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Reginald Bauer
On Morality
“That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil” (Beyond Good and Evil, 153).
“There is not enough love and goodness in the world for us to be permitted to give any of it away to imaginary
things.” (Human-All Too-Human 69)
“Custom represents the experiences of men of earlier times as to what they supposed useful and harmful - but the
sense for custom (morality) applies, not to these experiences as such, but to the age, the sanctity, the indiscussability
of the custom. And so this feeling is a hindrance to the acquisition of new experiences and the correction of customs:
that is to say, morality is a hindrance to the development of new and better customs: it makes stupid…Whoever has
overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law
could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost
exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!” (Daybreak 19-20) (Hence, all “justice” is a
form of a triumph of injustice in a new form.)
Morality, as presented by Socrates in the Gorgias, signifies a kind of hubris against the world. To assume
that the gap between the human and divine could be bridged by the possession of a soul (therefore the possibility of
attaining the status of divinity) is to commit hubris. The soul signifies an ignorance and dishonesty of human
limitations. What is being done with the introduction of the soul is a replacement of instinct with reason.
“Morality originated in an effort toward beautification. It was the determination on the part of human
beings to appear less crude, more humane, more noble than they actually were. In other words, morality
arose from the instinct to ‘cover up,’ from the desire to deceive oneself and others. What constitutes
morality? Violent desires, deception, vengeance, a need for acceptance among one’s ‘society’ – morality
has an animal origin, not a divine one.” (Nietzsche)
What of moral responsibility, which is also imported into the discussion? To imply, as Socrates does in the
Gorgias, that the individual himself is inactive or passive in becoming just and also in their own moral regeneration
is to indulge in a moral paradox. The moral paradox is this: there is an assumption that moral individuals are selfdetermined (they act spontaneously or autonomously), yet the art of politics and the practitioners of that art create
these moral beings. Morality is a collection of ideas that evaluate human actions and, on the basis of its evaluation of
these acts, also evaluates the agents who do them. Because of the way in which it infers the worth of the agent from
the worth of the agent’s behavior, it represents the assumption that people are responsible for what they do.
The Gorgias develops into a concern with the Good Life. At 472c-481b with 482c and following, Socrates
argues that doing injustice to others is always worse than having others do injustice to oneself. Socrates’ position is
not that it is immoral in and of itself to harm others, but that it is never in one’s interest to harm, or do injustice, to
others. To argue from a point of self-interest on morality is not philosophically sound because such an attitude or
viewpoint places value upon what is beneficial solely to oneself and not the other. Any ethical system must be
concerned not only with oneself but also with the other. To say that doing injustice is never in one’s self-interest,
and therefore the worse of the two, is to act selfishly, not ethically (in relationship with others). When one is
concerned chiefly and only with oneself without regard for the well-being of others, the motives are fundamentally
egotistical and opportunistic rather than sincere (depth of feeling though not opposed to reason) and natural (not
disguised, inherent in one’s character). This is not to say that Socrates’s “ethic of benefit and advantages” results in
capriciousness or arbitrariness on the part of the individual, but it is specious or seductive in that it imports such
ideas as soul, psychological pain, and bad conscience as disguised expressions for what is better or worse, just or
unjust. Socrates’s “ethic” lacks true motivation or motivation based on character or instinct and is manipulative and
deceptive in forming the idea of human evil as lack of self-control or restraint, when in fact man acts to discharge
his emotions and feelings. Life is not self-restraint, but an overflowing. To presume that man is motivated by selfinterest alone and not from inner conviction, from character, is to set up a frail ethical system.
Sincere and genuine motivation is to care about doing what one naturally (actively from within) feels is the
right thing for oneself and the other. Doing something out of self-interest is not concerned with true motivation, but
only with the end (in Socrates’s case this is personal happiness). When a person does his duty for “improvement of
the soul”, without any instinct, he does it in virtue of a personal calculation—from the lure of what is beneficial.
Doing things out of self-interest has no way of generating proper or purposeful values that are enduring, but only a
facsimile of virtue, one that is conducive to personal benefit. In order to change a man’s action and his self-image, it
is not enough to change his reaction (by punishment) nor replace it with a new action (instruction); one must also
change his motivation. Furthermore, human motivation is far too complex to be reduced to one factor such as the
absence of morality or justice. Human motivation includes economic instability, a violent social legacy of war and
revolution, the absence of morality, as well as many other factors. At the base of all human motivation there is
disgust, dissent, benevolence, and compelling influences, not merely self-interest. An ethic founded upon benefit
and advantages cannot be persuasive either philosophically or rhetorically.
To argue that the benefit is “improvement of the soul” or being “delivered from evil” is to take for granted
the idea of soul, that we know what justice and injustice, good and evil, are. There is an imprinting of the idea of
“soul” as well as personal moral responsibility, when these are in fact unfounded suppositions and even ill
employed, as when one comes to see that morality and justice amount to nothing more, for Socrates, than passivity
or obedience—hardly philosophically persuasive since morality requires an active (instinctive) and motivational role
in order to be valid and successful. For Socrates to claim that it is better to suffer injustice than commit injustice
requires proof that participation in injustice is not in one’s self-interest and that motivation of the latter is worse.
Referring to the soul is an excuse, not an explanation. To argue that a lack of restraint or self-control is followed by
psychological pain is to create something that is not there—bad conscience. To assume that conscience exists in the
first place is to make a grandiose, but unfounded, metaphysical claim.
The Gorgias emphasizes the inward ordering of the soul and implies the moral responsibility of the
individual, as he is a self-determined person. The emphasis on the soul emerges in the analogy between the art of
politics which cares for the soul and the art which looks after the well-being of the body. The morality that Socrates
brings forth stresses that all that a man does, he does for the “good.” Socrates displays a view of morality which is
similar to utilitarian ethics. Nietzsche understood Socrates well on morality when he observed:
“‘No one wants to do injury to himself, therefore all badness is involuntary. For the bad man does injury to
himself: this he would not do if he knew that badness is bad. Thus the bad man is bad only in consequence
of an error; if one cures him of his error, one necessarily makes him—‘good.’—This way of reasoning
smells of the mob, which sees in bad behavior only its disagreeable consequences and actually judges ‘it is
stupid to act badly’; while it takes ‘good’ without further ado to be identical with ‘useful and pleasant.’ In
the case of every utilitarian morality one may conjecture in advance a similar origin and follow one’s nose:
one will seldom go astray” (Beyond Good and Evil, 190).
Socrates’s notion that we never knowingly do evil (because it is not beneficial) is problematic because many people
often do act willingly in circumstances that they know will not be beneficial, but even harmful. Behaviors of selfdestructiveness are sometimes knowingly favored over temperance.
Socrates is guilty of the same lack of clarity which he earlier ascribed against Gorgias when he claims that
in contrast to flattery, “medicine and gymnastics, justice and legislation always bestow their care for the best
advantage of the body and soul” (464b-d). It is obvious that gymnastics and medicine brings about and maintains the
“best advantage” of the body in its health, but what is the “best advantage” of the “soul” which the arts of legislation
and justice supposedly create and sustain? Socrates provides an unsatisfactory standard of good and unsuitable
explanation of the “best advantage” of the “soul”.
