Ahbel Rappe2012

Is Socratic Ethics Egoistic?
Author(s): Sara Ahbel-Rappe

Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 107, No. 4 (October 2012), pp. 319-340
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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Is Socratic Ethics Egoistic?
sara ahbel-rappe
R
ecent years have seen an intense interest in the ethics of Socrates.
Central to most of these studies is the thesis, variously expressed, that
Socrates is the discoverer of a psychological truth to the effect that
people inevitably act to advance their own interests, or of a theory of action,
to the effect that all rational action is self-interested action. 1 Yet in the Apol-
ogy, Plato offers an account of Socrates’ life that consistently emphasizes
his paradigmatic altruism, as for example his benevolent activity on behalf
of his fellow citizens. In this article, I raise the question of whether or not it
is possible that Plato sets out to portray the extraordinary life of Socrates, a
life, according to Plato, spent in service to the divine and to his community,
with the intention of revealing that this same philosopher actually teaches the
gospel of “me first.”
The approach that I will take in this article contrasts the paradigmatic force
of Socrates’ life with the doctrinal force of the Socratic ethical theses. I argue
that the fact that Socratic literature springs up because Socrates’ life is so
exemplary, because his life teaches us virtue, if only we could observe, should
give us pause in the rush to saddle Socrates with a doctrinal commitment to
egoistic eudaimonism. Plato and other Socratics convey the other-directed
motivations of Socrates in a pronounced way. Over the course of the dialogues
Plato portrays Socrates as a Theseus entering the labyrinth 2 (Phd. 58a10)
and as Odysseus in search of his comrades (Prt. 315c8–d1). 3 Within these
narrative frames, Plato associates Socrates with the figure of the hero. He
The author wishes to thank the following people, in alphabetical order, for help with this paper or versions
thereof: Victor Caston, Henry Dyson, Christopher Gill, Herbert Granger, Rachana Kamtekar, Mike Kicey,
Donka Markus, Geoff Maturen, Debra Nails, and Ruth Scodel. Thanks also to anonymous readers for CP for
constructive criticisms and to the Editor of CP, Elizabeth Asmis. Of course, all errors in thought or expression
remain solely my responsibility.
1. For example, in their 2005 Cambridge commentary on the Lysis, Penner and Rowe write, “Socrates
holds that anyone who has this desire for good has, as her or his ultimate desire, generative of all of his or her
so-called voluntary actions . . . desires for his or her own good” (212).
2. The Phaedo begins with an explanation of why the execution of Socrates was stayed. The commemora-
tive voyage to Delos in honor of Apollo, who saved the Minotaur’s victims had to return before blood could be
shed in the city: “This is the ship, as the Athenians tells the tale, on which Theseus embarked to Crete leading
home the twice seven, having saved them and himself as well” (Phd. 58a5). The position of this tale at the
beginning of the Phaedo, with Socrates functioning as the savior of the young (Plato names thirteen friends
of Socrates as present at the execution, including Phaedo himself), entering into the labyrinth to meet the mi-
notaur (death itself and in particular, the fear of death) is meant to resonate with the heroic image of Socrates.
3. At Protagoras 315c8–d1 Socrates quotes Odyssey 11.584, “Then I spied Tantalus” (Καὶ μὲν δὴ καὶ
Τάνταλόν γε εἰσεῖδον) to mark the scene as a nekuia, taking the part of Odysseus in search of knowledge with
Prodicus the Sophist playing the part of Tantalus undergoing his punishment in Hades.
Classical Philology 107 (2012): 319–40

[© 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved] 0009-837X/12/10704-0002$10.00
319

