At Protagoras 353de, Socrates gives three possible reasons for calling some pleasures `wrong'. Scholarly attention has focused on the second of these, according to which pleasures are `wrong' when they have negative consequences. This paper argues that the first reason (the pleasures are fleeting) corresponds to beliefs held by Democritus, among others; and that the third reason (the pleasant things “give pleasure in whatever way and for whatever reason“) is the view adopted by Socrates in the dialogue.

The argument in theProtagoraswhich starts with an analysis of giving in to pleasure in terms of ignorance, and leads into a demonstration that courage is knowledge, is certainly one of the most brilliant in Plato and equally certainly one of the trickiest. My discussion deals mainly with three problems: Precisely what absurdity is detected in the popular account of moral weakness, and where is it located in the text? On the basis of largely formal considerations I believe that the absurdity (...) is a much less subtle affair than has been thought, and that it is located at 355c-d. What is the connection between knowledge and belief in 358b-d, and how do these two concepts figure in the arguments which precede and follow this passage? Here I want to comment on differences between theProtagorasand other Socratic arguments. How good is the argument at 356–357e which analyses moral weakness as ignorance? There are several problems here, including a fundamental puzzle of the dialogue, namely that, apparently, Plato uses a non-Socratic hedonism to establish the Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge. Here I agree with those critics who see irony at the expense of the sophists—sophistic teaching is shown to be grounded in hedonism—but in addition I suggest that Plato also offers an oblique criticism of hedonism itself in the course of which basic points of real substance are made. This interpretation fits in with various other features of the dialogue, including the curious fact that, though the main argument proceeds on a thorough-going hedonistic basis, Socrates is subtly but distinctly not committed to that basis. Hence the unity of the dialogue is supported, and as well an attitude to hedonism is given which is more consistent with that of other dialogues, while we are able to see the Socratic paradox in its regular role as a tool of ethical exploration. (shrink)

Discussions of moral weakness in recent and even not so recent ethics have generally neglected large areas of the moral life. In some cases, it may be argued, such neglect has been accidental in that the philosopher or philosophers concerned have set out to examine problems thrown up by a class or classes of actions without purporting to present an exhaustive account of moral weakness. In other cases such neglect is pernicious in that if not designed to protect a certain (...) philosophical position it has by the doctrinaire delimitation of the range of examples considered had precisely that effect. This delimitation has often arisen out of unexamined presuppositions as to the nature of moral weakness. They are embodied in the following general framework suggested as an account not of some cases of weakness but of all cases: In a case of weakness a man does something that he knows or believes he should not do, or fails to do something that he knows or believes he should do, when the occasion and the opportunity for acting or refraining is present, and when it is in his power, in some significant sense, to act in accordance with his knowledge or belief. (shrink)

This paper examines the libertarian account of free choice advanced by Robert Kane in his recent book, The Significance of Free Will. First a rather simple libertarian view is considered, and an objection is raised against it the view fails to provide for any greater degree of agent-control than what could be available in a deterministic world. The basic differences between this simple view and Kane's account are the requirements, on the latter, of efforts of will and of an agent's (...) wanting more to do a certain thing than he wants to do anything else. It is argued here that neither of these features yields any improvement over the simple libertarian view; neither helps to meet the objection that was raised against the simple view. Finally, it is suggested that a modest defense of that view might be available. (shrink)

I advocate an ad hominem reading of the hedonism that appears in the final argument of the Protagoras. I that attribute hedonism both to the Many and to Protagoras, but my focus is on the latter. I argue that the Protagoras in various ways reflects Plato’s view that the sophist is an inevitable advocate for, and himself implicitly inclined toward, hedonism, and I show that the text aims through that characterization to undermine Protagoras’ status as an educator. One of my (...) objectives in the course of my arguments is to explore connections between the final argument of the Protagoras and the Man-Measure Doctrine as it is developed in the Theaetetus. (shrink)