loss of health and of social
status), all in the name of what he takes to be the proper care of his soul. The care of the
soul is, for Socrates, unconditionally valuable; all other putative goods are, at best, only
conditionally valuable.
13
Other specifications include the avoidance of doing anything unjust or impious (e.g., 32c-d), and the sort
of philosophical discussion we observe in the ‘Socratic’ dialogues (38a).
14
See Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, pp.200-232.
10
The Socratic ethical orientation is also found in the Republic.
In the final
moments of Book IX, Socrates describes the “person of understanding” (i.e., the
philosopher, i.e., Socrates) as one who will “direct all his efforts to attaining [the best]
state of his soul” (591bc). In contrast, he will not pursue health except insofar as doing
so fosters “consonance of the soul” (591cd). And he will “keep order and consonance in
his acquisition of money, with that same end in view” (591d). Likewise, with respect to
honours, he will “willingly share in and taste those that he believes will make him better,
but he’ll avoid any public or private honour that might overthrow the established
condition of his soul” (591e-592a). That is, he pursues the best state of his soul in
preference to the rival goods of health, wealth, and social status, and pursues those
inferior things only insofar as they are useful for, and do not conflict with, his care for his
soul. His care for his soul is unconditional, and conditions all other potential values. In
these respects, the person of understanding of the Republic shares the ethical orientation
which Socrates professes in the Apology.
And we can find similar moments elsewhere: in the Crito (47e-48d), the Gorgias
(XXX), the Phaedo (68b-c, 82b-d), etc.15 To be sure, there are significant differences
between the conception of the care of the soul found in these various dialogues. Some of
these differences can perhaps be understood as differences in detail or degree of
elaboration; still others as substantive conflicts. 16 I think there is at least a family
resemblance to be had between the various accounts (the avoidance of committing
injustice, ethical dialectic, the purification of the soul, etc.). In any case, what remains
15
This is an incomplete list. The Socratic ethical orientation is presumably at least implicit in any dialogue
which features the distinction between the world of becoming and the true realm of the forms.
16
An example of that latter category might be the contrast between the Phaedo’s apparent recommendation
that one avoid all pleasures and pains (83d), and other dialogues where it seems that some pleasures are
perfectly acceptable under the right circumstances.
11
constant is the Socratic ethical orientation: towards the care of the soul, in unconditional
preference to the pursuit of health, wealth, and social status.
Now, it is generally accepted that the dialogues mentioned above can be placed on
a thematic continuum. Towards one end, we have the Apology, and the Crito. Further
towards the middle, we have the Gorgias and the Protagoras. These are generally
classed together in the category of ‘early’ or ‘Socratic’ dialogues.
Meanwhile, the
Phaedo, and Republic fall further towards the other end of the continuum, outside of the
category of the ‘early’ or ‘Socratic’. This continuum is usually thought to be reflective of
how far these dialogues should be seen as reflecting Plato’s image of the historical
Socrates. And of course the continuum is often, but not so universally, thought to be
roughly chronological as well as thematic.17 On any version of this continuum picture,
though, the absence of the Socratic ethical orientation from the Protagoras would
constitute a rather odd thematic hiatus.
But, it’s not just that the Socratic ethical orientation appears in these various
dialogues—say, as a claim which Socrates espouses, or a belief which he holds to be true.
It is rather his very way of life. It is key to Socrates’ identity, and constitutive of what it
is to be a philosopher. As Plato shows us, it is what led Socrates to be condemned to
death, and then led Socrates to accept his death. If there is any feature that could be
understood as essential to the character of Socrates, as he appears across the Platonic
corpus, it is this one.
Now, to recall, the argument that the Socrates of the Protagoras uses in
attributing hedonism to the many is, briefly: sometimes the many call something both
A strong position incorporating all of these claims is Vlastos’ (p. XXX). For a more cautious view, see
Cooper (“Introduction” to Plato: Complete Works, pp. xii-xvii).
17
12
pleasant and bad, but when they do so they are calling the thing “bad” just because it will
later cause disease or poverty, which they also evaluate in terms of pleasure and pain;
when they call something both painful and good, they call the thing “good” just because
it will later cause health, political safety, social-political power, or wealth, which they
also evaluation in terms of pleasure and pain.
However, this case for attributing
hedonism to the many presupposes that their values are limited to the sorts of things
mentioned above.
This is an implicit assumption.
If the many valued something
qualitatively different from the goods countenanced in Socrates’ analysis of them, then
that might count as something valued on the basis of criteria apart from pleasure and pain,
and the case for the attribution of hedonism would be undermined thereby. Now, we can
probably take this as unproblematic in the case of the many. But suppose we try to apply
the above to Socrates. In using the argument for the hedonism of the many as an
argument for Socratic hedonism, we must assume that Socrates himself does not value
anything qualitatively different from those things which the many call good. In other
words, we must assume that the Socrates of the Protagoras values only those things
which the Socratic ethical orientation dismisses as unimportant; we must assume that the
Socrates of the Protagoras rejects the philosophical care of the soul which is espoused
and/or demonstrated by the Socrates of the Apology, the Republic, etc.
So: we have compelling reason to think that the Socrates of the Protagoras
shares the Socratic ethical orientation we see elsewhere; and, if this is so, then the case
for the hedonism of the many cannot serve as a case for Socratic hedonism.
IV.
Answering prohedonist objections and arguments
13
[[Socrates does end up recommending knowledge to the hedonist.
So the
hedonist does end up valuing knowledge. But this is not knowledge valued in preference
to the pursuit of unimportant things; rather it is knowledge in the service of that pursuit.
