Vlastos Socrates On Akrasia

Socrates on Acrasia
Author(s): Gregory Vlastos

Source: Phoenix, Vol. 23, No. 1, Studies Presented to G. M. A. Grube on the Occasion of His
Seventieth Birthday (Spring, 1969), pp. 71-88
Published by: Classical Association of Canada
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SOCRATES ON ACRASIA
GREGORY VLASTOS
I DEALT WITH THIS TOPIC briefly twelve years ago in an int

to the Protagoras,' designed for the use of beginners in phil
medium tempted me to simplifications which I have since ha
to regret. But I have no great confidence that if I had then
the topic in a more leisurely and thorough way I would have
to avoid the blemishes of that earlier treatment. For I would not have
had the benefit of the discussions that were to follow. More was to be
contributed on this topic by English-speaking scholars in the following
nine years than had appeared in the preceding forty.2 From criticisms
of my own views, and from new ideas that have appeared in this litera-
ture I have learned more than I could possibly acknowledge in detail.3
Though they have not altered my basic interpretation of the Socratic
position, they have led me to understand it more clearly and at a deeper
level. With this help I have made a fresh study of the main text in
which the Socratic thesis is advanced and defended: Protagoras 352A-
358D, whose results I now wish to present.
I. THE SOCRATIC THESIS
It is announced as follows in the opening paragraph of our passage: "If

a man knows good and evil, nothing will overpower him so that he wil
act otherwise than as knowledge commands" (352c). There are thre
things here which call for clarification. I shall speak of these briefly, an
then go on to another matter which also calls for consideration, befor
proceeding in the next Section to analyse the arguments Socrates puts
up in defence of his thesis:
It is a pleasure to offer this paper to my esteemed friend, George Grube, whose ow
interpretation of the argument in Prot. 351B ff. has both clarified my understandin
of it and stimulated me to keep working on it over the years. For bibliographical refer-
ences here and hereafter see the works listed at the end of the article under the author
name.
'Listed in the bibliography below.

'The main contributions by English-speaking scholars in t
the papers by Grube, Hackforth, Stocks, and in the boo
Taylor; since 1956 in the papers by Allen, Bambrough, G
Sullivan, and the books by Crombie, and Walsh.
'My greatest debt is to the two papers by Professor G. San
with him. I must also acknowledge my great debt to Profe
for his excellent critique of my previous views in his publishe
comments on an earlier draft of the present paper which hav
useful revisions.
71
PHOENIX, Vol. 23 (1969) 1.
72 PHOENIX
(1) The only actions

to do4 or "chooses"'
(2) From a statem
pleted, it might loo
which go contrary
open to us at the ti
... no one will do some
one is open to him. ....
to be evil; it is not in h
instead of good. [358B,c]
But the original statemen

throughout the debate s
belief as well. Knowledg
commanding thing," not
pain, and passion (352B,c).
would have wished to say
knowledge. In all of the
terms of knowledge.' Socr
in knowledge is polemic
master-manipulator, the
scarcely have been meant
true opinion would do as w
it probably means is tha
when we do have knowled
'WXkXw, 355B c-Kv,
5alpholaLt,
2. 358D 2. 358c7
358D 3.
7Compare the Socratic defin
brtrvqr'ip in Laches 194E-195A
as "the power and unfailing con
are and are not to be feared" (
role of knowledge in the Socrat
14-17) and of moral virtue (N
"Gorg. 454D. I should explain t
to be an exposition of Platoni
good a "lord" (7 -ye/v- cf. i7'ryEAOVLKbV, Prot. 352B 4) of action as is knowledge (97A, B)
is a break with Socratic doctrine (fully as much as is the theory that knowledge is
recollection); it is used (96E-97c) to refute the Socratic thesis that "virtue is knowl-
edge" which had been adopted provisionally (as a "hypothesis") at 89A-C.
'No such thing, of course, is said in the text. But it can be reasonably inferred from
the fact that in the above citation from 358B,c Socrates is not advancing a new thesis
but merely summing up what he thinks (with the consent of the company) has been
proved in the foregoing argument (352A-357E). Gulley, who takes a different view
(92: he understands Socrates to mean that either knowledge or belief will do), does
not explain how he squares it with the fact that there is no argument for a power-of-
belief thesis in our passage (or, for that matter, anywhere else in the early dialogues).
Perhaps he thinks (though he does not say so) that a parallel argument for a power-of-
belief thesis could be extrapolated from the one for the power-of-knowledge thesis in
our passage. This would ignore the fatal disanalogy between belief and knowledge which
SOCRATES ON ACRASIA 73
not know what weight to attach t

