Protagoras and Meno

by Plato

  ‘All right. Now suppose we go back and ask them the opposite question: “You people who say some good things are painful: I take it you mean things like physical training, and doing military service, and being treated by doctors when the treatment involves burning, and slicing, and drugs, and starvation diets? You're saying those things are good for you but painful?” Would they say that was right?’

  He thought so.

  [b] ‘“So, why exactly do you say they're good? Is it the very fact that they produce, at that moment, total agony and excruciating pain? Or is it because they give rise, in the long term, to things like health, and good physical condition, and national security, and power over other countries, and wealth?”76 They'd say it was the latter, I suspect.’

  He thought so too.

  ‘“But are those things good for any reason besides the fact that they end up producing pleasures, and freeing you from pain, or helping you avoid pain? Or can you come up with [c] some other goal, something you have in mind when you call them ‘good’, that isn't to do with pleasures and pains?” I think they'd say they couldn't.’

  ‘Yes I think so too,’ said Protagoras.

  ‘“So in other words, you pursue pleasure as what's good, and avoid pain as what's bad?”’

  He thought they'd go along with that.

  ‘“So in fact, that's your notion of what's bad: pain. And your notion of what's good: pleasure. Because even when you call an experience of pleasure ‘in itself’ something bad, it's only when it's making you miss out on pleasures greater than the ones it contains itself, or bringing about pains greater than the [d] pleasures you're getting from that experience. Because if there's any other sense in which you ever call experiencing pleasure something bad ‘in itself’, if you've got any other goal in mind, you'd also be able to tell us what that is – but no, you won't be able to.”’

  ‘No, I don't think they will either,’ said Protagoras.

  ‘“And I take it it's the same story with experiencing pain – you only call experiencing pain something good ‘in itself’ when it's helping you avoid pains that are greater than the ones it involves itself, or bringing about pleasures that are greater than those pains? Because if you've got any other goal in mind when you call being in pain something good ‘in itself’, anything other than what I'm saying you have in mind, then you could tell us [e] what that is – but no, you won't be able to.”’

  ‘Yes. That's quite right,’ said Protagoras.

  ‘“All right then, you people, suppose your come-back was to ask me this: ‘So what on earth is the point of all this? Why are you going on and on about it, in all this detail?’ ‘I'm sorry,’ I'd say. ‘Just bear with me. Look, in the first place, it's no easy task, showing what this thing you call “not being able to resist pleasures” really is; and secondly, my entire argument hangs on this particular point. But listen; even at this stage you've still got the option of taking back what you've said, if you can come up with anything else at all you can say is good besides pleasure, [355 a] or anything you can say is bad besides pain. Or is that all you people want? – to live out your lives pleasurably, free from pain? If that's all you want from life, and you can't come up with anything else at all you can say is good or bad that doesn't, in the end, come down to pleasure and pain, then get ready for what follows. Because I'm telling you, if all of that is really the case, then your claim turns out to be ridiculous – the claim that often people know that certain things are bad for them yet do them anyway, even though they don't have to, because they're driven, and deranged, by pleasures; and the converse, that a [b] person can know what's good for them and yet refuse to do it, because they can't resist pleasures on offer right here and now.’

  ‘“We can make it perfectly clear that these claims are ridic-lous if we stop using all the various names at the same time – ‘pleasurable’, ‘painful’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – and instead, since they've turned out to be just two things, also start referring to them by just two names: first let's use ‘good’ and ‘bad’, then we'll switch and use ‘pleasurable’ and ‘painful’. So now that that's settled, let's try out the claim: [c]

  [1] Here's a person doing things that are bad for him, even though he knows they're bad for him. So then someone asks: Why?

  ‘Because he can't resist,’ we'll say.

  ‘Can't resist what?’ he'll ask. But we're not allowed to say, ‘Can't resist the pleasure’ any more, because now it's called something else; it's switched its name from ‘pleasure’ to ‘what's good’. So let's answer the man, let's say, ‘Because he can't resist…’

  ‘Because he can't resist what?’ he'll say.