Socrates’s line of argument culminates in an affirmation of the utilitarian values of benefit, profit, or
advantage. The use of “good” is merely another way of referring to the good things that are the objects of our desire
or use: “If a man does something for the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that for the sake
of which he does it” (467d). Socrates believes that we do things because, as we think it, it will conduce to our good,
and that we do not will those things that we do, but will something for the sake of something else, a further end. We
will that which is our good and if the act is not conducive to our good but is either indifferent or evil, we do not will
it (467c-468d). In other words, the good thing that is obtained due to one’s action is what matters. In distinguishing
between means and ends, Socrates affirms that the means, those intermediate things that are neither good nor bad,
are done “for the sake of good things,” such as “wisdom and health and wealth and the like” (467e).
Polus believes the rhetoricians and orators powerful. Like tyrants, they can get men to do what they wish.
Socrates disagrees and instead believes that they have the least power in cities “since they do nothing that they wish
to do, though they do whatever they think best” (467b-c); that such men are in fact weak for they do not really will
evil—their bad effects are not intended. Polus attempts to glorify the exercise of power. For Socrates, power is
valued only if it is just (468eff). Socrates expands his earlier notion that great power as a good thing exists only in
doing what one thinks healthy when one receives advantage from doing it: “Great power is a benefit to a man if his
actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an evil
and is no power” (470a).
Such advantage depends on selecting the proper means to achieve a good thing. Now the emphasis appears
to be placed on the just character of the action, “just” conforming to the existing conventional legal and moral
standards. Emphasis on the moral quality of action supplements rather than replaces the advantage in securing the
appropriate means for achieving a good thing. The appropriate means for securing a good thing can only be means
in accordance with justice and morality. Acting justly, then, is to one’s advantage.
In Socrates’ demonstration that to suffer injustice is better than to commit injustice, Socrates seems to
arrive at a concern for the inward nature of the soul. The worst evil that could befall the soul is injustice. To do
wrong is the greatest of all evils. Yet the means Socrates employs to produce this conclusion reveals predominately
utilitarian values. “Bodies, colors, figures, sounds, institutions, laws” or even knowledge are beautiful in a moralaesthetic sense if they have some beauty or benefit either by “the pleasure which they give, or of their use” (474d).
One calls something beautiful in reference to some standard, namely the standards of pleasure or utility. Polus’s
interpretation of Socrates’ definition of the beautiful as the pleasant or the useful (475a) is revealing. Polus identifies
what Socrates terms the beautiful or beneficial with the good, and Socrates does not object to this. It would follow
then that that which “exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil” (475b). Hence if, as Polus
agrees, doing injustice is more disgraceful or deformed, or not as beautiful (as pleasant or useful) as the suffering of
injustice, it must exceed the latter in evil or lack of advantage, for obviously it is not more painful (475b-e).
Injustice, though, is not that which is intrinsically evil or evil in itself (any more than justice is intrinsically valuable
or good in itself), but that which is unpleasant or disadvantageous or neither beautiful nor beneficial.
Socrates’s adoption of an art of politics devoted to the care of the best advantage of the soul (464b) presents
serious problems in the formation of an ethical view which should allot to the individual the major responsibility for
acquiring virtue. The analogy between the arts which minister to the body and the two branches (legislation and
justice) of the art of politics which tend to the soul strengthens the interpretation of a kind of moral passivity of those
individuals tended by the art of politics. Just as the practitioners of gymnastics (trainers) and medicine (doctors) are
responsible for the physical health of a person where the person himself contributes nothing, the attractiveness or
pleasure of morality and the regaining of moral health is the function of an expert, or someone other than the
individual concerned. When gaining and preserving morality only the practitioner of the art of politics, who cares for
the soul’s moral well being, can give “a reason of the nature of its own applications.” Just as the person goes to the
doctor who practices the art of medicine and “frees us from disease”, so the judge frees people from “vice and
injustice…who are to punish them…in accordance with a certain rule of justice” (477e-478a). Presumably, the judge
or practitioner of justice serves to give what is in reality good, since according to Socrates, true politics attends to
both the body and soul, not to what seems or appears good but to what is really good (464b-c). This implies that just
as the doctor has knowledge of medicine, the judge has knowledge of justice. So, the person who does injustice lacks
an advantage of the judge—knowledge of justice (or ignorance of justice). Yet Socrates’s analogy between the art of
politics and all other arts does not allow a role to the individual himself for the acquisition of morality. Just as the
person being cured by an illness from a doctor contributes nothing, so does the person who committed injustice
contributes nothing.
For Socrates, the achievement of the morality of the individual is solely the responsibility of the statesman
or judge. Any adequate analysis of morality entails the moral responsibility or the autonomy of the individual. No
matter how the morality of his action is determined, whether by the nature of his motive or merely the character of
his action, his moral worth is his own responsibility and achievement. Others may provide the conditions
surrounding his eventual attainment of morality (such as education), but the actual acquisition of morality as well as
moral regeneration must be the individual’s own doing—otherwise how can he be just or moral?
Educating a person on justice and morality is not enough if the person does not learn it himself internally—
if he does not develop a new motive, the motive for the good and just. Even Socrates’ refutation of Polus’s
contention that it is better for the wrongdoer to escape all punishment than to pay the penalty for his crime brings out
the illogical passivity of the agent in his moral regeneration (476a-481b). How is attaining morality and justice at all
rational if the person exhibits passivity? What is rational about educating someone when his motives will remain the
same? How can the unjust man be persuaded to “bring to light the iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrong-doer
may suffer and be made whole; and he should even force himself not to shrink…allow himself to be scourged, if of
bonds, to be bound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of death, to die, himself being the first to
accuse himself…” (480c-d). If education in morality and in what is just does not come naturally (actively from
within) but by “force” (passively from without), then morality and justice is the effect of punishment “in accordance
with a certain rule of justice” (478a), not by any action undertaken by the unjust person. Morality, if solely
regulated, cannot be enough to change the unjust man. Knowledge attained passively, even of morality and justice,
can be lost as well as gained, but the action that is internalized by a seeking on the part of the unjust man lives
within him forever. That “the patient answers to the act of an agent” (476d) or receives an effect of the same kind as
the agent’s action does not by any means imply that the unjust man answers to the act himself or receives an effect
of the same kind as his action. His moral education, due to his passivity, can very well be forgotten by him or
amount to nothing more than deceiving his educator and himself (self-deception). Education is worthless and
irrational if the aim does not include changing the man’s motivations.
Turning to the desirability of just punishment Socrates applies the general principle that the patient suffers
the quality which the agent inflicts. A good and honorable person is happy, and an unjust and wicked one is
wretched. Polus agrees, but only if the unjust man is punished and made miserable is he unhappy, otherwise he is
happy if he is not punished. Socrates disagrees:
“In my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable,
however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and
meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men” (472e).
“If he be justly punished his soul is improved” or thereby he becomes better in soul. “He who is punished is
delivered from the evil of his soul” or if he pays the penalty then he is relieved from badness of soul, “the greatest
evil” (477a). Aside from the individual bringing himself to the courts to undergo just punishment (the assumption of
conscience), the unjust individual is passive while undergoing the purgative powers of punishment which result in
his moral regeneration. It appears as though the very act of just punishment makes the unjust man just by cleansing
him of his injustice. It is good to be medically treated and although those who undergo treatment do not enjoy it, it is
nonetheless beneficial because one is relieved of a great evil. It is worthwhile to endure the pain and be well. The
problem is that the process is entirely passive. Socrates gets Polus to admit that doing evil is the greater disgrace.