it as dogma unsupported by argu
prove in the argument he has ju
contrary to our knowledge of good.
(3) A terminological point: "good
and superlative forms, are used in t
and second-order valuations, withou
auxiliary linguistic devices to mark
says that the man who knows "go
as to choose "evil" instead, he is s
of courses of action, particularized
natives between which the agent ha
on the whole or all things considered
in the examples in this passage) m
another sort: they are complexes of
value assignments have already b
good or bad is a second-order valu
computation:" we are supposed to
and the evils we would suffer both
a given action, (b) assign number
categories, and (c) pronounce the
on which of the two aggregates is
is implied by what is said in 356D-357A
trasted with that of the "measuring art
latter "saves our life" (356D 3; E 2; E 8-357
ings," the "ups and downs," the reversals
long as we have nothing but the former t
1-2) instead. To have belief without kno
appearance" and hence to lack that stabili
control: If at a given moment one believe
to withstand Y (which could be a very jui
hang on to that belief for dear life; if that
according to Socrates, it would not have t
very next moment, to the contrary belief
case one could have the juicy morsel with
tackles this problem in Resp. 412E-413c
vinced that for most people virtue could
right belief (cf. preceding note), so that,
the firmness of extra-cognitive supports
bothered Socrates, since for him virtue was
edge.)
"OThis would be a sufficient reason for his use of the articulate neuter plural, r&oya04
KaEl rd KEaK4 here (352c 5) and frequently thereafter in the course of the debate, since
he is thinking throughout of the particular goods and evils the agent has to weigh in
reaching a considered choice.
"It is supposed to be comparable to operations we perform in determining the mag.
nitude of the spatial dimensions and weights of physical objects (356A 8-B 3; c 8-D 3).
"The Socratic procedure in this passage invites comparison with the Bayesian model
74 PHOENIX
Now for a substant

but is crucial for
restrictions on wha
valuations. His onl
them rationally and
which we choose. H
tions will not be pe
as "knowledge" of
included among the
a maniac's preferenc
of his finger. But o
surprises one in th
Socrates seems to d
usual insistence tha
orities and ranked
safety.'3 Of this mo
this discussion. In
ignored. Only the f
taking physical ex
surgery; living wit
why should Socrate
likely explanation i
level of first-order
mass, "the multitu
as he has, the supe
of deliberation in pres
glaring differences: Soc
analogy with that of p
inkling of the differen
ment (for a lucid expla
valid application to the
in a way which suggest
ment of subjective item
theory seeks to surmou
meaning to the assignm
Rapoport 30 if.). Socrat
and the model itself is
to utility or desirabilit
tions of risk. In spite of
unmistakable; both ma
valuations can be repre
algebraic additions.
'"As, e.g., in the Apol
itself in the latter part
"353c-354B.
health, financial solvency, and imp

fall within the ambit of their own
he is content to work with these th
Indeed to say he is "content" to
point. He is eager to do it, and for
occur when the agent is only half-co
accepting the conventional judgmen
tinged with resentment, suspecting
it will really benefit."7 Socrates, on
that all morality, from its lowest t
dictates of enlightened self-interes
prepared to argue-on this as on an
so here, he would have side-track
of such an argument, could he have
which he himself would consider sp
knowledge of the good we betray
constrained, sincerely felt, convic
resorting to some manoeuvre that
which represents common groun
adversaries. To execute this manoeuvre he needs some sort of theoretical
cover. He finds this in the hedonistic premise he foists on the "multi-
tude" in this discussion.
"Kal TrboXwv owrnTplaLt Kgc ia"Xwv dpXal, 354s 4--a realistic, if unpleasant, charac-
terization of the average Athenian's motivation when shouldering civic obligations as
burdensome as hoplite service. Pericles is even more explicit in Thucydides: the com-
mon weal on which the Athenian citizen's personal safety and welfare depends (2.60.2-4)
involves the maintenance of rvpavvIs &PX-i over other states (2.63.2) (the very same
point rubbed in by Cleon for a different purpose, 3.37.2).
1"I use "acrasia" and "acratic" as the English words they have now become for all
practical purposes in recent philosophical discussions, anglicizing the spelling accord-
ingly. None of the terms by which the Greek word has been translated into English
are exact equivalents: "incontinence" has sexual connotations which are singularly
inappropriate in notable instances of acrasia (e.g. Achilles' failure to control his anger,
or a soldier's bolting in the face of danger). "Weakness of will" or "moral weakness"
are somewhat better, but neither "will" nor "moral" answers to anything strictly
connoted by dKpaUa.
"What is called &6XX6OpLov ,yaObv by Thrasymachus in Resp. 343c.
'sFor Socrates not only morality, but even love or friendship, has a self-interested
motivation: cf. the doctrine that philia is for the sake of utility in the Lysis (210c, D;
215D; 218E-219A) with Aristotle, N.E. 1156a 10-12, "those who love each other for
the sake of utility do not love each other for themselves, but because of some benefit
they get from one another" and his definition of philos "one who wishes and does
good [to his philos] . . . for the sake of his philos, or one who wishes for the existence
and life of his philos for that person's sake," 1166a 3-5 (cf. 1156b 9-10 and 1168b 2-3;
also Rhet. 1361b 36-37 and 1380b 35-1381a 1).
"'As, e.g., in the arguments against Polus and Callicles in the Gorgias.
76 PHOENIX
This, I submit, is t
puzzle: the fact tha
the premise that
"evil" with "painful
there is no good re
very purpose in th
neither is there ev
the interim.22 Jus
debate? To get the
I think, to straight
sitions which are in
vertibility of "pl
us call this asserti
mizes. Now H is lo
(A) All pleasure is
with
(B) All good is pleasure and all evil is pain.
A and B, taken singly, express radically different views: A tells us that

