Protagoras and Meno

by Plato

  He agreed.

  ‘And of course, everybody goes towards the things they're not afraid of, cowards and brave people alike; and in that [e] sense, at least, cowards and brave people go towards the same things.’

  ‘But that's simply not the case, Socrates!’ he said. ‘There's a world of difference between what cowards and brave people go towards! I mean, take war for example; brave people are prepared to go into battle, and cowards refuse.’

  ‘And is going into battle,’ I said, ‘honourable or shameful?’

  ‘Honourable,’ he said.

  ‘And if it's honourable, then by what we agreed earlier on it must be good for them. Remember, we agreed that all honourable actions are good for us.’85

  ‘That's true; we did. And that's what I still think now.’

  ‘And you're quite right,’ I said. ‘So which kind of people is it you say refuse to go into battle, even though it's the honourable [360 a] thing to do, and therefore good for them?’

  ‘Cowards,’ he said.

  ‘And if it's the honourable thing to do, and good for them, it must also be pleasurable, yes?’

  ‘Well, that's certainly what we agreed,’ he said.

  ‘So when cowards refuse to go towards what's more honourable, and so better for them, and so more pleasurable, are they aware that that's what they're doing?’

  ‘Well, no. If we accept that,’ he said, ‘we'll be messing up our earlier findings.’

  ‘And what about brave people? They go towards what's more honourable, and better for them, and more pleasurable, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ He said. ‘I'm forced to agree.’

  ‘Now as a general rule, with brave people, there's no shame in their being afraid of what they're afraid of (when they are [b] afraid of something); 86 and there's no shame in their not being afraid of the things they're not afraid of. Right?’

  ‘Yes, that's right,’ he said.

  ‘And if there's no shame in it, then it's honourable?’

  He agreed.

  ‘And if it's honourable, that means it's also good for them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But with cowards, or people who are reckless or crazy, it's the reverse: when they're afraid of things, their fear is shameful, and when they're not afraid of things, their lack of fear is shameful.’87

  He agreed.

  ‘But how can they be unafraid of things that are shameful, and therefore bad for them? It must be through just not realizing – a result of ignorance?’88

  ‘Yes, that's right,’ he said.

  [c] ‘All right, so tell me, what do you call the thing that causes cowards to be cowards? Cowardice or courage?’

  ‘Cowardice, of course.’

  ‘And it turns out cowards are cowards because of their ignorance of what's really frightening?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ he said.

  ‘So in other words, that ignorance is what causes them to be cowards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you're agreeing that cowardice is what causes people to be cowards?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘So it looks as if cowardice just is ignorance of what you should and shouldn't be afraid of?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And of course, bravery is the opposite of cowardice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  [d] ‘And isn't knowledge of what you should and shouldn't be afraid of the opposite of ignorance of what you should and shouldn't be afraid of?’

  Here again he still nodded.

  ‘And ignorance of those things is what cowardice is?’

  This time his nod was rather slow in coming.

  ‘So that means that bravery is…knowledge – i.e. a matter of knowing what you should and shouldn't be afraid of, since that's the opposite of not knowing what you should and shouldn't be afraid of. Right?’

  By this point he wasn't any longer prepared even to give a nod; he just sat there in silence. So I said, ‘What's the matter, Protagoras? Can't answer the question? Even with a plain yes or no?’

  ‘You can finish it off yourself,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘as long as I can ask just one more thing – [e] whether you still believe, as you did at the start, that there are some people who are “extremely ignorant but exceptionally brave”?’

  ‘You don't let up, do you, Socrates? You seem dead set on making me answer all the questions! Well, all right, I'll say it, if it makes you happy: No. In the light of all the things that we've agreed, I now believe that that's impossible.’

  ‘You really mustn't think,’ I said, ‘that I have any aim in asking you all these questions beyond a simple desire to investigate; to investigate all aspects of being good, especially what on earth being good exactly is. And that's because I'm sure that getting clear on that would be the best way to get to the bottom of the [361 a] problem you and I have had this long, drawn-out discussion over – whether or not being good is something people can be taught – with me claiming it isn't and you claiming it is.

  ‘And, if you ask me, the point we've ended up at in our discussion is like a person scolding us and laughing at us; and if our Ending could somehow speak to us, she'd be saying, “Protagoras and Socrates! You two guys are so silly! You, Socrates, earlier on, were claiming that you can't make people good by teaching them, and now you're determined to contradict yourself. You're trying to prove that everything – doing [b] what's right, being sensible, being brave – the whole lot of them – that they're all just a matter of knowledge; which is exactly the way to make it seem that being good is something you can be taught. (After all, if being good were something other than a kind of knowledge, the claim Protagoras is trying to argue for, then obviously it wouldn't be something teachable. But if it's really going to turn out to be entirely a matter of knowledge, the line you're pushing for, Socrates, it'll be totally amazing if it can't be taught.) And you, Protagoras, you started off by claiming it could be taught, and now you're saying the complete opposite; you seem desperate for it to turn out to be practically anything but knowledge, which is just the way to make it look [c] as unteachable as possible.”