Polus’s admission that to do injustice is more dishonorable than to suffer injustice was his fatal error.
Socrates does not further explain what being better in soul is. It implies the removal of evil from the soul in
the form of injustice, ignorance, or cowardice (477b). Socrates’s line of argument is: Since justice is fair or
beautiful, it is either pleasant or beneficial. Since it may be painful, justice must be beneficial (478b). He who
suffers just punishment is thereby benefited. That Polus agreed with Socrates that “all just things are beautiful”, a
problem in and of itself, gave Socrates the initiative to declare that “the punisher does what is beautiful and the
punished suffers what is beautiful” (476e). What the punisher does is beautiful because “he acts justly” and what the
evil man suffers is beautiful because “he suffers justly” (476d). No action is required by the one who suffers, only
that he must suffer because it is “beautiful” to suffer, since “what is beautiful is good” (476e). Suffering is thus
good. Socrates qualifies this, of course, and says suffering punishment (analogous to being justly corrected for a
wrong) is good. But for whom? For the evil man. Why? Because he is “benefited” by it, meaning “his soul is
improved” or “delivered from evil” (477a). What is this evil? Ignorance. Since injustice must be the greatest evil and
what frees us from injustice is punishment (justice) and since justice is the most useful thing, even though it might
not be the greatest pleasure for the person, he does not know the pain is initial to the outcome that it will bring him—
that which is good and just. He is ignorant of the outcome. The initial anguish according to Socrates is secondary to
a lasting mental health. Ignorance is an important factor in the individual’s evil condition and its removal would
require participation by the individual, but Socrates does not even bother developing its implications for moral
responsibility.
“Benefited” has a utilitarian connotation. For Socrates, a quality of soul which prevents the happiness of
the criminal is removed by one other than the criminal. Happiest is he who never had evil in his soul at all (therefore
no need of punishment). Such a person is better than he who undergoes punishment (although questionable as to
whether his soul is “improved”). But even to undergo punishment, according to Socrates, is better than he who
succeeds in escaping punishment (justice). The vindication of punishment lies in the removal by the just punisher of
the evil in the soul which prevents happiness, i.e. ignorance. Ridding the soul of evil (or ignorance) is accompanied
by the appearance of happiness. To do injustice is worse than suffering it, that is, no unjust man can be happy. Just
punishment, which somehow results in knowledge, is beneficial or advantageous and therefore fair or beautiful.
Socrates believes that to evade justice or health or “improvement” of the soul is to be in the most pain. Injustice is
the worst because it is what is most painful and hurtful. One is only being harmful to oneself. By “harm”, Socrates
means spiritual harm or harm to the soul, in the form of “making people more unjust.” He thought harm to the soul
is greater than harm to the body. It is to act in ignorance as to the “advantages” which come from it (possibly inner
peace of the soul). For this reason is a diseased soul more miserable than a diseased body. To do injustice, not to
suffer for it, to perpetuate it, and to escape punishment is the greatest evil because one’s soul is in chaos. How is this
so?
Socrates, as well as Plato, believes living a life of injustice (a life of fantasies of power and eroticism
without restraint) is not in your self-interest because of this lack of restraint, which will, according to them, certainly
and undoubtedly exact a devastating psychological effect on the person. When desires for injustice are allowed to
grow and flourish, then they will become impossible to satisfy. Instead of leading a life of fulfillment and inner
peace, one will instead be continually dissatisfied and constantly disturbed. Such a life is the life of a tyrant, as Plato
describes in the Republic, a life “full of all sorts of fears and lusts…his soul dainty and greedy…ill-governed in his
own person…the most miserable of all…like a diseased or paralytic man…his life beset with fear and full of
convulsions, and distractions” (Republic 579a-e). Living an unjust life—a life with a persistent fear of reprisals and
an absence of trust in others—is to be a victim of these circumstances, which means one’s soul is servile to the
appetites, internally disorganized. “Every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their
demands are many” (Republic 573d). To do injustice means leading a chaotic life filled with anguish, fear,
frustration, and ignorance. The psychological consequences that come with doing injustice make such a life
unappealing. Such a life is not only unfulfilling, but unhappy and unrewarding; it is a life in which tranquility within
one’s soul is destroyed. The person who is harmed can very well still live a life of being at peace with oneself
because they will be free of chaos, frustration, and ignorance within the soul. Even though he might suffer the
greatest imaginable physical pain, he will not endure the psychological pains. The difference that makes the one
more favorable than the other is that the person who suffers physically will still maintain an understanding of
themselves and possess an emotional harmony within. Knowledge is happiness. To live well and happily one must
have the right psychological condition. To act unjustly means to act in disharmony and ignorance with oneself, and
so to live in disarray and never to be happy.
However, why are we to take Plato’s word as authoritative when his explanation is an outsider’s
perspective? How do we know that the tyrant actually does not genuinely derive benefit from his actions and
actually feels no psychological pain? So, to suffer injustice is not necessarily better than to do injustice because in
committing injustice there is neither psychological pain (a fictional creation out of the incongruous analogy between
the body and soul—another fabrication and attempt to defraud us out of feeling or displaying strong affection), nor
disadvantage, nor personal detriment.
Callicles, the unmitigated hedonist, bursts forth with the defense of living life to the fullest, squeezing the
utmost possible out of experience. Callicles jumps into the argument. He is the partisan of Nature, not of convention.
By Nature, suffering injustice is worse; by convention, performing it.
“Indeed the suffering of injustice is not a man’s part at all, but a poor slave’s, for whom it is better to be
dead than alive, as it is for anybody who, when wronged or insulted, is unable to protect himself or anyone
else for whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of the laws are the weaker sort of men,
and the more numerous. So it is with a view to themselves and their own interest that they make their laws
and distribute their praises and censures; and to terrorize the stronger sort of folk who are able to get an
advantage of them, and to prevent them from getting an advantage over 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
(to get the advantage over his neighbors); for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad
of equality…Nature, in my opinion, herself proclaims the fact that it is just for the better to have advantage
of the worse, the more powerful than the weaker” (483b-d).
“The right has been decided to consist in the sway and advantage of the stronger over the weaker.” Callicles defends
the law of Nature:
“But when some man arises with a nature of sufficient force, he shakes off all that we have taught him,
bursts his bonds, and breaks free; he tramples under foot our codes and juggleries, our charms and ‘laws,’
which are all against Nature; our slave rises in revolt and shows himself our master, and there dawns the
full light of natural justice” (484a).
“Too much philosophy is the ruin of human life” (484c), Callicles concludes; “philosophy, as a part of
education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but
when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous” (485a). Instead, one should get into political life.