pleasure is good, but not that it is the only good; the latter is precisely
what is expressed by B. Similarly in the case of pain: it is B, not A,
which says that pain is the only evil. Clearly, then, one could assert A,
while denying B; in that case one would be taking up a very mild and
moderate position to which the overwhelming majority of philosophical
moralists, ancient and modern, would subscribe. Only if one went so
far beyond A as to assert B would one be committing oneself to hedonism.
That Socrates himself would hold A is only to be expected. And
since B is uncongenial to his whole moral outlook23 and since he says
nothing in the course of the debate which directly commits him to B,
his position must be "A, but not B." As for the "multitude," it looks
at the start as though they would not even concede A: they are said
2oAt this point I am rejecting the view I adopted in 1956 (xli) that the convertibility
of the two sets of predicates is only meant to assert "(a) that pleasure is a good (not
the only one), (b) that whatever is best will in fact be the most pleasant."
2160A, where it is associated with the view that pleasure is the 6bpO6s aKo7rb for all
living creatures, the one at which "all ought to aim"-a formula which comes very
close to that used in the Protagoras in the argument with the "multitude" (354B 7-c 1;
D 8-E 1).
22In 1956 I had assumed that there had been such a change (without suggesting that
there was textual evidence of it), in order to explain the problem with which one is
left if one does grant that Socrates' argument for his thesis in our passage is predicated
on a hedonistic premise (I had called attention to the gravity of this problem, xl, n. 50).
I now see an alternative solution to the problem (see the penultimate paragraph of the
next section) which can dispense with that assumption.
2"Cf. xl-xli of my Introduction (1956).
to call "some pleasant things evil, a

4). But when the argument gets un
in showing that they balk at A b
standing: they have been calling
if they are immediately such; on
pleasure and pain which present a
be taken into account, they agree
pleasure-enhancing (or pain-reducin
and those which are pain-enhancin
way are evil (353c 9-354B 7); so t
with A,. And the line of questionin
far as A, actually pushes them mu
the admission that, in judging a
they look to nothing but its yield
Is it not evident to you . . . that these [c
(St' obbv akXo) than that they eventuate
. . . And those [other courses of action], ar
outcome is pleasure and the cessation or
else ? Or can you say that you call them "go
and pain? It is my opinion that they wo
And to say this would be, of course

'4353E-354A 1; 354B-c 2. The same poin
rest of the paragraph; and gets even gre
paragraph (354E 8-355A 5). As has been o
makes it exceedingly clear to the "multit
the burden of this assumption; he gives th
have second thoughts about it. Sullivan righ
But he fails to see that only here is the
does not realize that the formula that "p
pains are bad" (his excellent paraphrase
is not equivalent to H; he calls the formu
and cf. 23, where Sullivan cites 351c as
Surely this is false: "pleasure qua pleasur
"knowledge qua knowledge is good" or,
other things as well, F, G, etc., such that F
I suspect that Sullivan failed to clarify in
positions A, B, and H, and to interroga
would have surely read 351c 4-6 and 35
something in the passage which may ha
mentators who have also read these two t
41; Grube (1933) 205). This is the fact th
talks as if Socrates' statement in 351E 1
"pleasant" and "good" (351E 3-7, where
meant to formulate the proposition un
this in no way commits Socrates; all it re
diate state of mind (he has been taking
rattled by this time), for a moment earl
78 PHOENIX
We can now see h