320 Sara Ahbel-Rappe
explains his motives for the practice of philosophy in terms of dedication to

his mission and obedience to a higher authority (Ap. 28d–e), while his actions
are all directed toward the fostering of wisdom in others. The narratives that
Xenophon, Aeschines, and above all Plato create surrounding the life and
death of Socrates feature a Socrates who is supremely selfless, sacrificing his
material possessions and his very life for the sake of continuing his god-given
mission, that of awakening his fellow citizens from their nightmarish pursuit
of wealth and power at the expense of virtue.
The principal textual evidence that scholars use to support the attribution
of egoism to Socrates involves passages where Socrates obtains the assent
of his interlocutor to formulations of the prudential principle, the principle
that all human beings pursue happiness or, what amounts to the same thing,
desire the good for themselves. 4 I argue that we must examine the doctrinal
ascription of egoism to Socrates in light of Socrates’ denial that he was ever
4. Here is a partial list of passages in which Socrates dialectically asserts some version of the prudential
principle. All translations from the original Greek are the author’s own, unless otherwise specified:
Gorgias 468 c2–6, Socrates speaking:
“Therefore we do not want simply to slaughter or banish from cities or appropriate wealth, but rather
if they prove beneficial, then we do want to commit these acts, whereas if they prove harmful, we do
not want to commit them. For as you say, we want things that are good; we do not want what is neither
good nor bad, nor do we want what is bad.”
Gorgias d1–6:
“If we make these agreements, then when someone, whether a despot or a politician, kills a man or
banishes him from his city or appropriates his wealth, imagining it to be more advantageous for him,
whereas in fact, it turns out to be more harmful for him, still this person is doing what seems best to
him, does he not?”
Polus: “Yes”
Socrates: “Therefore is he also doing what he wants, since these acts are in fact harmful?”
Protagoras 358c6–d4, Socrates speaking:
“Therefore, is it not the case,” I said, “that no one advances toward bad things voluntarily, or toward
what he imagines as bad? To go after what one believes to be bad, instead of the good, is not, it seems,
in human nature and when one is compelled to choose between two evils, no one will choose the
greater when he might choose the less.”
Meno: 77d7–78a8, Socrates speaking:
“Isn’t it clear that these people, that is, those who don’t recognize evils for what they are, don’t desire
evil but what they thought was good, whereas in actuality it is evil; Hence, those who do not recognize
evil yet imagine it to be good clearly desire the good?”
Meno: “Yes, they at least probably do desire the good.”
Socrates: “Now as for those whom you describe as desiring evils in the belief that they do harm to
their possessor, surely they know that they will be harmed by evils?”
Meno: “They must.”
Socrates: “And don’t they believe that whoever is harmed, to the extent that he is harmed, is miser-
able?”
Meno: “They must believe this as well.”
Socrates: “And that the miserable are unhappy?”
Meno: “I certainly think so.”
Socrates: “Well, is there anyone who wants to be wretched and unhappy?”
Meno: “Not in my view, Socrates.”
Socrates: “Therefore, no one wants what is bad, since no one wants to be in this condition. Since what
is it to be wretched other than desiring bad things and obtaining them?”
Euthydemus 278e3–279a1, Socrates speaking:
“Do we human beings all wish to do well? Or perhaps this question is one of those that I just now
feared was ridiculous? For it is foolish, no doubt, even to ask such things. What human being does not
want to do well?”
“Not a single one,” said Clinias.

Is Socratic Ethics Egoistic? 321
a teacher (Ap. 19e1): “nor, if you have heard that I attempt to instruct people
. . . is this true, either.” In dialectical exchanges, Socrates does elicit from
his interlocutors assent to a basic principle, which we may call the prudential
principle, according to which everyone desires to be happy. But to extrapolate
from these dialectical agreements to a general theory of human motivation and
to hold that Socrates is committed to a doctrinal endorsement of such a theory
violates the force of the Socratic paradigm in two ways. First, it makes of
Socrates a dogmatic teacher, and second, it negates Socrates’ insistence upon
his own regard for other human beings in their own right and on their own
behalf. In not one of the texts to be studied in this article does Socrates say
that the good of others does not count as an independent consideration for him.
To anticipate the results of this study as well as the method by which I
arrive at these results, let me now outline the structure of the article. The
first part looks at the Socratic paradigm as presented not only in the Apology,
but also in the fragments of some minor Socratic writers, and shows that the
tradition as a whole views the figure of Socrates in terms that evoke heroic
self-sacrifice, efforts on behalf of the community, and generally a beneficent
approach to those he attempts to engage in the practice of philosophy. The
second part of this article examines the dialectical contexts in which Socrates
secures agreement to some form of the prudential principle, the principle that
everyone wants the good, or wants to be happy.
But before we get to the texts themselves, a note about the meaning of
egoism in this context is in order. I understand egoism as a theory of motiva-
tion. Egoism tells us the reasons why a person does or should act: she acts in
order to promote her own self-interest. In order to qualify as a philosopher
who endorses egoism, a philosopher must also assign this principle “a basic
and not merely instrumental role” 5 in her moral philosophy; self-regarding
reasons are either the best or the only kind of reason there is.
In this sense, Terry Penner and Christopher Rowe, Naomi Reshotko, and
Gregory Vlastos all ascribe egoism to Socrates. Penner and Rowe write:
Socrates holds that anyone who has this desire for good has, as her or his ultimate desire,
generative of all of his or her so-called voluntary actions . . . desires for his or her own
good. 6
Reshotko writes:
Socrates thinks that harm and benefit are always and only harm or benefit to the self . . .
Socrates thinks that whenever an individual chooses to act, she chooses the particular,
available, action that she thinks will bring her the most benefit. Socrates believes that it is
not possible for anyone to choose to act in any other way. 7
Egoistic (as opposed to non-egoistic) strains of eudaimonism may be found