  ‘Because he can't resist what's good!’ we'll say.

  ‘Now suppose the man who's asked us the questions is a bit of a lout; he'll just laugh at us: “That's the silliest damn thing I [d] ever heard! So he's doing things that are bad even though he knows they're bad, and even though he doesn't have to, because he can't resist things that are good? And these good things” (he'll say) “aren't worth it, right?* They don't outweigh the bad? Or are they worth it?”77

  ‘Obviously our answer will have to be: “No, they're not worth it. Because if they were, then our man ‘not resisting the pleasure' wouldn't be making a mistake.”78

  ‘“But what is it,” he'll probably say next, “that makes good things ‘not worth’ bad ones, or bad things ‘not worth’ good ones? Surely it's simply a matter of one lot being bigger and the [e] other lot smaller, or of there being more of one lot and less of the other?”

  ‘We'll have to agree. What else can we say?

  ‘Well obviously then,” he'll say, “what you actually mean by this ‘not being able to resist’ business is this: taking on a greater amount of bad just to get a smaller amount of good!”79

  ‘All right, so now let's go back and switch the names for these same things to “pleasurable” and “painful”, and say:

  [11] Here's someone doing things that are – before, we said ‘bad for him’, but now we're saying ‘painful’ – he's doing things that are painful, even though he knows they're painful, because he can't resist the pleasures! – pleasures that obviously aren't [356 a] worth it – i.e. that don't outweigh the pains.80

  ‘But what other way is there for pleasures to be “not worth” pains (or vice versa), besides their exceeding or falling short of one another? And that's just a question of their being bigger or smaller than one another, or of there being more of one and fewer of the other, or of one lot being more painful or more pleasurable, and so on. Of course, somebody might say, “No, hold on, Socrates; there's a big difference between what's pleasurable here and now, and what's pleasurable or painful in the long term.” “Maybe so,” I'd say, “but surely no difference that isn't itself a matter of pleasure and pain. The fact is, there's no other way for them to differ. No,. you've just got to be a [b] kind of expert at weighing things up; you've got to put together all the pleasures, and put together all the pains (placing both kinds, short- and long-term, on the scales) and then say which lot there are more of. What I mean is, if you're weighing plea-sures against pleasures, then you're always got to go for the ones that are bigger and that there are more of. And if you're weighing pains against pains, you've got to go for the ones that are smaller and that there are less of. And if you're weighing up pleasures against pains, then if it turns out that the pleasures outweigh the pains (whether it's pleasures that are a long way off outweighing short-term pains, or long-term pains being outweighed by present pleasures), that's what you should do, the action that involves those pleasures; whereas if the pains outweigh the pleasures, then that's something you shouldn't [c] do. Isn't that right, people? Surely that's the way it is?” I'm certain there's no way they could possibly disagree.’

  Protagoras thought so too.

  ‘“Right then; given that that's the case, here's another question for you,” I'll say. “When you're relying on your eyesight, objects of the same size seem bigger from up clo
se and smaller from far away, don't they?” They'll agree. “And isn't it the same with thicknesses, and quantities? And sounds: don't sounds of equal volume seem louder from up close and fainter from far away?” They'd say, “Yes.” “Right; so now imagine that doing well in life crucially depended on our ability to choose and ‘do’ [d] large sizes, and avoid and not ‘do’ small sizes. What would have turned out to be the thing that saved us from disaster? Would it be knowing how to measure things? Or the power of the way things appear? Think – wouldn't appearances mislead us* and have us rushing madly back and forth, constantly choosing and then rejecting the very same things, regretting our actions and choices – our selections of big things and little things? Measuring know-how, on the other hand, would cancel [e] out the effect of those appearances; it would show us the truth, allow a person's soul to remain calm, and settled, and fixed on reality – it would save our lives. Wouldn't it?” Do you think our people would agree that, in that scenario, it would be measuring-know-how that would prove to be our salvation – or some other kind of know-how?’