the hedonistic prem
are shown to admi
them in conceding
with a view to plea
say so? Because th
him from his imme
his great claim abou
he contents himself
zone of moral choice in which he too would admit that one can make
sound judgments even if one takes nothing but pleasure and pain (imme-
diate and eventual) into account. There are cases, thousands of them,
in which not only those low characters, those people of the multitude,
but even the most upright of men (Socrates himself, for instance) could
reach correct assessments of the goodness or badness of actions without
resorting to any standard other than that of pleasure and pain. In these
cases the convertibility of "good" with "pleasant" and of "evil" with
"pain" need not be challenged; it may be taken as simply expressing a
normal principle of low-grade mora, choice. If Socrates' thesis about
the power of knowledge is true, it should work in these cases. And if
it does work here, it will not follow that it will work only here. We
shall see in the next section that Socrates' argument for the "power of
knowledge" is so constructed that one part of it-a logically self-contained
part--is not logically tied to the hedonistic premise.
II. SOCRATES' ARGUMENT FOR HIS THESIS
Professor Santas (1966, pp. 5-7, 12-13) has given an excellent account
of the strategy of Socrates' argument against the "multitude": he does
not undertake to prove to them directly that a counter-example to his
thesis could not occur but rather that if, per impossibile, it did occur,
their own explanation of the supposed occurrence would turn out, on
investigation, to be "ludicrous" (yeXotov); and by "ludicrous" in this
connection he could only mean that it would be either self-contradictory,
or else at variance with truths so obvious and so firmly established that
statement of the disputed proposition-c- 7rd a 7' E r 'yaOet loraTv iraTv7a Kal ta
WaLapa KaKd-a letter-perfect formulation of A, which only in a daze could any serious
philosopher confuse with the identification of "pleasant" with "good," least of all the
Protagoras of this dialogue who, a few lines earlier (350D-351A), had made a special
point of the non-convertibility of the "All S is P" type of proposition. There is no
indication in the text that Socrates agrees with Protagoras' last remark: ignoring it,
he proceeds to give a new, positive, turn to the debate, with a fresh start at 352A 1,
after which Protagoras is virtually cashiered as an active contributor to the discussion.
no one in his senses would want to

to press this indictment against t
takes to be by far the most comm
better will do the worse because th
desire for pleasures.25 Let us call th
tude" who are supposed to hold i
retaining Socrates' own expression,
which is supposed to occur because t
proves stronger than his desire to
an alternative, Y, which is also open
(M) Knowing that X is better than Y, o
pleasures.
Socrates moves against M by exploiting (355B-c 7) the convertibility

of "good" and "pleasure," to which the "multitude" have agreed.26 Sub-
stituting "goods" for "pleasures," he transforms M into
(Mg) Knowing that X is better than Y, one chooses Y because one is defeated by
goods.
This move, Socrates feels, pushes his adversaries out of a highly plaus-
ible, self-confident, position into one which is so shaky on the face of
it, that he immediately pronounces it "ludicrous" (355c 8-D3).27 But
just why? What is there "ludicrous" about Mg? The answer comes in
the following stretch of dialogue (355D 1-E3), where the prosecutor is
that "insolent fellow," Socrates' rude-spoken alter ego, called in here as
in the Hippias Major (286c ff.) to rub the opponent's nose into the
256r6T 7rv jovWv 7Trr)77raL, 352E-353A, which I take to be an ellipsis for "being
defeated [by desire] for pleasures." This is the only way in which pleasure could be
thought to "defeat" or "overcome" an intentional agent.
'"As I explained above (penultimate paragraph of Section I) what the "multitude"
have been made to agree to is H, the conjunction of A and B, and this is doubtless all
Socrates means when he sums up their view as asserting (i) "that the good is nothing
but pleasure and evil nothing but pain" (355A 1-2), which he understands to entail (ii)
that "good" and "pleasant" are "names" for the same thing, and that so too are "evil"
and "painful" (355B 5-c 1 and 5-6). Now (ii), taken at face value, amounts to saying
that the relation of the two terms in each pair is identity. But Socrates surely means
no such thing; the primitiveness of his logical vocabulary, as recorded (or simulated?)
by Plato, could be responsible for the overstatement here (as also earlier in the dia-
logue, 329D 1; 349B 1-6, where "wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and piety" are
all said to be names "of one thing," while it is perfectly clear from the accompanying
argument that all that is meant is that any two of them are logically convertible. Cf. my
Introduction (1956) liv, end of n. 10). Both (i) and (ii) must be understood as asserting
no more than the reciprocal implicatior or convertibility, of the two predicates. So
must the expression used by Protagoras in 351E 5-6.
"A development anticipated already at 355A.
80 PHOENIX
dirt, while Socrates

the "we") does the
How ludicrous is the t
(1) [=Mg] a man, know
them, does them, defe
(2) "Are the goods the
to overcome the evils?"
wise the man who, we
(3) "How then," he wil
How else than when th
Or when these are mor
(4) "So it is clear," he
taking greater evils in
The language is l
intolerably so, and
each step of the re
to do or to refrain
that the man choo
28I take the sense of i

