After his debates with Gorgias and Polus, Socrates builds on his arguments about oratory and the soul in an exchange with politician Callicles. Callicles argues that if too many people engage in philosophy, or if a person engages in it for too long, humanity will be undone. According to Callicles, someone who engages in philosophy excessively is ignorant of what constitutes a good life—not just in public fields like law or business, but “also in human pleasures and appetites and, in short, […] in the ways of human beings altogether.” Socrates, in contrast, equates philosophy with the best life because it’s “the life that is adequate to and satisfied with its circumstances at any given time instead of the insatiable, undisciplined life.” In other words, he thinks that Callicles misunderstands what goodness really is. By drawing a distinction between the pleasurable and the good, Plato argues through Socrates that an orderly life governed by philosophy isn’t naïve or inhumane, as Callicles has portrayed it, but is actually the truly good life.
Callicles argues that the best life entails the indulgence of one’s appetites. When Socrates tells Callicles that a person must rule himself by “being self-controlled […], ruling the pleasures and appetites within oneself,” Callicles rejects this. Instead, he argues that “the man who’ll live correctly ought to allow his own appetites to get as large as possible and not restrain them. And when they are as large as possible, he ought to be competent to devote himself to them by virtue of his bravery and intelligence, and to fill them with whatever he may have an appetite for at the time.” In other words, the good life doesn’t consist of restraining one’s desires, as Socrates maintains, but of knowing how to indulge one’s desires in the best way possible. Excellence, Callicles argues, is the fulfillment of one’s appetites. It can’t be true, as Socrates suggests, that those who have no need of anything are happy—if that were true, then “stones and corpses would be happiest.” In Callicle’s eyes, such people are inert and lifeless, missing out on what makes a person human.
To counter Callicles’s view of the happy life, Socrates argues that what is pleasant is different from what is good. Socrates argues that the good has to be something more than just pleasure. The good, in other words, can’t be “just unrestricted enjoyment.” For one thing, one can experience pleasure without experiencing something good. Socrates uses the example of thirst to demonstrate that one can be suffering pain (being thirsty) at the same time that he’s feeling enjoyment (drinking). A thirsty person isn’t necessarily in a good state just because he’s experiencing the momentary pleasure of a drink. So then, “feeling enjoyment isn’t the same as doing well […] the result is that what’s pleasant turns out to be different from what’s good.” Pleasure might strongly resemble goodness and even overlap with it, but one must be able to discern the difference in order to live well. Further, good and bad people experience pain and pleasure to about the same degree, which reinforces the idea that the good and the pleasant aren’t the same. To unpack this, Socrates points out that Callicles has taken for granted that if one feels enjoyment, it’s because of the presence of good things in him; so one who feels enjoyment is a good man. Likewise, one who feels pain because of the presence of bad things in him would be considered bad. Yet, Socrates points out, Callicles had also argued that an intelligent and brave man is good, while a foolish and cowardly one is bad—but that both men feel pain and enjoyment to the same degree. So if pleasant things are the same as good things, this would mean that the bad man “is both good and bad to the same degree as the good man.” Callicles’s view of goodness, then, requires greater nuance.
In the end, Socrates says, not all pleasures are good—clearly, some are good and others are bad. Socrates and Callicles come to an agreement that good pleasures are beneficial ones, and bad pleasures are harmful ones. In the same way, there are both beneficial and harmful pains. It makes sense, then, that a person desiring a good life should pursue good things—beneficial pleasures and pains—rather than pursue pleasure indiscriminately. In addition, pleasant things should be done for the sake of ultimately good (beneficial) things and not good things for the sake of merely pleasant things. A life that’s oriented toward the good instead of the merely pleasurable also requires a craftsman’s ability to draw distinctions. That is, not everyone can determine which pleasures are good or bad. Socrates’s implication here is that philosophy isn’t just something to be pursued in moderation or for a certain period of life, but that the craft of philosophy is always needed in order to help a person orient their life properly. In short, because philosophy governs the appetites in the right way, philosophy is essential to the good life—it’s not something that’s out of touch with what makes us human.