  He agreed. ‘Yes, measuring-know-how.’

  ‘“And what if our lives crucially depended on choosing from among odd and even numbers – a matter of knowing when we should choose larger numbers and when we should choose smaller numbers, whether we were comparing odd with odd, or even with even, or even with odd, whether the numbers were close to hand or a long way off? What would save us? Wouldn't [357 a] it be knowledge? And wouldn't it be some form of knowledge of measurement, since it's to do with things exceeding or falling short of one another? And since it's odd and even numbers we're talking about, wouldn't it have to be knowledge of arithmetic?” Would our people agree with us on that or not?’

  Protagoras, like me, thought they'd agree.

  ‘“All right, people, so given that in the real world our lives have turned out to depend, crucially, on our correctly choosing pleasure and pain, greater and lesser amounts of them, bigger [b] and smaller pleasures and pains, long-term and short-term, isn't it clear that what we desperately need is, for a start, some kind of measuring ability – since it's a matter of figuring out whether given pleasures and pains exceed, or match, or fall short of one another?”’

  ‘Yes, that must be right.’

  ‘“And if it's a kind of measuring, then presumably it has to be some form of know-how and knowledge?”’

  ‘Yes, they'll go along with that.’

  ‘“Right; now what kind of knowledge this would be, or what kind of know-how, is something we can look into some other time. The main thing is, it's knowledge, and that's all that's needed for what Protagoras and I are supposed to be proving to you people, in answer to your earlier question. You asked [c] your question – remember? – when the two of us agreed that nothing was more powerful than knowledge, and that whenever a person has knowledge it always overpowers pleasure and anything else. So then you claimed that, no, plenty of times even someone with knowledge ‘can't resist pleasure' – and when we disagreed with you, that was when you asked your question: ‘All right, Protagoras and Socrates, if what's happening to people in these situations isn't a matter of not being able to resist pleasure, then what on earth is it? What do you say it is? Go on, tell us!’ Now if we'd said to you right there and then it [d] was just a matter of ignorance, you'd have laughed at us. But you'd better not laugh now! Because if you do, you'll be laughing at yourselves as well! Because, look: you've now agreed, yourselves, that when people make mistakes in choosing plea-sures and pains – i.e. what's good for them or bad for them – they make those mistakes through a lack of knowledge, and not just any knowledge but specifically, as you also agreed just a second ago, knowledge of measurement. But if somebody makes a mistake through a lack of knowledge, presumably you don't need me to tell you that the cause of that mistake is [e] ignorance. So it follows that that's what your ‘not being able to resist pleasure’ really is – ignorance of the most serious kind. And that's exactly what Protagoras here says he can cure for you, and Prodicus, and Hippias. But you people, because you think it's something other than ignorance, don't come to these sophists yourselves (the people who can teach you all about these things), and you don't send your children along to them either – you assume this is something that can't be taught. You'd rather keep your precious cash; so you don't give a penny to these men here – and that's why you're all such failures, as a society and in your personal lives!”

  ‘There you go; that's how we'd have responded to the majority [358 a] of people. But now I'm asking you, Hippias and Prodicus, along with Protagoras – I want you two to take part in the discussion as well – what do you think? Do you think what I've been saying is right or wrong?’81

  They were all overwhelmingly of the view that everything I'd said was true.

  ‘So you mean you agree,’ I said, ‘that what's pleasurable is good and what's painful is bad? And I'll have to ask Prodicus here to spare me his precise semantic distinctions – I mean, whether you say “pleasurable”, or “enjoyable”, or “fun“, or however or whatever you like calling these things, Prodicus, [b] my friend, you know what I'm getting at: just answer me focusing on that.’

  Prodicus chuckled and said that he agreed, and so did all the rest of them.