"before your tribunal,"
lates the sentence, "Am
evil?" The phrase I ha
revised by A. Mauern
wurdig, das Schlechte
and evil in the agent's
the agent is spoken of c
the notion of a "strugg
is quite irrelevant to th
wants to know is how
parative value of the
the evils exceed the go
or the reverse? Cf. Ga
rendering, but apparen
is being put are someh
flict" between good an
"For the meaning of "
soFor the meaning of
noun in the genitive w
208E, Phaedrus 255E.
x'Which is formally eq
ing that Y is worse th
difference of this from
32The use of flp/dA&p
acrasia with which So
oV 8Lb f Kwv #K&W ap
Socrates himself never
(for an approximation
gives no scope for the r
choice, the choice of the bad altern

in 2 that the goods in Y are not wo
its evils: for if they had been, th
the "error" which, by hypothesis, it
principle that the goods in a give
only if, when both are aggregated t
gate evils. Hence, the conclusion in
having been shown to entail (via 2
aggregate goods did not exceed its
ferring the lesser good represented
by his other option, X.
Just how then does this argument
one first comes across this propo
impression that Socrates considers
is how it struck me when I wrote t
not think that I have been the only
study has convinced me that this i
text. To get anything like a self-co
to understand it to mean
(la) Knowing that Y is the worse option, the agent chooses it because of his desire
for good (i.e., for good as such).
This would indeed be a patently self-refuting account of acrasia. For if

a man's choice were actuated by his desire for good, it would be the
choice of the better option, i.e., the very choice which the "defeated"
man did not make. Hence the proposed explanans-desire for good-
would belie the explanandum-the fact that the worse option was
chosen. But to get la we have had to make an inconspicuous, but by
no means negligible, departure from the text: in I the text speaks of
the man being defeated not by "good," but by "goods."35 And it does
so for good reason. The plural is mandatory, since Socrates' only warrant
and because EKCWV is not free from ambiguity: it may carry the narrower sense of "wil-
lingly, not reluctantly" (as, e.g., at Prot. 345E ff., especially at 346B 7-8, obx KnvY,
&XX' atvayKa?L6'Y vos) rather than the broader sense of intentionally.
33Though I only expounded this interpretation (xxxix ff.) in glossing the second
argument (355E 4 if.), which operates with the converse substitution of "more pleasur-
able" for "better." It is only on this assumption-that Socrates thought that M would
be transformed into a self-contradictory statement by one or the other of the sub-
stitutions-that I maintained that Socrates offers a deductive proof for his thesis that
knowledge is (i.e., is a sufficient condition of) virtue.
"4So apparently Walsh, 54.
"3Translating faithfully the plural of the text 355D 3. It is true that the singular
roDf dyaOoJ had been used just before (c 7); but this was only to refer collectively to
the various particular goods which, it is being alleged, would "defeat" the victims
of acrasia. Cf. note 10 above.
82 PHOENIX
for pinning I on h
fessed view via allowable substitutions. But this is the form in which
their adherence to M had been expressed in the text a few lines earlier
(355A 6-B 3):
. . . you say that it happens often that a man, knowing that evils are evils, neverthe-
less does them, though it is possible for him not to do them, because he is beguiled and
seduced by pleasures. And again you say that a man, knowing the goods, does not
want to do them because of the pleasures of the moment, by which he is defeated.
The only correct substitutions for the italicized phrases would be "by
goods" and "because of the goods of the moment" respectively. If so,
the man's defeat would be explained not by his desire for good as such,
but by his desire for those particular goods which he can have here and
now if, and only if, he opts for Y. Amending la to implement this
important difference, we get
(Ib) Knowing that Y is the worse option, the agent chooses it because of his desire
for its goods.
And now we lose the self-contradiction in la. We got self-contradiction

there because only the choice of a good action could be presumed to be
explicable by a man's deisre for good. In lb this fails us: it is not true
that the only choice one could hope to explain by a man's desire for a
particular good or set of goods is the choice of a good action. There are
many cases where a desire for a particular good-this sweet, this for-
tune, this woman-can only be satisfied via bad action, i.e., by actions
which do offer us a seductive, head-turning, good, but are nevertheless
bad on the whole. So while there is contradiction in "I choose this action,
knowing it to be bad on the whole, because I want good," there is no
contradiction in "I choose it, knowing it to be bad on the whole, because
I want this particular good (which I can get only by choosing this action)."
If Socrates had thought there was self-contradiction in the latter, despite
appearances to the contrary, he would have had to argue for it; but the
fact is that there is nothing in the text that could count as an argument
for self-contradiction in lb.
Once this line of interpretation has been closed off, we are left with
just one way of understanding how the argument from I to 4 was
supposed to demonstrate the "ludicrousness" of 1: Socrates must have
thought the conclusion so incredible in itself as to discredit any pro-
position which entails it-hence to discredit I, which entails 4 via 2
and 3. And that this must be the correct interpretation is confirmed by
the very design of the argument. A man who, having made a charge,
produces a sequence of propositions to prove it,"3 would stop when,
and only when, he has reached the proposition which he thinks clinches
"'This is clearly the force of the aipa in E 2.
the indictment.37 Just what is the

