Gorgias (472-476)

Soc.

My gifted friend, that is because you attempt to refute me in rhetorical fashion, as they understand refuting in the law courts. For there, one party is supposed to refute the other when they bring forward a number of reputable witnesses to any statements they may make, whilst their opponent produces only one, or none. But this sort of refutation is quite worthless

for getting at the truth; since occasionally a man may actually be crushed by the number and reputation of the false witnesses brought against him. And so now you will find almost everybody, Athenians and foreigners, in agreement with you on the points you state, if you like to bring forward witnesses against the truth of what I say: if you like, there is Nicias, son of Niceratus, with his brothers, whose tripods are standing in a row in the Dionysium;[*] or else Aristocrates, son of Scellias, whose goodly offering again is well known at Delphi; or if you choose, there is the whole house of Pericles or any other family you may like to select in this place. But I, alone here before you, do not admit it, for you fail to convince me: you only attempt, by producing a number of false witnesses against me, to oust me from my reality, the truth. But if on my part I fail to produce yourself as my one witness to confirm what I say, I consider I have achieved nothing of any account towards the matter of our discussion, whatever it may be; nor have you either, I conceive, unless I act alone as your one witness, and you have nothing to do with all these others. Well now, this is one mode of refutation, as you and many other people understand it; but there is also another which I on my side understand. Let us therefore compare them with each other and consider if there is a difference between them. For indeed the points which we have at issue are by no means of slight importance: rather, one might say, they are matters on which it is most honorable to have knowledge, and most disgraceful to lack it; for in sum they involve our knowing or not knowing who is happy and who is not. To start at once with the point we are now debating, you consider it possible for a man to be happy while doing wrong, and as a wrongdoer, since you regard Archelaus as a wrongdoer, and yet happy. We are to conclude, are we not, that this is your opinion?

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

And I say it is impossible. There we have one point at issue. Very good but then, will a man be happy in wrongdoing if he comes in for requital and punishment?

Pol.

Not at all, since in that case he would be most wretched.

Soc.

But if the wrongdoer escapes requital, by your account he will be happy?

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

Whereas in my opinion, Polus, the wrongdoer or the unjust is wretched anyhow; more wretched, however, if he does not pay the penalty and gets no punishment for his wrongdoing, but less wretched if he pays the penalty and meets with requital from gods and men.

Pol.

What a strange doctrine, Socrates, you are trying to maintain!

Soc.

Yes, and I will endeavor to make you too, my friend, maintain it with me: for I count you as a friend. Well now, these are the points on which we differ; just examine them yourself. I think I told you at an earlier stage that wrongdoing was worse than being wronged.

Pol.

Certainly you did.

Soc.

And you thought that being wronged was worse.

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

And I said that wrongdoers were wretched, and I was refuted by you.

Pol.

Upon my word, yes.

Soc.

At least to your thinking, Polus.

Pol.

Yes, and true thinking too.

Soc.

Perhaps. But you said, on the other hand, that wrongdoers are happy, if they pay no penalty.

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

Whereas I say they are most wretched, and those who pay the penalty, less so. Do you wish to refute that as well?

Pol.

Why, that is still harder to refute, Socrates, than the other!

Soc.

Not merely so, Polus, but impossible; for the truth is never refuted.

Pol.

How do you mean? If a man be caught criminally plotting to make himself a despot, and he be straightway put on the rack and castrated and have his eyes burnt out, and after suffering himself, and seeing inflicted on his wife and children, a number of grievous torments of every kind, he be finally crucified or burnt in a coat of pitch, will he be happier than if he escape and make himself despot, and pass his life as the ruler in his city, doing whatever he likes, and envied and congratulated by the citizens and the foreigners besides?

Impossible, do you tell me, to refute that?

Soc.

You are trying to make my flesh creep this time, my spirited Polus, instead of refuting me; a moment ago you were for calling witnesses. However, please refresh my memory a little: criminally plotting to make himself a despot, you said?

Pol.

I did.

Soc.

Then neither of them will ever be happier than the other—neither he who has unjustly compassed the despotic power, nor he who pays the penalty; for of two wretched persons

neither can be happier; but still more wretched is he who goes scot-free and establishes himself as despot. What is that I see, Polus? You are laughing? Here we have yet another form of refutation—when a statement is made, to laugh it down, instead of disproving it!

Pol.

Do you not think yourself utterly refuted, Socrates, when you make such statements as nobody in the world would assent to? You have only to ask anyone of the company here.

Soc.

Polus, I am not one of your statesmen: indeed, last year, when I was elected a member of the Council, and, as my tribe held the Presidency,

I had to put a question to the vote, I got laughed at for not understanding the procedure.[*] So do not call upon me again to take the votes of the company now; but if, as I said this moment, you have no better disproof than those, hand the work over to me in my turn, and try the sort of refutation that I think the case requires. For I know how to produce one witness in support of my statements, and that is the man himself with whom I find myself arguing; the many I dismiss: there is also one whose vote I know how to take, whilst to the multitude I have not a word to say. See therefore if you will consent to be put to the proof in your turn by answering my questions. For I think, indeed, that you and I and the rest of the world believe that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, and escaping punishment worse than incurring it.

Pol.

And I, that neither I nor anyone else in the world believes it. You, it seems, would choose rather to suffer wrong than to do it.

Soc.

Yes, and so would you and everyone else.

Pol.

Far from it neither; I nor you nor anybody else.

Soc.

Then will you answer?

Pol.

To be sure I will, for indeed I am eager to know what on earth you will say.

Soc.