Socrates then asks whether those “superior” in power are really “better”? Is it possible to be better and yet inferior
and weaker, to be stronger or superior yet more wicked? Socrates is asking Callicles “whether better is to be defined
in the same way as superior” (488c). Callicles unequivocally states that they are the same. Socrates then says that
“then the many are by nature superior” or stronger, “the laws of the many are the laws of the superior” and therefore
“the laws of the better; for the superior class are far better”, meaning that “since they are superior, the laws which
are made by them are by nature good” (488d-e). But Callicles says that by “superior” or “better” he does not mean
numerically stronger, but “more excellent” or “wiser” (489e-490a). Natural justice is one in which “the better and
wiser should rule and have more than the inferior” (490b). The superior or better are “wise politicians who
understand the administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their
designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul” (491b). Such men of wisdom are also “the rulers of their states”
(491c). Socrates inquires whether not “every man is his own ruler…master of himself, and ruler of his own
pleasures and passions” (491d). Callicles rebuffs Socrates: “Do you mean those who can rule themselves, and
possess self-control, temperance?…The temperate are fools!” (491d). Callicles reminds Socrates of what he said
earlier (483c-d):
“He who would live rightly should let his desires be as strong as possible and not chasten them, and should
be able to minister to them when they have grown to their greatest height by reason of his courage and
intelligence, and satisfy all his longings, each appetite in turn with what it desires. 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” (491e-492a).
Socrates believes the intemperate is never satisfied because his longings are never fulfilled, and some
desires are bad. Callicles objects and says that “the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left…he
has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled…pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx” (494a).
Pleasure is the good for Callicles. Are then “courage and knowledge two things different from one another?”
“Certainly.” Socrates proceeds further asking whether “pleasure and knowledge are the same, or not the same”, to
which Callicles remarks: “Not the same.” “And would you say that courage differed from pleasure?” “Certainly,”
answers Callicles (495d). So, “pleasure and good are the same; but that knowledge and courage are not the same,
either with one another, or with the good” (495e). Socrates goes on to say that wants and desires are bad, again using
the basest forms of gratification—hunger and thirst (496c-e). He draws the conclusion that the satisfaction of
pleasure (a hunger or thirst fulfilled) implies previous pains (being hungry or thirsty), so since pleasure and pain
cease at the same moment while good and evil exclude one another (495e), pleasure cannot be the good (497a).
Socrates brings out another example of cowardly or foolish men (evil) and brave or wise men (good) on the field of
battle in which Callicles admits that the cowardly or foolish are more pained by battle and more pleased by the
enemy’s departure than the brave or wise (498a-e). Socrates attempts to force Callicles into admitting that some
longing or desire is bad. Callicles then makes his fatal admission: some pleasures are bad (499d). Callicles’ defeat is
sealed when he concedes that there must be better and worse pleasure and thus a rational “master art of life” that
discriminates between them (501a). For Socrates, knowledge is a prerequisite for understanding the Good. Pleasure,
on the other hand, does not require any knowledge and hence no pleasure can be a standard for the Good (499e500a). The Good is to be the end of all actions and all actions are to be done for the sake of the Good, not the Good
for the sake of action. Callicles comes to admit that “pleasure is to be sought for the sake of that which is Good, and
not that which is Good for the sake of pleasure” (500a). Pleasure is not good in and of itself; rather, what is good is
pleasurable in and of it.
Socrates’s argument against Callicles is not a serious dispute against Nature. Who can honestly argue that
the good life is one that is attentive to bodily pleasures only? What Callicles meant to elucidate by “more” (in the
quote below) was that the good life is devoted to unconscious psychological pleasures—the “will to power” being
the greatest of these pleasures, not the nonsensical notion that Plato had of bodily or material pleasure:
“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” (Gorgias 483d).
To argue that true virtue can be present whether or not pleasure or pain are, that is, that true virtue is indifferent to
pleasure and pain (as Socrates and Plato argue) is to lead a life of deprivation.
The substitution of the Good is premature. Even though Socrates shows that there are good and bad
pleasures, this does not imply that all pleasures should be discredited. Pleasure is bad only if the wrong pleasures or
the excess of bodily pleasures are pursued. Socrates does not give any valid argument that pleasure is generally a
bad thing, so how can one infer the notion of the Good? Socrates believes that pleasure presupposes a previous
deprivation, but what of the pleasure of intellectual awareness? Socrates and Plato are wrong in basing their
understanding of pleasure on bodily pleasures. Pleasure of the right kind is what is good and something is
particularly worth choosing and good if it is chosen for its own sake, not for the sake of something else, and this is
true of pleasure. A good life involves pleasure, not a negation of it by some transcendental realm of the Form of the
Good. Pleasure should be a being aware of something that holds our attention, an “unimpeded activity of a natural
condition” (Nicomachean Ethics 1152b-1153a, 1154a-b, 1173a-b). How can virtue be a matter of indifference to
pleasure and pain? When our awareness is unimpeded and when we are aware of what is interesting, then pleasure
will work to perfect this experience. For Aristotle, whether a pleasure is good depends entirely upon whether the
associated activity is good.
But what is the Good that Socrates and Plato speak about? For Socrates and Plato, knowledge of the Forms
is a means to a further goal—toward developing our faculty of reason. The healthy soul is maintaining harmony
among all its parts. If the aspect of reason is left undeveloped, then our lives become narrow and impoverished.
Reason is important because with it we can discover and become acquainted with the preeminent form itself—the
Form of the Good, which can give us a higher degree of harmony and order. Such a person does not have the
blemishes that a tyrant possesses. Such a person has easily satisfied appetites and is exempt from discord and selfdestruction. Such a person lives a life of tranquility. Even if the just person suffers punishment, he will still be free
of the chaos and frustration that marks the life of the tyrant. Physical pain, for Socrates and Plato, is preferable to
psychological pain because the just person will gain entry to something the unjust will never realize—an
understanding of the Good.
In the Republic (507a-b, 596a) it is assumed that whenever a plurality of individuals have a common name
they also have a corresponding idea or form. This is the universal, the common nature or quality which is grasped in
the concept, for instance, beauty. There are many beautiful things, but we form one universal concept of beauty
itself by thought, which is an objective essence. For Plato it is thought that grasps reality, so that the object of
thought (universals), as opposed to sense-perception must have reality. Universals are made the object of thought by
reason. To these objective essences Plato gave the name of Ideas or Forms. The Forms or Ideas are comprised in the
Principle of Being, in the One, or at least that they owe their essence to the One.
In the Republic, in specific 514-526, there is a distinction between the visible realm and the intelligible
realm. Higher education of the intelligible realm seems to be the aim. The highest goal in all of education, Plato
believed, is knowledge of the Good; that is, not merely an awareness of particular benefits and pleasures, but an
understanding of the Form of Good itself. Just as the sun provides illumination by means of which we are able to
perceive everything in the visual world, he argued, so the Form of the Good provides the ultimate standard by means
of which we can apprehend the reality of everything that has value. Objects are sufficiently valuable to the extent
that they participate in this form. The Good itself is the unifying concept of the all in one. The Good is compared to
the sun, the light of which makes the objects of nature visible to all and so is, in a sense, the source of their worth
and value and beauty. We are not to suppose that the Good exists as an object among objects, as the sun exists as an
object among other objects. Plato asserts that the Good gives being to the objects of knowledge and so is the
unifying and all-comprehensive Principle of the essential order, while itself excelling even essential being in dignity
and power (508e-509b). Not only is it an epistemological principle but also an ontological and moral principle, a
principle of being. It is real in itself and subsistent. In sum, reality is permanent, unchanging, and composed of
abstract forms, while appearance is misleading, transient, and composed of sensible objects. A man attains the vision
of the Good by pure intelligence. By dialectic the highest principle of the soul is raised “to the contemplation of that
which is best in existence” (Republic 532c).
