Socrates v. Callicles

The old honor code as endorsing a form of egoism over principle:

--Privileges friends and relatives, which is Socrates's worry (p.49)

--Worships the power of the tyrant, despite the unjust means by which he gains it (p.50).

--Thus Callicles insists that doing injustice is not more shameful than suffering it (p.52)

--The stronger, more aggressive and domineering by nature, have been defanged and domesticated by the new legal institutions of the weak demos (p.53-4)

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Egoism (1) (law of the jungle egoism):

We may do whatever we can to advance our interests against others, or promote our aggrandization over others by any means available.

Callicles defends this form of egoism by asserting that "the superior should take by force what belongs to the inferior" (p.59). He really means that the drive to self-aggrandizement is the mark of nobility, kalon.

(a) Socrates interprets this as the assertion that the physically stronger are better, more noble. But then this is refuted by counterexample: the many (demos) is stronger in virtue of its numbers, and thus it can make the laws, but this does not make the many better (p.60).

(b) Socrates then interprets this as: the more intelligent and talented should rule (p.61). But the more intelligent or talented don't necessarily want or need a greater share of what they can understand or produce better than others (p.62-3).

(c) Finally, Socrates interprets Callicles's claim as: the superior (kalon) are those who are brave and assertive in politics (pp.63-4). They can master others. But can they, and should they, master themselves? (p.64). This leads to another version of egoism: the superior life is the life of uninhibited pleasure.

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Egoism (2) (hedonistic egoism):

We may enlarge our physical appetites and all other accidental particular desires to any extent, and do everything possible to satisfy these desires to the maximum extent.

With the tyrant in mind again, Callicles says this is what is most admirable by nature (p.64). This is what aristocrats will choose (p.65). Here we see a hedonistic perversion of the old honor code, a sign of decadence perhaps.

Socrates responds with the images of the undisciplined soul as like a sieve (p.66-67);

Callicles says pleasure is greatest when the greatest quantity of desire and satisfaction (p.67).

Against this, Socrates offers three reductios:

(a) First, it would imply that the best life is the life of unlimited sexual ecstacy, prostitution, an luxury (the life of a catamite --p.68). This is too shameful for Callicles to accept.

(b) Second, the pain of desire and pleasure of satisfaction can co-exist (p.71).
--Suppose feeling enjoyment or desire-satisfaction is doing well pain is doing badly.
--Thus a person can be doing well and doing badly (in the same respect, at the same time).
--But this is absurd (p.71)

(c) Intelligent and brave men are good, the foolish and cowardly are evil (by the old honor code) (p.74). But the foolish and cowardly may feel pleasure, and the intelligent and brave may feel pain. If our pleasure makes our life good, and our pain makes our life bad, then the intelligent and brave men can have bad lives (as well as good ones) and the foolish and cowardly can have good lives (as well as bad)--which is absurd (p.75).

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Callicles then rejects Hedonism (p.76), and admits that some pleasures are good for us, while others are bad for us (an objective ranking of pleasures and pains).

-- Division of practices into crafts with knowledge of the good, and knacks without knowledge (p.77)

-- Two lives: the political and the philosophical as opposed paradigms (p.78)

-- Music, tragedy, and popular oratory as flattery, without concern for the good (pp.79-82).

-- All true crafts bring organization to their objects in accordance with objective standards of excellence for such objects (pp.82-3). The ordered soul is lawful, just, self-controlled.

-- To be disciplined is better for the soul than lack of discipline (contra egoism 1-c) (p.85).

Socrates's monologue

Develops the idea that excellence in something is the result of its proper organizations (p.86).

For the soul, the proper order is self-control, restraint of appetite (p.87).

Finally, he links proper ordering to happiness (the key claim of eudaimonism).