Callicles’ speech on Nature and Justice in Plato’s Gorgias

Socrates has argued against Polus that “suffering injustice is better than doing it,” and Polus has not been able to refute him. Callicles then breaks into the conversation, and argues that Socrates’ philosophy of “justice” is unnatural folly:

Callicles:  Socrates, I can’t say much for Polus’ intelligence when he conceded to you that it is more dishonorable to do injustice than to suffer it, for this was the admission which led to his being entangled by you; and because he was too ashamed to say what he thought, he had his mouth stopped.

            For the truth is, Socrates, that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to the popular and vulgar notions of right, which are not natural, but only conventional. Convention and nature are generally at variance with one another: and hence, if a person is too ashamed to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict himself; and you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be gained, slyly ask the person who is arguing on the basis of convention a question which is determined on the basis of nature; and if he is talking from the standpoint of nature, you slip away to convention and custom: as, for instance, you did in this very discussion about doing and suffering  injustice. When Polus was speaking of the conventionally dishonorable, you assailed him from the point of view of nature; for by the law of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgrace because the greater evil; but by convention, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares.

            The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the majority who are weak; and they, make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own interests; and they: terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more than his neighbors; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavor to have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and  having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade  Hellas, or his father the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples).

No, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according to the law (convention) of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial, human law, which we invent and impose  upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions, --charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honorable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth.

And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem, that Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals; this statement, as he says,   Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them--I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is--that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the “law of natural right,” and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and  superior.

            And this is true, as you may discover, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much ruins a person. If he carries philosophy into later life, he will be ignorant of all the things a man needs to know: he will be inexperienced in politics, and in how to talk with men, and he will be ignorant of human pleasures and desires and of human nature in general.

Socrates replies that he is delighted, because Callicles combines the three essential qualities needed in a true dialogue partner-knowledge, good-will, and outspokenness. So now they will have a true test and trial by inquiry, as to what constitutes the good. Callicles then makes an additional assertion, which is that 'self-restraint' or temperance is no more a virtue than 'justice'--the courageous and wise man overthrows both of these values in his soul and life, because the natural good simply = pleasure. Socrates goes on to criticize Callicles’ claim that pleasure is the good, by showing (a) his belief in "maximizing intake" is disgusting, comparing it to a "leaky jar"; (ii) his doctrine conflicts with Callicles’ valuation of courage, on the one hand, and (iii) Callicles’ belief that there are qualitatively better and worse types of pleasure, on the other. Here are Socrates' first two arguments with Callicles:

CALLICLES:  I assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance and justice out of their own cowardice. The truth is this:—that self-indulgence in sensual pleasure and luxury, if one has the means, are virtue and happiness—all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk that is worthless.

Socrates then leads Callicles into two dialectical 'refutations' of his position:

1. LEAKY JAR ARGUMENT

Callicles agrees to the leaky jar metaphor

• SOCRATES: There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of approaching the argument; for what you say is what the rest of the world think, but do not like to say. But tell me, then:—you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy them, and that this is virtue? CALLICLES: Yes; I do.  SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest of all.

Socrates argues that if the self-indulgent man is like a leaky jar, he must be miserable

• SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; I have heard a philosopher compare the part of the souls in which the desires are satisfied in those who are self-indulgent to a leaky jar, because it can never be satisfied. He said these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, because they must constantly be filling them. But consider, if there were two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth? CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx. SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is that of a man who is hungering and thirsting and eating? CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them. SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your notion of happiness? CALLICLES: What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular mob-orator. I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly and therefore happily. SOCRATES: But aren't you ashamed, Callicles, for what you are describing is the life of a dirty bird. Do you really think such a life is not disgusting and miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too are happy, if they get what they want? CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into the argument?