It would seem that the Idea of the Good in the Republic must be regarded as identical with the essential
Beauty of the Symposium. Both are represented as the high peak of an intellectual ascent, while the comparison of
the Idea of the Good with the sun would appear to indicate that it is the source not only of the goodness of things,
but also of their beauty. The Idea of the Good gives being to the Forms or essences of the intellectual order, while
science and the wide ocean of intellectual beauty is a stage on the ascent and purification to the essentially beautiful.
For Plato the Forms are the cause of the essence of all other things, and the Good or One is the cause of the essence
of the Forms. In the Republic (517b-c), Plato speaks of the ascent of the mind to the first principle of the whole and
asserts that the Idea of the Good is inferred to be “the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of
light and of the lord of light in this world, and the source of truth and reason in the other.” Hence, it would seem
reasonable to conclude that the One, the Good, and the essential Beauty are the same for Plato and that the
intelligible world of Forms owes its being in some way to the One.
Plato means to imply that the Idea of Justice, the Idea of Beauty, the Idea of Temperance, etc., are
objectively grounded in the Absolute Principle of Value, in the Good, which contains within itself the idea of human
nature and so the idea of the virtues of human nature. The Good or Absolute Principle of Value has thus the nature
of a telos; but it is not an unrealized telos; it is an existent telos, the Supremely Real, the perfect exemplary cause,
the Absolute. Richard Kraut in The Cambridge Companion to Plato says Plato believes that:
“if one pursues the right course of study one can achieve a full understanding of the realm of the Forms,
including the Good, the Form that Plato declares to be of greatest importance. Those who grasp this Form
will not only attain supreme happiness for themselves, but their contact with an otherworldly realm, so far
from making them unfit for political life, will enable them to be of immense value to other members of the
community” (p. 9).
According to Socrates and Plato, only the statesman, which is also the philosopher, can come to this understanding.
So, justice benefits the man who is just because justice consists in a harmony that emerges when the various parts of
a person performs the function proper to them and abstain from interfering with the functions of any other part.
More specifically, justice occurs with regard to the individual, when the three component parts of his soul—the
rational soul (mind, intellect), the spirited soul (will, volition), and the appetitive soul (emotion, desire)—each
perform their appropriate tasks.
Returning to the Gorgias, Socrates shows that an indiscriminate hedonism cannot be the source for calling
something good and just or even moral; he mentions the “public good” as being forgotten by men of “pleasure”
(502e). Not only should the good life be a private matter, but also somehow related to the public realm. Socrates
puts forth the idea that only a competent and great statesman can effect encouraging change with regard to the moral
character of the individual. Such men are rare as Socrates says and he hints that they have yet to make their
presence:
“Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first, true virtue consists only in the satisfaction of
our own desires and those of others; but if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to acknowledge,
the satisfaction of some desires make us better, and of others, worse, and we ought to gratify the one and
not the other, and there is an art in distinguishing them—can you tell me of any of these statesmen who did
distinguish them?” (503c).
How exactly is such a man related to the “public good”? The Republic answers this. With regard to society, justice
occurs when its component members each fulfill the demands of their allotted roles. Harmony is ensured in the
individual when the rational part of his soul is in command—when philosophers are its rulers because philosophers
(Platonic philosophers) have a clear understanding of justice, based on their vision of the Form of the Good. The
philosopher or statesman commands the common men as well as the guardians and in return they receive moral
excellence, which is imparted by the philosopher/statesman. The dictates of reason are to be carried out for the
“benefit” of achieving temperance or self-control over oneself. How active of a role does a person have in
determining and achieving his moral excellence?
What is disturbing is that in order to achieve this state of moral excellence, the statesman is completely
empowered with the task of transforming the individuals of society, while the citizens themselves remain entirely
subservient and obedient to his moral/political will. The moral passivity of the person is related by Socrates when he
compares the activity of the good statesman in producing morality in the citizens to the activity of the craftsman or
artist. The true statesman is:
“just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to
their own work, and do not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to
it. The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other
part, until he has constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the same
way the trainers and physicians, of whom we spoke before, give order and regularity to the body” (503e504a).
With a sense of purpose, the statesman gives a certain order and forces one part to suit and fit the other, bringing to
completion the production of a moral individual. The ordering of the person’s soul can apparently only come about
through his activity. There is absolutely no indication that a person’s soul spontaneously comes together. Just as the
patient who follows the commands of the trainer or doctor for a well-ordered body, so the person follows the
commands of the statesman for a well-ordered soul. It is paradoxical that an individual who contributes nothing to
the attainment of his morality and who is completely shaped by an external agent is, in any significant sense, moral.
Presumably, the philosopher’s or statesman’s rule for “whatever he says with a view to the best, speaks with a
reference to some standard and not at random” (503e). His craft to the world of Forms and the idea of the Good are,
for Socrates and Plato, the conditions that distinguish him. Socrates’s entire rejection of Gorgias’s rhetoric from the
beginning was not solely because it “is the artificer of a persuasion” (455a), but due to defining it as “ambiguous”
(451e) and “which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction about them” (455a). What
Socrates is after is a sort of persuasion that is the source of knowledge. Socrates wants to hold accountable the
statesman for the moral upbringing of citizens. His resentment towards Gorgias rests on the fact that for Gorgias the
instructor of rhetoricians and orators should not be held accountable. Any rhetorician who abuses his strength, “who
make a bad use of the art”, “are to blame” (457a). The statesman, though, is made fully responsible.
Good intentions by the statesman are not enough. Socrates does not want any abuses of the statesman’s
abilities, so knowledge (of the just and unjust, good and evil) is required not only to persuade the citizens but also
himself in such a manner where he should be held accountable. In order for the statesman to instruct on what is just
or unjust, he must be held accountable and be responsible for his instructions. In order to command (the citizens), he
must also obey (a sense of responsibility); otherwise such an art is an “experience or routine”, a “flattery”, a
“counterfeit”, and “ignoble” (463b-d). Socrates brings this out with Gorgias (460a-d). The true art of the statesman
attends to both body and soul. The true statesman is not a pretender “having no regard for men’s highest interests”
and “ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value
to them” as he accuses the rhetoricians and orators as being (464d). Rather, the statesman gives an account of the
real nature of things and applies it diligently. He is rational in that he provides for the “best advantage” of body and
soul. He holds that since pleasure and the good are not the same, thereby distinguishing between the two, the good is
the object of all our actions (499e-500a). In this sense, Socrates alone believes himself to practice true politics. This
enlightened despot apparently knows what is the good. Furthermore, he applies it in a way to convince people what
may be beneficial and useful. Socrates himself again reiterates or identifies with Callicles the good with the useful
(499c-e). The statesman acts for the moral regeneration of the person just as the doctor acts for his patient. Just as
the doctor does not allow his patient to satisfy his desires indiscriminately, so the true statesman in dealing with the
unjust soul must “restrain its desires and not permit it to do anything except what will help it to be better” and “to
prevent from doing anything which does not tend to her own improvement” (505b). This is so because for Socrates
when such an order and regularity of the soul prevail it is good. The statesman is empowered to the effect of
harmonizing and ordering the soul; he gives it a “healthy” existence by giving “lawful” and “regular order and
action to the soul” (504c). Socrates describes such a man’s aim as: “to implant justice in the souls of his citizens and
take away injustice, to implant temperance and take away intemperance, to plant every virtue and take away every
vice” (504d).