  ‘Now, personally, Protagoras, when I realize that everything's going all topsy-turvy like this and winding up in this hopeless mess, I find myself really anxious to get to the bottom of it all; and I'd very much like for us to run through these questions carefully, come to some understanding of exactly what it is to be a good person, and then go back and have another go at figuring out whether or not it's something that can be taught – otherwise I'm worried our old friend Thinxtoolate [d] may just go on and on duping us, and tripping us up in our investigations – just as he forgot about us, according to you, when he was handing things out. Now I liked Thinxahead much more than Thinxtoolate in your story; and it's because I'm using him as my role-model and trying to think ahead, carefully, about the whole future course of my life that I take so much trouble over these things – and if you'd like to, as I said back at the start, it would be a real pleasure to have a thorough look into these things with you. You more than anyone.’

  And Protagoras said, ‘Well, Socrates, I'd like to say that I really admire your enthusiasm and the way you've taken us through your arguments: I reckon I'm not a bad sort of a man, [e] generally speaking, and I'm certainly the last person in the world to be ungracious. As a matter of fact, I've spoken about you to lots of people. I've often said that you're by far the most impressive man I've met – at any rate, certainly the most impressive of your generation. And I can say here and now that I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up as a pretty famous name in philosophy.

  ‘As for these questions – we'll go through them some other time; whenever suits you best. But now I think it's about time we turned to something else.’

  [362 a] ‘Well, if that's your decision, then I suppose I have no choice,’ I said. ‘In any case there's somewhere I was supposed to go, a long while back. I only stayed as a special favour to Callias, since he's so beautiful.’r />
  Well, there you go. That's what was said, by us and by them. That's when we left.

  MENO

  or

  On Being Good

  Characters

  SOCRATES, a philosopher (here aged about sixty-seven)

  MENO, a young aristocrat from Thessaly

  SLAVE, one of Meno's slaves

  ANYTUS, an Athenian politician; Meno's host in Athens

  The dialogue is set in Athens, in about 402 BC, a few years after the city's final defeat in the Peloponnesian War, and just after the restoration of the democracy following the dictatorship of the Thirty Tyrants. Two years later, Meno was killed while fighting as a mercenary in Persia; shortly after that, in 399 BC, Socrates was put on trial on suspicion of promoting anti-religious views and corrupting the young, and was executed. Anytus was one of the prosecutors.

  MENO: Can you tell me, Socrates – is being good something [70 a] you can be taught?1 Or does it come with practice rather than being teachable? Or is it something that doesn't come with practice or learning; does it just come to people naturally? Or some other way?

  SOCRATES: In the old days, Meno, you Thessalians were known and admired all over Greece for horsemanship and wealth. But times have changed: it seems these days you're also [b] known for being intellectuals – especially if you're from Larissa, like your mate Aristippus.2 And the man you can thank for that is Gorgias: 3 he's come to town and won over the top men in Larissa's ruling family as his intellectual fans – they're crazy about him (including Aristippus, who's crazy about you), and so are the rest of Thessaly's elite. For one thing, he's got you into this habit of giving answers – confidently and generously – to any question anyone ever asks you, just as you'd expect from people with knowledge. Because that's his thing: he likes to challenge all comers, all over Greece, to [c] ask him any question they want, and he never, ever fails to have an answer. But here in Athens, Meno, the situation is exactly the reverse. There's been a kind of intellectual drought. It looks to me like knowledge has left this part of [71 a] the world and moved to Thessaly. At any rate if you try asking anyone round here a question like that, they'll just laugh in your face. ‘Stranger!’ they'll say, ‘you seem to take me for a very fortunate man! At any rate, you seem to think I might know whether being good is something you can be taught, or how exactly people become good, when the fact is, so far from knowing whether or not it's teachable, I haven't even got the faintest idea what being good is!’ Well, [b] that's just how it is with me too, Meno. This is one area where I'm just as hard up as my fellow Athenians, and I'm the first to admit that I haven't got the faintest idea what being good is. And if I don't know what it is, how on earth am I supposed to know what kind of thing it is? Or do you think that's possible? Do you think that if someone has no idea who Meno is, they can know if Meno's beautiful, or if he's rich, or if he's from a good family, or the opposite of all those things? Does that seem possible to you?

  MENO: No, I suppose not. But come on, Socrates; do you really [c] not even know what being good is? Is that what you want us to say about you to people back home?

  SOCRATES: That's not all. You can also tell them that I've never met anyone else who knows, either – or I don't think I have.

  MENO: Really? Didn't you meet Gorgias when he was here?

  SOCRATES: Yes, I did.

  MENO: So, didn't you think he knew?

  SOCRATES: My memory isn't all that good, Meno. So I couldn't tell you right now exactly what I thought at the time… But, yes, maybe he does know… and you probably know what he said. So why don't you just remind me? Or, if it's all right [d] with you, tell me what you think yourself – presumably you think the same as he does?

  MENO: That's right, I do.