in the earlier work of Vlastos. Citing Gorgias 468c2–6 (n. 4 above), Vlastos
claims:
5. Kraut 1989, 81.

6. Penner and Rowe 2005, 212.
7. Reshotko 2006, 58.

Here desire for happiness is strictly self-referential: it is the agent’s desire for his own hap-
piness and that of no one else. This is so deep seated an assumption that it is simply taken
for granted: no argument is ever given for it in the Platonic corpus. 8
We see, then, that the egoist acts in order to advance her own interest,
yet how she does this varies. According to Richard Kraut, “pure egoism”
is a doctrine that holds that all legitimate reasons for actions will maximize
the agent’s own good. The good of others will hold no independent weight,
although of course there may be self-serving or self-interested reasons for
treating others well, that is, insofar as such treatment is conducive to one’s
own optimal good. 9
Another form of egoism can be called “benign egoism,” the thesis that
“denies that the good of one person can conflict with another.” 10 Again ac-
cording to Kraut, the benign egoist “insists that no one will be worse off if
we maximize our own good and assign priority to self-interested reasons,”
just because in some ways the welfare of others will be a part of one’s own
interest or own happiness. I take it that this is the kind of egoist that Penner
and Rowe think that Socrates is, as they write: “one must have the wisdom,
whatever one’s natural constitution, to understand the place of the happiness
of those around one in one’s own happiness.” 11 Reshotko, too, seems to think
that Socrates is a benign egoist:
Socrates would maintain that every time we think we can benefit by harming someone
else, we are wrong. Either the act is, in the long run, harmful to us as well, or it is not the
case that the act is, in the long run, harmful to someone else. 12
For all of these interpreters, Vlastos, Penner, Rowe, and Reshotko, Socrates
comes off as likable in the extreme: he enlarges the scope of what counts as
self-interest so that, apparently, it inevitably, invariably, and necessarily in-
cludes the interests of others. Therefore the question arises, if Socratic egoism
is framed so attractively, such that it encompasses the other-regarding virtues
and construes well-being so broadly that the interests of those around one are
always taken into account, or at least should be, what objections could one
mount against it? Surely, one could not attack the thesis on the grounds that,
for example, Socrates engages in other-directed activity, values his friends,
and is devoted to the well-being of his community. For all of these possibili-
ties will be included in the benign egoism attributed to Socrates.
In this article, there is no scope to explore the philosophical contradictions
that may or may not lurk in the position described as benign or broad egoism,
according to which the concerns of others count, but count instrumentally
insofar as they enhance one’s primary concern, for oneself. Instead, I will
argue that Socrates is not an egoist because he does not think that self-benefit
is the sole or even the most important deliberative criterion for action; for that
matter, self-benefit does not count for Socrates as a deliberative criterion at
all. Instead, the only deliberative criterion that Socrates consistently claims
8. Vlastos 1991, chap. 8 n. 14.