What Socrates says at 504d is completely contradictory to what he stated earlier when talking with Gorgias
about things just and unjust: “No one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude about such high matters in a
short time” (455a). Evidently, Socrates makes an exception for the statesman because for some reason he is
permitted or able to do this. But what sort of education does the statesman require of his citizens? It seems that he
requires his citizens to be taught on a massive scale about matters of justice and injustice, for how else is he to rule
over his citizens if the majority of them are ignorant about morality?
The same harsh disapproval and criticism Socrates had for Gorgias’s “ambiguity”, he himself falls prey.
What is the meaning of “better” (505b)? “Improvement of the soul” or what is of “benefit” or “advantageous” is
hardly an explanation. Although the meaning of “better” is ambiguous, the external quality of the evil man’s
improvement is clear. He does not control his own desires. By forbidding him certain desires the statesman seeks to
improve his spiritual health just as the doctor betters his patient’s condition by denying him the satisfaction of
certain desires. However, the control by the statesman of the evil person’s harmful desires denies the individual’s
participation in his own moral regeneration. How can an individual achieve a condition of moral excellence without
himself wanting to do what is right and in wanting to restrain his harmful desires? Rather than assisting people in
attaining the moral condition of his soul and of the good, the statesman actually inhibits any contribution by the
citizen, the “object” of the statesman’s art. The statesman’s art is in crafting the good man, to make the citizen’s soul
as good as possible by saying and doing what is best, yet his craft fails because of its utter passivity of the object. An
imposing of order on the object, whether this order is perceived as instilling certain virtues, is still only an
appearance of order and virtue. Moral excellence presupposes a responsibility and spontaneity to oneself. How can a
soul act virtuously if its excellence is due to another’s activity? It is inexplicable how a soul can act virtuously which
has achieved its excellence through the art of another rather than through its own efforts. The orderly condition of
the soul constituting its moral excellence is imposed entirely from outside the soul by the statesman.
Socrates, at 516a and following, emphasizes the moral passivity of the citizens. Socrates likens the care of
the statesman for his citizens to that of a shepherd for his herd. We blame the shepherd for the worsening of his
flock. So Socrates contends should it be with the supposedly great statesmen of Athens. If the facts showed that
Pericles and others left the citizens wilder or “savage” and hence “more unjust and worse” after their tenure in office
than before, they could not be considered as true statesmen. The statesman is held to be completely responsible for
the moral condition or improvement of the citizens as the shepherd is for the physical well being of his flock. So,
there are no evil citizens, only incompetent “statesmen.” So, if the competent statesman is one who brings a sort of
education to the citizens, is he not in fact similar to the dictator who has complete control over life and death?
“Now the proper office of punishment is two-fold: he who is rightly punished ought either to become better
and profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and
fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and men, are those
whose sins are curable; and they are improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering; for
there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the
worst crimes, and incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the
time has passed at which they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get good
when they behold them enduring forever the most terrible and painful and fearful suffering as the penalty of
their sins—there they are, hanging up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and
a warning to all unrighteous men who come thither” (Gorgias 525b-c).
The statesman or philosopher is also the judge, the one who determines what improves the soul. He alone
decides how things shall be. Not only is such a government inherently dangerous, but it can destroy a person’s
nature. The tyrant is recast as the philosopher—the absolute dogmatist. The so-called moral regeneration of the evil
man is the product of legal justice, a sub-art of the art of politics and its practitioner, the judge or whoever is
responsible. The evil man has little to do with the regaining of moral health as the patient has with his physical
health. Furthermore, the statesman’s own worth is conditioned upon the extent to which he us useful to his citizens.
However, “to appraise the value of a man according to how useful he is to men…That is as much as to appraise a
work of art according to the effects it produces” (Will to Power 878). Such a position on morality and justice is
hardly reasonable or justifiable, much less tolerable. Moral responsibility is unrealistic and moral excellence is
unattainable as presented by Plato. What then is meant by Socrates’s “improvement of the soul”? The reduction of
all motives to fear and hope (punishment and reward), the implanting of conscience which sets a false knowing in
place of testing and experiment, and a castrating of the spirit, of the will, and of emotions. Socrates and Plato
attempt to erect illusory representations of a utopian world that does not exist in the here and now with ideas of the
soul, the Form of the Good, and bad conscience or psychological pain. This is hardly an improvement of the soul,
but rather a perversion and mutilation of it.
In the Apology, Socrates champions the philosophical model of rational inquiry, that is, “examining myself
and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living” (38a). Socrates makes the
claim, natural for a philosopher, but otherwise astonishingly controversial, that the life of philosophy alone, a way of
life devoted to examination of opinions about matters fundamental to morality, namely knowledge about the just,
noble, and good, is a life worth living. He believes that such a life avoids “unrighteousness” and “improves
yourself” (39a-b). Self-examination is a virtue for Socrates and only in such virtue can true knowledge be found.
Only the philosophical model can impart true knowledge because only philosophy is conducted towards the spirit of
self-examination, a “daily discourse about virtue”, which is “the greatest good of man” (38a). Socrates means to
identify virtue with happiness and since virtue is knowledge, then knowledge necessarily grants happiness. But what
sort of knowledge leads to happiness? The knowledge that results from testing and cross-examination of others and
oneself—of self-knowledge. It is only by self-knowledge that one gains a moral character and once this moral
character has been established in oneself, then nothing can harm a good person (41a-e). In pursuing such a life,
death should not be a deterrent nor should death be avoided in order to live such a life (39a-b). Death is preferable to
a life without philosophy. Life is not by itself an unadulterated good. A life of any other type must then be one that
is unfulfilled and devoid of happiness. Happiness, for Socrates, can only come from the exercise of the intellect.
Socrates fails to realize that there are other types of happiness, ones that do not require contemplation. The simple
acts of appreciating a sunset, listening to a beautiful melody, or passionately embracing a loved one are also sources
of a great joy. The sensual and emotional are ignored in favor of the intellect.
Socrates and Plato represent this degeneration of values because of their rational destruction of the passions
and their suppression of struggle and contest, crucial elements to any healthy society:
“Destroying the passions and cravings, merely as a preventive measure against their stupidity and
unpleasant consequences of this stupidity—today this strikes us as merely another acute form of stupidity”
(Twilight of the Idols, “Morality As Anti-Nature” Section 1).
