The Pleasure of the Good

In Plato’s Gorgias, while publicly debating with Gorgias and then Polus, Socrates inspires a response from Callicles who emerges from the crowd and weighs in on matters. Up to this point, Socrates has used his method of questioning to prove his points, but Callicles challenges this, accusing Socrates of “steering discussions” and manipulating the crowd (65). Callicles takes his turn at debate and argues, amongst other things, that it is human nature for superior men to be self-indulgent and strive ultimately to satisfy their own desires – and that this is both pleasurable an good. Socrates argues that there is a differentiation between “pleasure” and “good” and that the pursuit of pleasure in and of itself is ultimately bad.

Picking up where Gorgias and Polus left off with Socrates in an argument over the nature of rhetoric, Callicles steps in to go head to head with Socrates in a candid (and sometimes amusing) debate. Callicles begins his argument by accusing Socrates of manipulating the crowd with ideas that are “unsophisticated enough to have popular appeal,” depending on convention (not nature) and actually being foolish in continuing to pursue philosophy, “like a teenager” (65/69).  Socrates is impassive to Callicles’ insults and actually praises him for his frankness, citing that he is the only one of the bunch that’s got the gall and the education to openly confront him – and adds that Callicles must care for him very much to want to enlighten Socrates on what he believes to be true (71).

They take up their debate over whether there is a “natural right” of superior people to dominate “second-rate” people and furthermore whether there is a differentiation better “better” and “superior” (73). They both seem to agree that there are superior people; however, they disagree about what makes a superior man. Socrates raises the question as to whether the people Callicles considers to be superior (rulers, the elite class) are in fact rulers or subjects themselves (78). Callicles says that “the only authentic way of life is to do nothing to hinder or restrain the expansion of one’s desires, until they can grow no larger… satisfying every passing whim” (79). He claims that average people don’t have the ability to satisfy their desires and so they condemn the “freedom” of indulgence and praise self-discipline, perpetuating conventions, opinions and structures of the majority (79). He says, “If a person has the means to live a life of sensual, self-indulgent freedom, there’s no better of happier state of existence… pointless trumpery” (79).  

Socrates disagrees, citing that without self-discipline, one cannot be happy.  Socrates sets out to distinguish between good and bad pleasures; and claims that pleasure and good are in fact two different things. Socrates sets to prove his point, using an example of a thirsty person drinking; as thirst is unpleasant and distressful, a thirsty person finds drinking pleasant, therefore a thirsty person feels both distress and pleasure at the same time, so then it is possible to live well and badly at the same time and since pleasure and stress can coincide then pleasure and to live well are not the same and distress is not the same as to live badly – concluding that pleasure and the good are different (87).

The larger point is that according to Socrates is that self-control is what leads to authentic happiness and pleasure, while bringing a temporary feeling of satisfaction, does not bring one any closer to the good – in fact, if one is self-indulgent they become ruled by their passions – which is what I believe he meant by the question: “Are [the elite] rulers or subjects?” (78). Socrates tells Callicles that “the people you are calling happy have a terrifying life as well” and that “the part of the mind which contains the desires is in fact characterized by its susceptibility and its instability” (80). He goes on to say that “the good in some form should be the goal of pleasant activities (as much as of any other kind of activity), rather than pleasure being the goal of good activities” (93). With this argument, I believe that Socrates discredits Callicles’ claim that average people condemn the elite’s self-indulgence just because they jealous that they not able to achieve it for themselves, but rather because there is a general understanding of what is good (and that average people poses good attributes).

From a modern-day perspective, I can see both Socrates and Callicles’ points. Living in a capitalistic society, we are all conditioned to want material wealth and self-indulgence comes easily – especially for the elite or privileged class (as they have more access to luxuries via wealth or power). But it is easy to see how self-indulgence can hurt an individual as well as a society and create everything from physical, mental, emotional to material crises. Ultimately, I think that this passage of Gorgias points out a timeless tension that exists within human nature and emphasizes the need for people to balance their own passions with the long term greater good (of both themselves as well as their society’s).