2. COURAGE VS. PLEASURE = GOOD ARGUMENT

Callicles agrees that courage implies but is different from knowledge, and that pleasure and knowledge are not the same

SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question for me:—There is something, I presume, which you would call knowledge? CALLICLES: There is. SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied knowledge? CALLICLES: I was. SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two things different from one another? CALLICLES: Certainly I was. SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or not the same? CALLICLES: Not the same, O man of wisdom. SOCRATES: Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian, says that pleasure and good are the same; but that knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one another, or with the good. CALLICLES: Yes.

Callicles agrees that cowards are equally or more pleased than the courageous when the enemy retreat, more pained when the enemy attacks.

SOCRATES: And do you call the fools and cowards good men? For you were saying just now that the courageous and the wise are the good—would you not say so? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And did you never see a foolish child rejoicing? CALLICLES: Yes, I have. SOCRATES: And a foolish man too? CALLICLES: Yes, I have. SOCRATES: And did you ever see a sensible man rejoicing or sorrowing? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Which rejoice and sorrow most—the wise or the foolish? CALLICLES: They are much upon a par, I think, in that respect. SOCRATES: Enough: And did you ever see a coward in battle? CALLICLES: To be sure. SOCRATES: And which rejoiced most at the departure of the enemy, the coward or the brave? CALLICLES: I should say 'most' of both; or at any rate, they rejoiced about equally. SOCRATES: No matter; then the cowards, and not only the brave, rejoice? CALLICLES: Greatly. SOCRATES: And the foolish; so it would seem? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And are only the cowards pained at the approach of their enemies, or are the brave also pained? CALLICLES: Both are pained. SOCRATES: And are they equally pained? CALLICLES: I should imagine that the cowards are more pained. SOCRATES: And are they not better pleased at the enemy's departure? CALLICLES: I dare say. SOCRATES: Then are the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the brave all pleased and pained, as you were saying, in nearly equal degree; but are the cowards more pleased and pained than the brave? CALLICLES: Yes.

But since he identifies the pleasant and the good, he must affirm that those who rejoice are good when they rejoice, and those who grieve are bad when they grieve.

SOCRATES: But surely the wise and brave are the good, and the foolish and the cowardly are the bad? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then the good and the bad are pleased and pained in a nearly equal degree? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then are the good and bad good and bad in a nearly equal degree, or have the bad the advantage both in good and evil? (i.e. in having more pleasure and more pain.) CALLICLES: I really do not know what you mean. SOCRATES: Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good because good was present with them, and the evil because evil; and that pleasures were goods and pains evils? CALLICLES: Yes, I remember. SOCRATES: And are not these pleasures or goods present to those who rejoice—if they do rejoice? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good when goods are present with them? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And those who are in pain have evil or sorrow present with them? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And would you still say that the evil are evil by reason of the presence of evil? CALLICLES: I should. SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good, and those who are in pain evil? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: The degrees of good and evil vary with the degrees of pleasure and of pain? CALLICLES: Yes.

But this implies that the coward and foolish man is just as good as, or may even be better than the courageous and wise man--which is the opposite of what Callicles had said earlier.

SOCRATES: Have the wise man and the fool, the brave and the coward, joy and pain in nearly equal degrees? or would you say that the coward has more?CALLICLES: I should say that he has. SOCRATES: Help me then to draw out the conclusion which follows from our admissions; for it is good to repeat and review what is good twice and thrice over, as they say. Both the wise man and the brave man we allow to be good? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the foolish man and the coward to be evil? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And he who has joy is good? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And he who is in pain is evil? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: The good and evil both have joy and pain, but, perhaps, the evil has more of them? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then must we not infer, that the bad man [cowardly and foolish] is as good and bad as the good [courageous and wise], or, perhaps, even better?—is not this a further inference which follows equally with the preceding from the assertion that the good and the pleasant are the same:—can this be denied, Callicles?

CALLICLES: I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates. But do you really suppose that I or any other human being agrees with what you are saying? SOCRATES: Alas, Callicles, how unfair you are! you certainly treat me as if I were a child, sometimes saying one thing, and then another, as if you were meaning to deceive me.