A man of excellent character is “a law unto himself” as Aristotle would describe it, or as “selfovercoming”, as Nietzsche would phrase it, since he becomes a living norm of practical excellence. He has so
habituated himself to desiring and acting well that he seldom has to reflect, except marginally, about the possibilities
open to him. That is to say, his actions are not mechanical, but rather he has reached a level of moral
accomplishment that enables him to act as he should, effortlessly, characteristically, and spontaneously. This is
Nietzsche’s “master morality”, the self-controlled man who always desires what he should, acts as he should, and
enjoys what he should. This is different from Plato’s idea of the battle or war waged against oneself. The struggle
Plato speaks about is the rational aspect of the soul overcoming its desires and emotions—consciousness over
unconsciousness. Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics explains that the excellent man does virtuous acts out of
character, out of his nature, where pleasure ensues upon the virtuous act. Pleasure is accompanied by virtuous action
(1104b). For Aristotle, pleasure is not an evil as it is with Plato. To feel pleasure in the right way encourages virtue
and to feel pleasure in the wrong way contributes to vice. How the person takes pleasure in something and in what
he takes pleasure in is important. Taking pleasure in good things assists virtuous activity. That virtue is a state of
character and not a passion or a faculty (1105b-1106a) is why the excellent man is both “pleasurable and noble.”
These main elements are intended to improve oneself through an internal goal, unconsciously, and develop a moral
character concerning both man’s emotions and actions; it concerns his actions because moral character is formed by
them and because, once formed, helps determine them.
What then is good? For Aristotle it is that which is something final, something that is “in itself worthy of
pursuit” because it is “more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else” (1097a).
Happiness is this pursuit, but a specific sort of happiness. “Human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance
with excellence” (1098a). Happiness is a process of learning and training—virtuous activity of the soul (1099b). By
virtue, Aristotle means both intellectual (practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom) and moral (temperance, courage,
and benevolence) (1103a, 1139a). Character is just as important as intellect. For Plato the art of justice and morality
is one in which the person must act in full consciousness and must know that he is performing a virtuous action, and
it is irrelevant that the person deliberately choose the act for its own sake and that his action must come from his
firm and immutable character. Rather, the statesman is the one who chooses and who possess such a character. In
moral conduct, the two “irrelevant” points to Plato are in fact of paramount importance. While for Plato the best type
of good, including justice, is one that is desirable both in itself and for the sake of its results (Republic 357d-358a),
Aristotle believes that it is not appropriate to desire something for its consequences since then the consequence
would be perceived as better (1094a). Instead, the highest kind of good must be one that is not desirable for the sake
of anything else. However, even the highest kind of good cannot be disassociated from pleasure.
Ethics cannot be reduced to positive sciences or the intellect or consciousness but requires that its
principles be based on feeling, on emotion, on instinct. A virtuous act done out of feeling, emotion, or instinct is
more fundamental to our character than if the same act was done out of rational justification, out of calculation. Our
emotions motivate us toward a highly discriminative response to what is of value and importance. The
transcendental good that is based on pure intellect is not necessarily the moral good. Nietzsche was right in believing
that the emphasis on the conscious at the expense of the unconscious is the source of the devaluation of life. The
unconscious must be affirmed if the totality of life is to be affirmed.
“My idea is, as you see, that consciousness does not really belong to man’s individual existence but rather
to his social or herd nature; that, as follows from this, it has developed subtlety only insofar as this is
required by social or herd utility…Fundamentally, all our actions are altogether incomparably personal,
unique, and infinitely individual; there is no doubt of that. But as soon as we translate them into
consciousness they no longer seem to be. This is the essence of phenomenalism and perspectivism as I
understand them: owing to the nature of animal consciousness, the world of which we can become
conscious is only a surface-and-sign-world, a world that is made common and meaner; whatever becomes
conscious becomes by the same token shallow, low, thin, relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all
becoming conscious involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to superficialities,
and generalization” (Gay Science 299-300).
Consciousness is a subsidiary role to the human condition. It developed in our relation to the outer world.
Nietzsche’s “appearance” or “seeming to be” does not mean a deception or an idea, but that it possesses the same
degree of reality as our emotions. “Pleasure”, “displeasure”, “will”—all of these are hints directing us to a higher
rule of spiritual growth. These terms are not indications of a new form of utilitarianism or hedonism, that is to say,
modes of thought. Instead, they are a kind of spontaneity, an instinct. Happiness, action, and instinct are inseparable.
The innermost essence of being is willing or wishing; it is of the unconscious.
For Aristotle, the morally weak man acts as he does because he does not always want (Aristotle’s
terminology) or will, (Nietzsche’s phrase), to act as he knows he should. This person knows the right thing to do but
nevertheless desires something else and therefore has to subdue his desire to act in accordance with what he knows
is right. Moral strength or self-restraint is contrasted to moral weakness, as Nietzsche contrasts “master morality”
and “slave morality.” The morally strong man also experiences a conflict between his moral principles and some
desires that are deficient or excessive, but he is better than the morally weak man because his wish to be morally
good will always dominate the unruly emotions that tempt him. But he is not as good a man as the morally excellent
man, who knows what is morally good and acts willingly where his motivations do not stray because his choices do
not require special effort.
The erroneous equation of knowledge=virtue=happiness does away with spontaneity, instinct, activity. The
proliferation of Socratic interpretations of the world, then, reveals an underlying general emptiness in man. It signals
a lack of spiritual depth. Every morality should be a construction of passion, of emotion:
“The misunderstanding of passion and reason, as if the latter were an independent entity and not rather a
system of relations between various passions and desires; and is if every passion did not possess its custom
of reason” (Will to Power 387).
Whereas Socrates believes that virtue is knowledge of good and evil and Plato believes virtue is the
harmony between the parts of the soul, I believe that Aristotle’s “character”, a relationship between desires and
reasons, determines virtuous actions. Reason is not an entity in itself, but a state of relations between different
passions and desires. With Nietzsche, as with Aristotle, external manifestations of good (health, wealth, honor,
power), even though they are desirable preconditions for true excellence, are not the conditions themselves for
excellence. Reason is not a distinct entity from emotion. They are reducible to a single psychological principle and it
is reason that serves to direct the emotions; reason is not a force in itself. Good arises from things done out of
character, out of instinct, not out of consciousness (fear of punishment, hope of reward). Virtue done out of action
and instinct is a creative process, the creation of character, and as such, self-affirming:
“Whereas in all productive men instinct is the truly creative and affirming power, and consciousness acts as
a critical and cautioning reaction, in Socrates the instinct becomes the critic, consciousness becomes the
creator—truly a monstrous defect…The major criticism which Plato made about the old art (tragedy)—that
it was the imitation of an illusion and thus belonged to a lower level than the empirical world—must above
all not be directed against his new work of art. And so we see Plato exerting himself to go beyond reality
and to present the Idea which forms basis of that pseudo-reality” (The Birth of Tragedy 13; 14).
Higher morality is instinctive and unconscious, free of intellectual and reflective interference:
“Genius resides in instinct; goodness likewise. One acts perfectly when one acts instinctively. Even from
the viewpoint of morality, all conscious thinking is merely tentative, usually the reverse of morality…It
could be proved that all conscious thinking would also show a far lower standard of morality than the
thinking of the same man when it is directed by his instincts” (Nietzsche, Will To Power 243).