Well then, so that you may know, tell me, just as though I were asking you all over again, which of the two seems to you, Polus, to be the worse—doing wrong or suffering it?

Pol.

Suffering it, I say.

Soc.

Now again, which is fouler—doing wrong or suffering it? Answer.

Pol.

Doing it.

Soc.

And also more evil, if fouler.

Pol.

Not at all.

Soc.

I see: you hold, apparently, that fair

and good are not the same, nor evil and foul.

Pol.

Just so.

Soc.

But what of this? All fair things, like bodies and colors and figures and sounds and observances—is it according to no standard that you call these fair in each case? Thus in the first place, when you say that fair bodies are fair, it must be either in view of their use for some particular purpose that each may serve, or in respect of some pleasure arising when, in the act of beholding them, they cause delight to the beholder. Have you any description to give beyond this

of bodily beauty?

Pol.

I have not.

Soc.

And so with all the rest in the same way, whether they be figures or colors, is it for some pleasure or benefit or both that you give them the name of fair?

Pol.

It is.

Soc.

And sounds also, and the effects of music, are not these all in the same case?

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

And further, in all that belongs to laws and observances, surely the fairness of them cannot lie beyond those limits of being either beneficial or pleasant or both.

Pol.

I think not.

Soc.

And is it not just the same with the fairness of studies also?

Pol.

Doubtless; and this time, Socrates, your definition is quite fair, when you define what is fair by pleasure and good.

Soc.

And foul by their opposites, pain and evil?

Pol.

That needs must follow.

Soc.

Thus when of two fair things one is fairer, the cause is that it surpasses in either one or both of these effects, either in pleasure, or in benefit, or in both.

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

And again, when one of two foul things is fouler,

this will be due to an excess either of pain or of evil: must not that be so?

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

Come then, what was it we heard just now about doing and suffering wrong? Were you not saying that suffering wrong is more evil, but doing it fouler?

Pol.

I was.

Soc.

Well now, if doing wrong is fouler than suffering it, it is either more painful, and fouler by an excess of pain or evil or both; must not this also be the case?

Pol.

Yes, of course.

Soc.

Then let us first consider if doing wrong

exceeds suffering it in point of pain—if those who do wrong are more pained than those who suffer it.

Pol.

Not so at all, Socrates.

Soc.

Then it does not surpass in pain.

Pol.

No, indeed.

Soc.

And so, if not in pain, it can no longer be said to exceed in both.

Pol.

Apparently.

Soc.

It remains, then, that it exceeds in the other.

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

In evil.

Pol.

So it seems.

Soc.

Then it is by an excess of evil that doing wrong is fouler than suffering it.

Pol.

Yes, obviously.

Soc.

Now it is surely admitted by the mass of mankind, as it was too by you in our talk a while ago, that doing wrong is fouler than suffering it.

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

And now it has been found to be more evil.

Pol.

So it seems.

Soc.

Then would you rather have the evil and foul when it is more than when it is less? Do not shrink from answering, Polus you will get no hurt by it: but submit yourself bravely to the argument, as to a doctor, and reply yes or no to my question.

Pol.

Why, I should not so choose, Socrates.

Soc.

And would anybody else in the world?

Pol.

I think not, by this argument at least.

Soc.

Then I spoke the truth when I said that neither you nor anyone else in the world would choose to do wrong rather than suffer it, since it really is more evil.

Pol.

Apparently.

Soc.

So you see, Polus, that when one proof is contrasted with the other they have no resemblance, but whereas you have the assent of every one else except myself, I am satisfied with your sole and single assent and evidence,

and I take but your vote only and disregard the rest. Now let us leave this matter where it stands, and proceed next to examine the second part on which we found ourselves at issue—whether for a wrongdoer to pay the penalty is the greatest of evils, as you supposed, or to escape it is a greater, as I on my side held. Let us look at it this way: do you call paying the just penalty, and being justly punished, for wrongdoing the same thing?

Pol.

I do.

Soc.

And can you maintain that all just things are not fair, in so far as they are just? Consider well before you speak.

Pol.

No, I think they are, Socrates.

Soc.

Then take another point: if a man does anything, must there be something which is also acted upon by this doer of the thing?

Pol.

I think so.

Soc.

And does it suffer what the doer does, and is the effect such as the agent’s action makes it? I mean, for example, when one strikes a blow something must needs be struck?

Pol.

It must.

Soc.

And if the striker strikes hard or quick,

the thing struck is struck in the same way?

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

Hence the effect in the thing struck is such as the striker makes it?

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

And so again, if one burns, something must be burnt?

Pol.

Yes, of course.

Soc.

And if one burns severely or sorely, the thing burnt is burnt according as the burner burns it?

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

And again, if one cuts, the same may be said? For something is cut.

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

And if the cut is large or deep or sore,

the cut made in the thing cut is such as the cutter cuts it?

Pol.

Apparently.

Soc.

Then putting it all in a word, see if you agree that what I was just saying applies to all cases—that the patient receives an effect of the same kind as the agent’s action.

Pol.

I do agree.

Soc.

Then this being admitted, is paying the penalty suffering something, or doing it?

Pol.

Suffering it must be, Socrates.

Soc.

And at the hands of an agent?

Pol.

Yes, of course; at the hands of the punisher.

Soc.

And he who punishes aright punishes justly?

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

Doing what is just, or not?

Pol.

What is just.

Soc.

And he who pays the penalty by being punished suffers what is just?

Pol.

Apparently.

Soc.

And what is just, I think we have agreed, is fair?

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

Then of these two, the one does what is fair and the other, he who is punished, suffers it.

Pol.

Yes.