  SOCRATES: Well, in that case forget Gorgias. He isn't here, is he? Let's hear what you have to say, Meno: what do you think being good is, for heaven's sake? Don't be stingy. Let's hear it. Show me that what I've just said isn't true I'll never have felt so lucky I was wrong, if it turns out you and Gorgias know the answer, when I've just said I've never met a single man who knew.

  [e] MENO: Well, it's not very difficult, Socrates. First, if you want to know what being good is for a man – well, that's easy. Here's what being a good man is: having what it takes to handle your city's affairs, and, in doing so, to help out your friends and hurt your enemies4 (while making sure they don't do the same to you). Or, if you want me to explain what being a good woman is, no problem: she's got to be good at looking after the home, be thrifty with household goods and always obey her man. And then there's being a good child (a boy or a girl) or being a good old man (free, if you want, or, if you like, a slave) – and there are all sorts of other cases of [72 a] being good. So there's no need to feel baffled about what being good is! The thing about ‘being good’ is that it's different for each of us; it varies according to what we're doing, according to how old we are and according to our role in life. And I imagine, Socrates, the same goes for being bad.

  SOCRATES: Well, what an amazing stroke of luck! There I was, looking for just one sort of ‘being good,’ and it turns out you've brought along a whole swarm of the things!… But listen, Meno – my swarm analogy gives me an idea – suppose my question had been about bees, and exactly what it is to [b] be a bee, and you'd started saying that there were ‘lots of different kinds of bees’; what would you have said if I'd asked you this: ‘Are you saying there are lots of different kinds of bees all differing from one another in their way of being bees? Or is the idea that, in that respect, there's no difference whatsoever from bee to bee, and that it's only in some other respect that they're different from one another, like, say, in how beautiful they are, or their size, or something else like that?’ How would you have answered if you'd been asked that question?

  MENO: That's just what I'd have said: no bee, in so far as it's a bee, is any different from any other bee.

  SOCRATES: So, suppose that after that I said: ‘In that case, [c] Meno, just tell me about that – what's the respect in which there's no difference from bee to bee? What is it that makes all of them the same thing? What do you think that is?’ Presumably you'd have been able to come up with something?

  MENO: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well, do the same with cases of being good. Even if there are a lot of them, and lots of different sorts, they must at least all have some single form, 5 something that makes them all cases of being good – and surely that's what it makes sense to focus on if you're explaining to someone what being good [d] actually is. Surely that's how you should answer the question. Or don't you understand what I'm saying?

  MENO: I think so… only, I don't see what you're asking me quite as fully as I'd like.

  SOCRATES: Do you think this only applies to being good, Meno – that it's one thing for a man, and something else for a woman, and so on? Or do you think the same goes for being healthy, and being tall, and being strong? Do you think a man's health and a woman's health are two different things? Or is health the same form in every case – as long as it really [e] is health – whether it's in a man or in anyone else?

  MENO: In the case of health, yes, I think it's the same thing for a man as for a woman.

  SOCRATES: And will that be true for height and strength as well? If a woman is physically strong, will it be the same form – strength in exactly the same sense – that makes her strong? And what I mean when I say ‘strength in exactly the same sense' is this: that strength doesn't have different ways of being strength, depending on whether it's in a man or a woman. Or do you think it does?

  MENO: No, I don't.

  SOCRATES: And what about being good? Whether it's in a child [73 a]

  or an old man, a man or a woman, why should there be any difference in what makes it a case of being good?

  MENO: Somehow I don't feel it works in quite the same way as those other things, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Oh? But weren't you saying that, for a man, being good means doing a good job of running a cit
y, and for a woman it means doing a good job of running a household?

  MENO: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So is it possible to do a good job of running a city, or a home, or anything, if you don't do it sensibly and according to what's right?

  MENO: Of course not.

  [e] SOCRATES: And if they do it sensibly and according to what's right, then they'll be acting with good sense and with respect for what's right?

  MENO: Obviously.

  SOCRATES: So that means both of them – men and women – need the same things if they're going to be good people: respect for what's right and good sense.

  MENO: Apparently.

  SOCRATES: What about children and old men? Surely there's no way they could be good if they were out of control and always doing wrong?

  MENO: Of course not.

  SOCRATES: No. They have to be sensible, and do what's right.

  MENO: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So it's the same for everyone, then: people are all [c] good in the same way, in the sense that it's by getting the same qualities that they become good.

  MENO: It looks like it.

  SOCRATES: And obviously they wouldn't be ‘good in the same way’ if it weren't the case that being good was the same thing for all of them?

  MENO: I suppose not.

  SOCRATES: Well, in that case, since being good is the same thing for everyone, try to remember Gorgias' definition – the one you agree with.

  MENO: Well, obviously being good is a matter of being able to rule other people, 6 if what you're looking for is a single, [d] overall definition.

  SOCRATES: That's exactly what I'm looking for. But wait – will being a good child be the same, Meno? Or being a good slave? – being able to rule* your master? Do you think you'd still be a slave if you were the one doing the ruling?7

  MENO: No, Socrates, obviously not.

  SOCRATES: It does seem rather unlikely. And think about this, too: ‘being able to rule,’ you say. Aren't we going to have to add to that, ‘according to what's right, but not if it means doing wrong’?