Socrates’s motivation behind his view is psychological itself. Socrates and Plato refused to see nature in
morality. This rejection of nature is a symptom of resentment against reality. Instead of acting in accordance with
one’s own temperaments, one acts in accordance with an alienating morality (an obedience to an external force).
Morality, as such, is an opposition movement against the efforts of nature because morality advances at the expense
of instincts. Confronted with such a morality life must continually and inevitably be in the wrong, because life is
something essentially immoral. Morality is hostility toward the senses; it is degeneration. The performance of good
works rests on belief in the controlled nature of our good or evil acts. Morality, as such, is a sum of prejudices.
Moral growth comes with the activity of unconscious forces, of active forces. Nietzsche understood this
well:
“Reason alone can never be a motive to any action; and secondly, it can never oppose passion in the
direction of the will…since reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition” (Beyond
Good and Evil, 19).
This is not to be taken, though, that blind indulgence of an affect, whether it be a generous or a hostile affect, is
good. Greatness of character consists in possessing the affects to the highest degree, but in having them under
control via your will rather than via intellectual restraint. This is a different sort of education than is espoused by
Plato. While for Plato, actions are prohibited on their harmful consequences and permissible on their beneficial
consequences, for the moral excellent man education is towards instinct, towards developing character:
“Education in morality has always been that one tried to attain to the certainty of an instinct: so that neither
good intentions nor good means had to enter consciousness as such. As the soldier exercises, so should man
learn to act. In fact, this unconsciousness belongs to any kind of perfection” (Will to Power 430).
Plato weakens or extirpates the passions and thereby weakens and extirpates the “dominating power of a will”, of
freedom, of character, and of moral excellence. With Plato, the philosopher-tyrant reigns supreme.
Plato sought to condemn man by making him unfree, by making him into a piece of suffering in which his
redemption was to be his usefulness to society. The emotions and instinct are henceforth abnormal, semi-animal,
dangerous, and nothing other than desire for pleasure. Instinct is degraded into amusement and no longer seen as the
motive force. This was a great misunderstanding by Socrates and Plato, the misunderstanding that instinct and
reason were divided. This is what constitutes “slave morality” and the source of differentiating into good and evil.
Power and danger are considered evil. The good man is the harmless man, the ignorant man who is in need of
correction. Thus, the good man is the easily deceived man. The longing for freedom is the reverence, devotion, and
enthusiasm for something outside himself (the Form of the Good, conscience, psychological tranquility, and the
soul—in so far as these are not of their creation, but created for them by someone else and thus an external tyranny
of authority that is being imposed).
“Every unegoistic morality which takes itself as unconditional and addresses itself to everybody is not
merely a sin against taste: it is an instigation to sins of omission, one seduction more…a seduction and
injury for precisely the higher, rarer, privileged” (Beyond Good and Evil, 221).
Socrates and Plato must invent a soul in order to contemplate absolutes, such as “justice”. Such a soul must
also be made wholly rational. Since we really do have knowledge of this other reality, knowledge that we cannot
possibly have obtained through any bodily experience, Socrates and Plato argued, it follows that this knowledge
must have been acquainted with our souls prior to our births. But in that case, the existence of our mortal bodies
cannot be essential to the existence of our souls—before birth or after death—and we are therefore immortal,
according to Socrates and Plato—an act of hubris. The devaluation of life, Nietzsche calls it; the creation of a
rational soul made immortal, what contempt for this life. The creation of this other world takes the place of this
world, since this world is somehow less real or not at all real, whereas the other world is the epitome of reality. The
other world becomes the only possible basis for a valid and necessary existence. Even the Phaedo tries to
intentionally demonstrate this. That for Socrates and Plato there exists a world distinct from our reality, that the soul
enters this world after death while maintaining its personal identity, that the soul does not wear itself out during its
future fate, and that the soul may find conditions superior to the ones we experience in our world all indicate that the
other world that provides desirable conditions, more desirable than this life (64e, 114c, 115d). Along with the
argument for the existence of Forms (72e-77b) and the arbitrary qualities this soul has (78b-84b), this life becomes
degenerate in so far as the soul is the “natural governor” of the body.
Socrates’s and Plato’s entire notion of the soul is based on his unfounded presupposition that the Forms
exist and that they neither perish nor withdraw (104c), therefore making the soul deathless because death is the
opposite to that which the soul brings (immortality). So the soul is also made indestructible as a consequence (106d).
This assumption made by Socrates and Plato, that the Forms exist, allows him to argue that knowledge of the
conditions of life after death is essential, therefore making death something desirable in life, since the soul is a
spiritual substance that harbors knowledge of the other world, the world of Forms, of the eternal, and of the absolute,
the “real” life, as Plato argues, resides somewhere else. Only in death can we again arrive at the knowledge that we
possessed before birth, when our souls were communing with the Forms, as they are again in death. “Being—we
have no conception of it other than as ‘life.’—How can something dead be?” (Will to Power 582). To conceive of
the body as less perfect and less important than the soul, that the body hinders the cognition by the soul (as if
cognition is paramount), that the senses are “inaccurate witnesses”, that the soul can discover (some absolute, as
opposed to create) true existence, that the Forms are true essences of things and objects of thought, that the body is
the source of all base desires and the cause of injustice, that the instincts are the commonest motives for bad action,
and to conceive of Being as “death”, this is exactly the root of western deterioration corruption in values.
Terry Penner in The Cambridge Companion to Plato stated it well when he pointed to the moral bankruptcy
of Socratic ethics:
“If virtue is the knowledge of how best to care for one’s soul in order to be happy; and Socrates, the wisest
human in Greece, knows only that he knows nothing; then, of course, no one has the knowledge of how
best to care for one’s soul – and indeed no one has virtue” (p. 137).
How can one be “happy” at all with this knowledge? Or even, how can one be happy continually striving
for this world of knowledge about the soul when one is guaranteed that one will never gain it at all? It becomes a
perpetual disappointment to never achieve knowledge of how best to care for one’s soul. One is reminded of
Nietzsche’s comment in Twilight of the Idols:
“The true world - unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown.
Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?…The
‘true world’ - an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating -an idea which has become
useless and superfluous - consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it! (Bright day; breakfast, return of bon
sens and cheerfulness; Plato’s embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)”
Socrates does not bother to provide an account of motivation in ethical action. Socrates does not postulate
that ethical behavior arises from an internal state, since the ethical focus is not on the motivations and instincts of the
person doing an act, but rather on the nature of the act itself (just or unjust), and its consequences—rational or
irrational, harmonious or disharmonious, and orderly or chaotic.
For Socrates, man is morally responsible, even though he has a passive role in achieving justice or
morality, because his reason poses itself as the law he must obey (the reason of what is advantageous to oneself).
For Socrates the just and the good consist in obeying the self-legislated dictates of reason and in such legislation
inclinations and passions ought not determine action. Socrates’s morality is defined in terms of an ethical obedience
to rational laws or moral laws, not in terms of nobility and character.
“As we have discovered that…the feeling of obligation cannot be transformed into a source of the validity
of ethics, let us forget about the appeal to obligation. Let us throw away the crutches we needed for
walking, let us stand on our own feet and trust our volitions, not because they are secondary ones but
because they are our own volitions. Only a distorted morality can argue that our will is bad if it is not the
response to a command from another source.” (Nietzsche)