Abstract

Morality and the Inner Life is not a commentary on the Gorgias but a book which independently examines some of the themes from Plato’s dialogue. It does not attempt to understand the Gorgias as a whole or even to clarify some particular part of it. Indeed, one could read Morality and the Inner Life without ever learning that the theme of Plato’s dialogue is rhetoric. Rather, parts of the Gorgias are used as vehicles for the presentation of Dilman’s own reflections about morality. His procedure is to extract various statements made in the course of Plato’s dialogue and then to offer his thoughts about the meaning they might be given and their truth or falsity. He examines such contentions as that virtue is knowledge, that the just man is the happy man, that punishment is a blessing for the wrongdoer, that justice is only a convention, and that no man does evil willingly. The procedure is justified by the argument that a "great philosopher" provides us with questions which we, too, must ask if we would be philosophers.