  ‘In that case, all of you,’ I said, ‘what about this? Actions that get us to that goal – to a life free from pain, a pleasurable life – aren't all such actions honourable?82 Is an honourable action one that benefits us and is good for us?’

  They thought that was right.

  ‘So, if it's the case,’ I said, ‘that pleasurable = good, it follows that nobody can either know or believe that some alternative is better for them than what they're doing, and open to them, [c] and yet still do what they're doing, when they could be doing what would be better for them – and this “not being able to resist” business is really nothing but ignorance, and “self-control” is just a matter of knowledge.’

  They all agreed.

  ‘All right, how about this then: by “ignorance” you mean having beliefs that are false and being mistaken about things that are really important.’

  They all agreed to that as well.

  ‘So what we're saying, then,’ I said, ‘is that nobody ever willingly goes towards things that are bad for them, or even things they think are bad for them – it turns out that's an [d] impossibility of human nature; to go towards things you believe are bad for you, willingly, instead of what you think is good; and nobody, if they're forced to choose between two things that are both bad for them, could ever choose the bigger bad thing if they're in a position to choose the smaller bad thing. Yes?’

  We all agreed that all of that was right.

  ‘All right then, next question,’ I said. ‘“Being afraid” or “being scared” – do you take it to be the same thing as I do? This is one for you, Prodicus. Whichever you call it – “being afraid” or “being scared” – I take it to be this: believing that something bad is going to happen to you.’

  Protagoras and Hippias thought that that was what both “being afraid” and “being scared” amounted to; Prodicus thought that that was what “being afraid” was, but that “being scared” was different. [e]

  ‘Well, you know what, Prodicus,’ I said, ‘it doesn't really matter. The point is this. If what we've said so far is right, the question is, is anyone ever going to go towards things they're afraid of, willingly, if they've got the option of going towards things they're not afraid of? Or does what we've agreed make that impossible? Because things you're afraid of, we've just agreed, are things you believe are bad for you; and we agreed that nobody ever goes towards – i.e. willingly chooses – things they think are bad for them.’

  They all thought that was right as well. [359a]

  ‘All right; so now that we've established all of that, Prodicus and Hippias, I want Protagoras here to explain to us how the answer he gave back at the start can be right – not the answer he gave right at the very start; bac
k then he said there were five parts of being good, and none of the five was like any other, and each had its own special role. That's not what I mean. I mean what he said a bit later on. Later on he said four of the five were pretty closely related to one another, but one of them, bravery, was very different from all the rest, and that I'd see [b] that that was the case “from the following bit of evidence”, he said: “You'll come across people, Socrates, who've got no respect whatsoever for religion, who don't care at all about what's right, who aren't remotely sensible, and who're extremely ignorant – yet exceptionally brave. That shows bravery is something totally different from the other parts of being good.” And at the time I was very surprised at his reply; that was my instant reaction; and I'm even more surprised now that I've run through these various arguments with you people. At any rate, I asked him if by brave people he meant people who aren't afraid of things, and he said, “Yes, and people [c] who can keep on going.”83 Do you remember saying that, Protagoras?’

  He said he did.

  ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘In that case I want you to tell us what it is that brave people “keep on going” towards? The same things as cowards?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘So towards different kinds of things then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it that cowards only go towards things that aren't frightening, while brave people go towards things that are frightening?’

  ‘That's certainly what people say, Socrates.’

  ‘You're quite right,’ I said, ‘that is what people say. But that's [d] not what I'm asking you. I'm asking you what you say brave people go towards. Things that are frightening, believing them to be frightening, rather than* things that aren't frightening?’

  ‘Well, no, that can't be right,’ he said. ‘That was shown by your line of reasoning to be impossible – just a moment ago.’

  ‘You're’ right again! I said. So assuming that argument was correct, in fact nobody ever moves towards the things they believe are frightening (because “lacking self-control” turned out to be just a case of ignorance).’84