9. Kraut 1989, 81.
10. Kraut 1989, 81.
11. Penner and Rowe 2005, 215.
12. Reshotko 2006, 65.

for himself is the criterion of virtue, of the justice or injustice of a given ac-
tion. He also consistently describes his motivations for action in terms of his
desire to benefit all human beings (including himself). In this sense, it may
well turn out to be the case that acting in accordance with virtue benefits the
agent (say, for example, Socrates or his interlocutor). But this self-benefit is
not a part of the consultative model that Socrates invokes when he explains
why he engages in philosophical activity. 13 If we study the dialectical contexts
for this deployment of the prudential principle, we find that there is no reason
to assimilate Socrates’ other-regarding attitudes, that is, Socrates’ reasons for
acting on behalf of others, or desires for the well-being of people other than
Socrates, to instances of self-regard or to the pursuit of self-interest more
generally.
Part 1: The Socratic Paradigm

In what follows, I mean to alert the reader to the difficulty that attends what
might seem to be a very natural assumption, namely, that one ought to begin
the study of Socrates with an examination of Socratic tenets and philosophical
doctrines. In addition to any Socratic doctrine, if such there is, it is Socrates
the man, or even the Socratic way of life, that engendered literary and philo-
sophical engagement with Socrates during his life and in the direct aftermath
of his life, and later, as a philosophical ideal in the Hellenistic schools. 14
Socrates was many things—sage, martyr, possibly magus or even prophet—to
previous centuries, yet by contrast, Socrates’ meaning as a philosopher today
is measured by an almost exclusive focus on the discovery of a Socratic
doctrine worthy of the man. At least since the pioneering work of Vlastos, 15
many students of Socrates today are in search of a doctrine that can satisfac-
torily answer how a seemingly ironic, or at least philosophically banal, figure
came to be identified as the founder of Western philosophy. 16 In other words,
it is just this exemplary status of the Socratic life that in some ways exerts
13. True, there are texts where Socrates specifies that virtue is beneficial: it is often said that Socrates
recommends virtue on the grounds that virtues benefit the person who possesses them. Cf. Irwin 1995 section
25, 36–38. In the Laches, Socrates says that bravery is a virtue, and so must always be fine and beneficial
(192c4–b5); in the Charmides Socrates says that temperance is a good (160e9). But Socrates never specifies in
these or any other passages that the agent is the person who benefits from virtue.
14. Cf. Nehamas 1998. Nehamas emphasizes the extent to which “the most voluble figure in the history
of philosophy” is someone “we do not hear at all” (70), and suggests that out of the irony of Plato and Soc-
rates, the character Plato created and to whom he gave a stronger foothold on reality than he gave himself, a
whole tradition according to which life can be lived eventually came to grow. Cf. also Long 2006, 8–10. Long
discusses the figure of Socrates as presenting a new understanding of self-control. Enkratiea, self-mastery, is
the essential characteristic of the Socratic paradigm, according to Long, as we discover Socrates in both Xeno-
phon’s and Plato’s dialogues. Moreover, it is the appeal of Socrates as possessing inner power and strength that
accounts for the popular impact of Hellenistic ethics.
15. See Ausland 2006 and Kamtekar 2006 for accounts of how Vlastos’ version of the historical Socrates
as identifiable with the Socrates of Plato’s early dialogues also brought about a doctrinal content to Socratic
philosophy.
16. Ausland (2006, 493) cites Schleiermacher’s 1815 lecture “The Value of Socrates as a Philosopher.”
Ausland writes: “The problem of Socrates is at least twofold. The question of the relative merits of Plato,
Xenophon, and Aristophanes as contemporary sources is but ancillary to a more fundamental problem of the
worth of the Socratic teaching . . . . Both arose together almost two centuries ago out of a third issue—the
paradox of Socrates—which at the time was felt to consist in the strangeness of a figure who had apparently
produced no philosophically interesting doctrines, but had been generally accorded a pivotal a role in the his-
tory of philosophy.”