to do this? Nothing but the fact th
to entail that the man would choos
the smaller. This is what Socrates t
that to confront his adversaries wi
to leave them speechless, utterly cr
But why so? What makes Socrates
choose the smaller of two goods off
are two propositions from which t
(SI) If one knows that X is better" than
(S2) If one wants X more than Y, one wi
1"Though the argument against M cont

converse substitution of "more pleasura
there is not one word offurther argument fo
art" which follows (356c 4 ff.) the refutat
no additional argument against M. All it
refutation via the two substitutions: sin
knows that X is better than Y cannot choo
vation of life" (356D, E) to the appropriat
"3Professor Gallop, who saw (118-119) that
rousness" I had given in my 1956 Introdu
refutation of Mis not meant to be complete
because only then, Gallop claimed, Socrate
diction and by the following reasoning:
man may know evil things . . . yet do the
But if 'being overcome by pleasure' mea
self-contradictory. For it will amount to s
to be evil, yet take it needlessly, because o
will consist in ascribing to the agent both
(119). In my opinion, this interpretation
(cf. Santas [1966] 12, n. 14), of which the
most conclusive. To be guilty of the alleg
would have had to hold both M and the
the latter is Socrates' view, not theirs. T
dialectic, they are left no option but to c
"if you were now to laugh at us [sc. for ou
rance], you would be laughing at yourse
been forced by the argument to acknowl
a moment earlier). But this concession is
been compelled to give up M (they had no
in their battered and chastened state, no l
headed one, they would not sustain the ch
a man has to maintain a thesis and its con
"Here, and in the sequel, "better" means:
4OA more complete statement would be: If
want, etc., at that moment. The same addi
pleteness in S2.
"'At this point I owe a great debt to an u
84 PHOENIX
(Here as in M and
between which t
Socrates takes S2 p
repeatedly speaks
very notion of ch
citation from 355A
an ellipsis for "doe
for SI, this would
(S3) All men desire we

(SI) Anything else th
S3 Socrates states
Do not all men want t

moment ago it would
tion. For which man does not want to fare well? [Euthyd. 278E1
Though "faring well" or being happy are never formally explicated,

much is clear: for Socrates, as for Plato and Aristotole after him, t
terms denote the state in which good is possessed and enjoyed. So w
Socrates declares that "everything men do, they do for the sake of g
(Gorg. 468B) and that "good we desire; what is neither good nor
and what is evil, we do not desire" (ibid. 468c), he is implying t
except for welfare itself and the goods which make it up, we de
things only as a means to welfare, i.e., Sd. Given S3 and Sd, Si w
follow: If a man knew that X is better than Y, he would know that
can get more good through X than through Y. So, given S3, he wou
want X, since it would secure him the increment of good and welfa
which he would forfeit by choosing Y and, given Sd, he would
want Y, for the converse reason.44 And since the better of two act
could only be the one which secures to the agent the greater aggreg
good (3 in the above argument for Mg), the impossibility of choosin
the lesser aggregate good in preference to the greater would follow
Davidson. The formulation of the two premises follows closely two of his own w
he discusses without reference to Socrates but which struck me at once, when I
across them, as going to the heart of the Socratic assumptions about intentional a
whose corollary is the denial of acrasia.
4'And cf. n. 4 above.
48E Trp&rrEw, "to fare well," or "to do well," used interchangeably with ebatL-
piovetv, "to be happy," (cf., e.g., the substitution of ebbal.ove~ s Evat in Euthyd. 282A
in the restatement of a doctrine previously expressed by the use of ev Trp&rmawe in 278E).
"4The same implication in Meno 77c-78A: No one could desire evils, knowing that
they are evils, i.e., that they would "harm him" or "make him wretched and unfor-
tunate."
would be a consequence of S2, S3,

take to be axiomatic truths.45
Having thus demolished Mg to his satisfaction, Socrates proceeds
(355E 3-356c .3) to refute M all over again by exploiting the converse
substitutability of "pleasant" for "good" (and hence of "more pleasur-
able" for "better"):
(Mp) Knowing that X is more pleasurable than Y, one will choose X when one is
defeated by pleasures.
To show that this is false Socrates finds it sufficient to point out that
if it were true the alleged "defeat" would entail choosing Y, while
knowing that it is the more painful46 of the two options, for the sake of
the pleasures it offers, though "it is clear" (356A-D) that these are not
worth ("not worthy to overcome") its pains. Why is this "clear"?
Because the multitude had agreed47 that pleasure is the only good, pain
the only evil,48 and it is now added that a given set of pleasures are
worth a given set of pains if, and only if, the aggregate magnitude of
the pleasures exceeds that of the pains. This being the case, it is implied
that to choose Y, knowing it to be on balance the smaller pleasure-pack-
age, would be to knowingly prefer the smaller good to the greater,
which is taken, as before, to be a patent impossibility, whose entailment
by Mp refutes Mp. If his adversaries had not seen the impossibility
of that consequence, Socrates would stand ready to derive it from the
principle of psychological hedonism to which they had agreed at an
earlier stage of the debate.49
The great difference between this argument against Mp and the
preceding one against Mg is that here the refutation of M requires
the premise that pleasure is the only good :o only this would warrant the
46Needless to say, the impossibility of choosing an option which one knows to be