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The Pleasant Life vs. the Good Life Quotes in Gorgias
Philosophy is no doubt a delightful thing, Socrates, as long as one is exposed to it in moderation at the appropriate time of life. But if one spends more time with it than he should, it’s the undoing of mankind. For even if one is naturally well favored but engages in philosophy far beyond that appropriate time of life, he can’t help but turn out to be inexperienced in everything a man who’s to be admirable and good and well thought of is supposed to be experienced in. Such people turn out to be inexperienced in the laws of their city or in the kind of speech one must use to deal with people on matters of business, whether in public or private, inexperienced also in human pleasures and appetites and, in short, inexperienced in the ways of human beings altogether.
[W]hat in truth could be more shameful and worse than self-control and justice for these people who, although they are free to enjoy good things without any interference, should bring as master upon themselves the law of the many, their talk, and their criticism? Or how could they exist without becoming miserable under that “admirable” regime of justice and self-control, allotting no greater share to their friends than to their enemies, and in this way “rule” in their cities? Rather, the truth of it, Socrates—the thing you claim to pursue—is like this: wantonness, lack of discipline, and freedom, if available in good supply, are excellence and happiness; as for these other things, these fancy phrases, these contracts of men that go against nature, they’re worthless nonsense!
For you see, don’t you, that our discussion’s about this […] about the way we’re supposed to live. Is it the way you urge me toward, to engage in these manly activities, to make speeches among the people, to practice oratory, and to be active in the sort of politics you people engage in these days? Or is it the life spent in philosophy? And in what way does this latter way of life differ from the former?
SOCRATES: What about the oratory addressed to the Athenian people and to those in other cities composed of free men? What is our view of this kind? Do you think that orators always speak with regard to what’s best? Do they always set their sights on making the citizens as good as possible through their speeches? Or are they, too, bent upon the gratification of the citizens and, slighting the common good for the sake of their own private good, do they treat the people like children, their sole attempt being to gratify them?
SOCRATES: Now, isn’t it also true that doctors generally allow a person to fill up his appetites, to eat when he’s hungry, for example, or drink when he’s thirsty as much as he wants to when he’s in good health, but when he’s sick they practically never allow him to fill himself with what he has an appetite for? […] And isn’t it just the same way with the soul, my excellent friend? As long as it’s corrupt, in that it’s foolish, undisciplined, unjust and impious, it should be kept away from its appetites and not be permitted to do anything other than what will make it better.
But if “better” does not mean what I take it to mean, and if instead to preserve yourself and what belongs to you, no matter what sort of person you happen to be, is what excellence is, then your reproach against engineer, doctor, and all the other crafts which have been devised to preserve us will prove to be ridiculous. But, my blessed man, please see whether what’s noble and what’s good isn’t something other than preserving and being preserved. Perhaps one who is truly a man should stop thinking about how long he will live. He should not be attached to life but should commit these concerns to the god[.] He should thereupon give consideration to how he might live the part of his life still before him as well as possible.
I believe that I’m one of a few Athenians—so as not to say I’m the only one, but the only one among our contemporaries—to take up the true political craft and practice the true politics. This is because the speeches I make on each occasion do not aim at gratification but at what’s best. They don’t aim at what’s most pleasant.
For I’ll be judged the way a doctor would be judged by a jury of children if a pastry chef were to bring accusations against him. Think about what a man like that, taken captive among these people, could say in his defense, if somebody were to accuse him and say, “Children, this man has worked many great evils on you, yes, on you. He destroys the youngest among you by cutting and burning them, and by slimming them down and choking them he confuses them. He gives them the most bitter potions to drink and forces hunger and thirst on them. He doesn’t feast you on a great variety of sweets the way I do!” What do you think a doctor, caught in such an evil predicament, could say?
As it is, you see that there are three of you, the wisest of the Greeks of today—you, Polus, and Gorgias—and you’re not able to prove that there’s any other life one should live than the one which will clearly turn out to be advantageous in that world, too. So, listen to me and follow me to where I am, and when you’ve come here you’ll be happy both during life and at its end, as the account indicates. Let someone despise you as a fool and throw dirt on you, if he likes. And, yes, by Zeus, confidently let him deal you that demeaning blow. Nothing terrible will happen to you if you really are an admirable and good man, one who practices excellence.