p ressure or occasions a growing expectation for a Socratic philosophy that can

be expressed either in terms of method, à la Aristotle’s Metaphysics 17 or in
terms of doctrinal formulations, à la Aristotle’s Ethics, or both, à la Vlastos’
elenctic method and elenctic precepts.
In addition to the more complete sets of Socratic writings (Plato’s Socratic
dialogues and Xenophon’s Memorabilia in four books, as well as his Sympo-
sium), we also possess very incomplete remains of Socratic dialogues written
by other members of the Socratic circle, including Antisthenes, Aeschines,
and Phaedo. 18 Perhaps the most we can ask of this literature is to provide
us with a sense of the initial ethical intuitions that Socrates’ story provokes.
How has it come to furnish the raw materials from which entire traditions of
ethical philosophy have been spun, if not quite whole cloth, then certainly,
in the absence of Socratic authorship, from tenuous threads? We can also ask
this question of works that most frequently fall under the rubric of spuria: the
Theages, possibly Alcibiades 1, Clitophon, and possibly the Hippias minor
are some of the pseudo-Platonic dialogues that offer us readings of the figure
of Socrates, functioning in part as reprises of Socratic philosophy written
under the auspices of the early Academy.
For example, the pseudo-Platonic Clitophon, the purpose of which, I take it,
is to provide a retrospective summary of the ethics of the Socratic dialogues,
involves a student of Thrasymachus berating Socrates for failing to provide
follow-up instruction to the Socratic incitement toward virtue, once Clitophon
found himself initiated into the philosophical life (410b1–2):
“So, Socrates, I finally asked you yourself these questions and you told me that the aim of
justice is to hurt one’s enemies and help one’s friends. But later it turned out that the just
man never harms anyone, since everything he does is for the benefit of all.”
We are left here with a puzzle: how is it that, in the case of the just person,
everything he does is for the benefit of all (and not, let us add, for the sake of
himself alone)? At a minimum, this passage in the Clitophon seeks to char-
acterize or even caricature the Socratic definition of justice, here juxtaposed
against the formulation of Polemarchus in Republic 1. Even if the Clitophon
is a parody targeting the Socratic exhortation to virtue, what stands out is the
explicit ascription of an altruistic attitude to the just person that is indepen-
dent of eudaimonist considerations. Doesn’t this possibility in itself militate
against the truism that ancient Greek ethics start from a basic consideration
of one’s own happiness rather than, as here, one’s duties to others? For in
this text the foundation of justice is seen in one’s relationship not to a special
group of others (one’s friends, the rejected answer), but rather to all other
persons without distinction. Indeed, when one surveys the figure of Socrates
as it is represented in the Socratic literature, as well as in the spuria, Socrates
appears most often as engaged in the art of making others better or else, as
in the Clitophon as well as in Aeschines’ Alcibiades (the discussion of which
follows), as avowing an overt intention of making others better without pos-
sessing actual knowledge of how to do so.
17. Metaphysics 1.6 987a29–b9 and 13.4 1087b9–32. Cf. Vlastos 1991, chap. 1.
18. Mostly available in Giannantoni 1990.

Quite possibly one of the earliest of Socratic dialogues is Aeschines’

lcibiades. 19 As in other Socratic dialogues, here we glimpse Socrates as-
A
sociating with a wealthy and promising young man, later destined for ruin,
betrayal, and infamy. 20 In Aeschines’ version Socrates attempts to intervene
in Alcibiades’ imminent plunge into folly, driven by the ambition that char-
acterizes him in nearly all representations. Socrates reprimands Alcibiades
by comparing the latter unfavorably to Themistocles, raking the Greek hero
over the coals for good measure for failing to outwit his domestic enemies
and making clear that Alcibiades is no match even for this damaged icon. At
the same time, Socrates is made to confess his love for Alcibiades and offers
to explain his motives for attempting to befriend him (11c): 21
“Because of the love that I truly feel for Alcibiades, I came to suffer an experience no
different from that of the Maenads. Indeed, when the Maenads become full of the god,
they are able to draw milk and honey from wells from which others cannot even draw
water. So it is with me, although I have no wisdom that I can teach and so benefit the man,
nevertheless I imagined that I could make him better through associating with him, on
account of my love.”
Here we see that Aeschines represents Socrates as explaining his motives for
associating with Alcibiades as διὰ τὸ ἐρᾶν βελτίω ποιῆσαι; that is, Socrates
wished to make him better on account of love for him. 22 The Aeschines
fragment suggests that Socratic eros is primarily other-regarding. Aeschines’
Socrates uses the language of “benefit” (ὠφελήσαιμ’), a word that is related
to a complex of ideas in Plato’s writings as well as among the Stoics, to the
effect that virtue entails benefiting or doing good to others. For example, for
Chrysippus it is a truism that “virtue benefits” (ἡ ἀρετὴ ὠφελεῖ, frag. 240,
11; 238, 15). Moreover, the good as such benefits and insofar as it is good,
benefits impartially (Chrysipp. frag. 1116 line 3 = Clem. Alex. Paedag. 1.8
p. 138 Pott.):
The beneficial is entirely superior to what is not beneficial. But nothing is better than the
good. Therefore the good benefits. It is agreed that god is good. Therefore god benefits.
But the good, insofar as it is good, does nothing other than benefit. Therefore god benefits
all things.
Other Socratic writers home in on the beneficence of Socrates, as for example