less good than another has enormous plausibility taken all by itself. This explains why
Socrates does not deduce it on this occasion from other beliefs of his which do entail it.
"6Literally, "knowing that it is painful" (yLyvcPiKWV 67L i vtap barLrtY, 355E 7).
Throughout the whole discussion the wording pays little attention to the fact that all
that counts in the choice between X and Y is their comparative, not their absolute,
goodness or badness, pleasurableness or painfulness. The thought, of course, is un-
affected by this blemish.
47Cf. n. 24 above.
481.e., to proposition B (cf. the last three paragraphs in Section I above.
'4I agree with Santas (1966, n. 12) that 354c 3-5 should be construed as psychological
hedonism, adding, however, that the formulation is vague and hasty, suggesting that
Socrates had little interest in working out this doctrine. The passages cited by Sullivan,
19, as expressions of psychological hedonism, are, at best, indirect evidence for this
doctrine.
o50.e., proposition B, or H (which entails B).
86 PHOENIX
substitution of "m
make this the high
"the multitude" is understandable. As we saw at the end of Section 1
above, Socrates has good reason to think that the defence of his thesis
about acrasia will be specially effective against his present adversaries
if offered them under a hedonistic umbrella. But what if he were address-
ing a different kind of adversary who would have cogent and clear-
headed reasons for rejecting hedonism and would, therefore, scorn the
Socratic thesis about acrasia if he thought it a logical dependency of
the equation of the good and the pleasant? Would none of Socrates'
arguments in our passage be usable against such an opponent? Has
Socrates so tied his refutation of M to the hedonistic construction of
good that if the latter were denied the refutation of M would fail? This
is what I believed when I wrote my Introduction in 1956 and what
many others have believed, from Hackforth in 1928 to Santas in his
latest paper [1966]."' It has now become clear to me that this is false.
For suppose I were to say to Socrates "I despise hedonism, but I
subscribe to M. Refute me, if you can"! Would he have any trouble in
getting from our passage52 all the ammunition he would need to blast
me as effectively as he did the "multitude" in the text? Denied now
the use of H (that "good" and "pleasant" are convertible) as a lemma
for deriving Mg from M, would he not see that he does not need H for
this purpose, since A (that all pleasure is good) would serve him just
as well? For this master-dialectician it would have been child's play
to see that if he got me to grant him A, I could not then fail to concede
Mg, since "all pleasure is good" entails that "defeated by pleasures"
entails "defeated by goods," and hence warrants the substitution of
51But Santas registers an important advance in pointing out that Socrates' argument
in our passage "can be 'freed' from its hedonistic premises, in the sense that some
other plausible Platonic [he means: Socratic] non-question-begging premises can be
found which can be successfully substituted for the hedonistic premises," 20-21. I
have taken the nex:t step, which is to show (as I proceed to do in the text above) that
one of the two arguments in the text, the one against Mg, is already free from dependence
on hedonistic premises. The same thing would have been evident to Santas if he had
not imported hedonistic premises into his analysis of the argument against Mg, reading
all references to good and evil as references to pleasure and pain. Naturally, a hedonist
would so read them. But in that case the equations, "good" = "pleasant," "evil" =
"painful," would be an extra premise supplied by the hedonist himself. There is nothing
to this effect-in fact, not a word about pleasure or pain-in the text of the argument,
nor yet in its tacit premises, if these are supplied, as they should be, from the known
Socratic doctrine, to whose clarification Santas himself had made a distinct contri-
bution in his 1964 paper.
52Including the false start, 351B, 3 fF. where Socrates asks Protagoras if he will agree
to proposition A (cf. n. 24 above).
"goods" for "pleasures" in M whic