It is knowledge enslaved, just as the oligarch’s reason is enslaved (R, 553cd).]]
Some prohedonists argue that, far from being discontinuous with other dialogues,
hedonism actually helps us to make sense of various standard pieces of (what is taken to
be) Socratic doctrine—not only ones found in this dialogue (the denial of akrasia, the
identification of courage and knowledge), but theses found elsewhere as well. 18 So
Socratic hedonism is not only consistent with what we know of Socrates, but actually
rationalizes and explains Socratic positions which are otherwise mysterious; in other
words, there is a good abductive argument for attributing hedonism to Socrates.
[[Response. Weiss.19]]
A second major prohedonist argument is that Socrates really does appear to push
hedonism upon the many (and perhaps indirectly upon Protagoras as well). As we saw
above, when Socrates introduces the hedonist thesis, he notes that the many would voice
disagreement with it; and Protagoras, for his part, is quite resistant; thereafter we see that
Socrates works quite hard to win acceptance of the idea. 20 And this makes it difficult to
18
For example, Irwin argues that the hedonistic definition of happiness, and the analysis of virtue as a
hedonistic craft, gives us a way of making sense of the Socratic claim that virtue is sufficient for
happiness—nowhere else does Socrates give us anything that will do the job as well (§62).
19
Weiss has a straightforward way of dealing with the connection between hedonism and the conclusions
which are inferred from it within the Protagoras: she flatly denies that those conclusions are in fact
Socratic theses. According to her, Socrates does not really believe that akrasia is impossible, or that
courage and the rest of virtue is identical to knowledge; rather, this is all just an imaginative construction of
how things would have to stand if Protagoras and other sophists were to be capable of providing the
benefits they claim to provide. She claims that Socrates is no more committed to that construction than he
is to his recommendation that the many save their lives by becoming clients of the sophists. (XXX)
20
“Throughout all the Platonic compositions, there is nowhere to be found any train of argument more
direct, more serious, and more elaborate, than that by which Sokrates here proves the identity of good with
pleasure, of pain with evil” (Grote, p.314). Similar sentiments are found in Nussbaum, Fragility of
Goodness, p.111; Hackforth, p. 41.
14
see how hedonism could be playing a merely ad hominem role in the dialogue. The
standard antihedonist response to that last point is that the many and Protagoras are
hedonists, and do in fact identify the good and the pleasant, no matter what they say
about the matter. Their initial denials of hedonism, and Socrates’ subsequent argument
that they are hedonists, is just a case of Socrates’ interlocutor saying something false, and
then being corrected by Socrates through argument.21 Now, I think some form of this
response is right, but I also think there is something peculiar about this case of error—
there is something peculiar about my being wrong about whether or not I identify good
and pleasure.
V.
Socrates’ error theory and the unconscious hedonism of the many
There is also a peculiarity in the structure of the imagined discussion of the many
which stands need of explanation: why does the question of hedonism lead into the
discussion of whether or not knowledge can be overcome?
As in the Phaedo (XXX) and the Republic (XXX), Socrates has worked out that
the many are hedonists, identifying the good with pleasure. But if this is true, then what
are we to make of the fact that they sure seem to make distinctions between what is good
and what is pleasant? There seems to be call for an error theory here. And in the
Protagoras Socrates has just such an error theory: the experience of conflict between the
power of the appearance of X as immediately pleasant, and the power of the appearance
of X as ultimately painful, is the experience which teaches the many to distinguish
between what is pleasant and what is good. (Why is it the long-term appearance which
receives the name of “good” or “bad”? This appearance is mediated by intervening
21
Zeyl, p. 261; Weiss, p. XXX
15
consequences of disease, etc., which are then cashed out in terms of pleasure and pain.
This requires a greater degree of learning and reason, and so receives the label
appropriate to rational evaluation—even though in this case reason is deformed.)
What are we to make of these distinctions made by the many? It is suggestive
that Socrates consistently speaks of the many “calling” or “saying” that this or that
pleasure is bad, or this or that pain is good. But it would be misleading to suppose that
the distinction is merely verbal, insofar as that suggests that these statements are made
insincerely. The many are genuinely unaware of their hedonism. They are mistaken
about how they live. This seems different from the sort of error typically targeted by the
Socratic elenchus: this is not just a failure of ethical knowledge, but a failure of selfknowledge. The many are unconscious hedonists.
In invoking the term ‘unconscious’, I don’t meant to import anything peculiarly
Freudian into this psychological account.22 But there are two consequences which apply
here which can also be found in Freud. First: when confronting someone who is
unconsciously X, one does not find that out by asking that person directly. They don’t
know that they are X, so they can’t tell you that they are X. Second: when you want
someone who is unconsciously X to stop being X, it will not do to tell them directly to
stop being X, or to argue that they should stop being X.
VI.
Unconscious hedonism vs. a standard account of the Socratic method
[[The picture of Vlastos’ “The Socratic Elenchus” and the “say what you believe”
requirement; why the notion of unconscious hedonism would imply that that picture must
22
Freud does not have propriety rights to the notion of unconscious mental activity. As David Finkelstein
notes (Expression and the Inner, p.114n.5) the notion was alive and well in the 19th century before Freud.
(Of course, a different story would have to be told about how it could be alive and well in ancient Athens.)
16
be wrong; Beversluis’ critique of “say what you believe” in Cross-Examining Socrates is
a good argument against Vlastos and those like him, but not against Socrates.]]
17