thus forced me to Mg, he could proce
Everything in the present argument
as it would against a hedonist; for
offered, for 2 or 3 above, from whic
be true in the case of the tacit prem
would have invoked, if pressed, to ju
one's knowingly preferring the lesser
depend at all on the convertibility
any other hedonistic premise. Thus
the refutation of Mg is a self-cont
valid against non-hedonists as aga
former granted that pleasure was a
among contemporary philosphers, rej
Antisthenes.
One further observation, recordin
inquiry, which might nonetheless
findings: It concerns the import of
premises of the refutation of Mg. E
treme, and their joint power is so gr
on them alone to make a still more
achieves in either of the explicit arg
passage. For if those tacit premises
to resort to a round-about attack on
that if it did occur, the defeat-by-pl
would not work, and that a suppleme
would not work either.55 Armed w
launch a perfectly direct attack, sho
that the occurrence of acrasia would
Given SI (consequence of S3 and S4),
Y, we are going to desire X more tha
more than Y, we are going to choose
ever happen that we should choose Y
"And SI, which is entailed by S3 and SI.
"Cf. the first paragraph of the present Sec
acrasia in our passage.
"The defeat-by-passion explanation was m
pleasure/pain in 352B, alluded to again in 3
subsequent argument which is solely dire
explanation. But at the end of that argum
demolished the defeat-by-passion explanatio
that his explicit argument implicitly doe
beautifully clear, fully satisfying answer,
88 PHOENIX
Socratic thesis show

so connect desire w
choice, on the other
to be the worse app
PRINCETON UNIVER
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. Adam and A. M. Adam, Platonis Protagoras (Cambridge 1893).

R. E. Allen, "The Socratic Paradox," 7ournal of the History of Ideas 21 (1960) 256-265.
O. Apelt, Platons Dialog Protagoras, Dritte Auflage, neuarbeitet von A. Mauernsberger
und Annemarie Capelle (Hamburg 1956).
R. Bambrough, "The Socratic Paradox," Philos. Quart. 10 (1960) 229 if.
R. S. Bluck, Plato's Meno (Cambridge 1961).
I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, Vol. 1 (London 1962) 289 ff.
D. Gallop, "The Socratic Paradox in the Protagoras," Phronesis 9 (1964) 117 if..
G. Grube, "The Structural Unity of the Protagoras," C. 27 (1933) 203-207, at 205-206.
G. Grube, Plato's Thought (London 1935) 59-62.
N. Gulley, "The Interpretation of 'No one does wrong willingly' in Plato's Dialogues,"
Phronesis 10 (1965) 82-96.
W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato's Protagoras and Meno (Penguin Classics; London 1956).
R. Hackforth, "Hedonism in Plato's Protagoras," C. 22 (1928) 39 ff.
R. Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision (New York 1965).
A. Rapoport, Two-Person Game Theory (Ann Arbor, Mich. 1966) Ch. 2.
G. Santas, "The Socratic Paradoxes," Philos. Review 73 (1964) 147 ff.; "Plato's Prota-
goras and Explanations of Weakness," ibid. 75 (1966) 3 ff.
P. Shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago 1933) 129-132.
J. L. Stocks, "The Argument of Plato, Prot. 351B-356c," C. 7 (1913) 100 ff.
J. P. Sullivan, "The Hedonism in Plato's Protagoras," Phronesis 6 (1961) 9 ff.
A. E. Taylor, Plato, The Man and His Work, Third Edition (London 1929).
G. Vlastos, Introduction to Plato's Protagoras, Library of Liberal Arts (New York
1956) at xxxviii-xlv.
J. J. Walsh, Aristotle's Conception of Moral Weakness (New York 1963) 22-27.
6"An earlier draft of this paper, circulated among colleagues and students, had elicited
(in addition to the detailed critique by Professor Gallop: cf. n. 3 above) a number of
helpful criticisms-more of them than I could have tried to acknowledge by name.
The revision and expansion of the paper was done at the Center for Advanced Study
in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, where I was privileged to hold a Fellowship
during a part of 1968.

Vlastos Socrates On Akrasia

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Vlastos Socrates On Akrasia

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Socrates on Acrasia

Author(s): Gregory Vlastos

I DEALT WITH THIS TOPIC briefly twelve years ago in an int

I. THE SOCRATIC THESIS

It is announced as follows in the opening paragraph of our passage: "If

'Listed in the bibliography below.

PHOENIX, Vol. 23 (1969) 1.

(1) The only actions

But the original statemen

not know what weight to attach t

Now for a substant

health, financial solvency, and imp

A and B, taken singly, express radically different views: A tells us that

to call "some pleasant things evil, a

And to say this would be, of course

We can now see h

II. SOCRATES' ARGUMENT FOR HIS THESIS

no one in his senses would want to

Socrates moves against M by exploiting (355B-c 7) the convertibility

dirt, while Socrates

28I take the sense of i

choice, the choice of the bad altern

This would indeed be a patently self-refuting account of acrasia. For if

And now we lose the self-contradiction in la. We got self-contradiction

the indictment.37 Just what is the

1"Though the argument against M cont

(S3) All men desire we

Do not all men want t

Though "faring well" or being happy are never formally explicated,

would be a consequence of S2, S3,

46Needless to say, the impossibility of choosing an option which one knows to be

"goods" for "pleasures" in M whic

Socratic thesis show

J. Adam and A. M. Adam, Platonis Protagoras (Cambridge 1893).

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