Xenophon, whose dialogues suggest that Socratic eros is an art of benevolent
or even altruistic seduction, in which Socrates panders to the desires of his
interlocutors for virtue (Mem. 1.2.64): 23
How therefore could [Socrates] be liable to the charge? He who, instead of failing to honor
19. SSR frags. 43–54. See Giannantoni 1990, 2: 609–10 and Denyer 2001, 1–29. Kahn (1990, 20) explores
the idea that Plato’s treatment of Alcibiades and the eros theme is a response to Aeschines’ earlier portrayal.
If Aeschines’ dialogue was published before Plato’s Symposium (and certainly before the First Alcibiades,
whether or not that dialogue is Platonic) then Plato does not even inaugurate this primal scene, but is already
under the influence of a narrative tradition that informs his own shaping of the material.
20. Young men destined for ruin: Charmides, Polemarchus, Alcibiades; older men destined for ruin:
Nicias, Cephalus.
21. SSR VIa frag. 53; Dittmar 11c.
22. Kahn (1996, 21) translates διὰ τὸ ἐρᾶν βελτίω ποιῆσαι as “through the power of love,” that is, in con-
trast to the knowledge that Socrates lacks.
23. On this point, I am indebted to the work of Rynearson 2008.

the gods, as was charged in the indictment, was most conspicuous of all in worshipping
the gods? And instead of corrupting the youth, as the accuser charged against him, if any
of his companions had base desires, he was conspicuous in putting a stop to these and in
turning them toward desire for the finest and most noble virtue, by which cities and house-
holds flourish. (Trans. Marchant)
In Aeschines’ dialogue, Socrates compels “Alcibiades to weep, laying his head

on his lap in despair” (frag. 9) owing to his lack of virtue. Both the A
eschines
passage and the Xenophon passage associate Socrates with a kind of eros or
love by means of which Socrates attempts to benefit his companions, instilling
in them the desire for virtue (and not necessarily by making them virtuous).
In the case of the Aeschines fragment, Socrates realizes that he on his own is
unable to help Alcibiades. He actually requires divine assistance (frag. 11):
“If I thought that it was by some art that I was able to benefit him, I would find myself
guilty of great folly. But in fact I thought that it was by divine dispensation that this was
given to me in the case of Alcibiades.” 24
As it is, Socrates invokes the love that he feels for Alcibiades: eros alone
comes to his aid. In this confession, we come as close as possible to a view of
the philosopher who, far from signally failing in his love for other men owing
to his egregious intellect, actually operates through reliance on his altruistic
love, owing to his faulty knowledge. These same ingredients—benevolence,
the language of affect, familiarity, and other-directed concern more gener-
ally—feature in Plato’s portrait of Socrates in the Apology.
In the Apology Socrates says that he approaches each citizen “like a father
or elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue” (31b), and that in doing so,
he has had to neglect all of his own affairs (emautou, literally everything “that
belongs to myself”). In that same dialogue Socrates tells the Athenians, “men
of Athens, I welcome you and I love you” (᾽Εγὼ ὑμᾶς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι,
ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, Ap. 29d3). What does this vocabulary of friendship,
affection, and care tell us about Socratic eudaimonism or about how Plato
and other Socratics intended to represent the motivations of Socrates? One
of the central claims in the account of Socratic eudaimonism often advanced
is that it is either irrational or psychologically impossible to act for the sake
of another, independently of any self-reflexive benefits that such other con-
cern might provide the agent herself. Recall that this claim is based on the
prudential principle that all desire is for the good, and its deployment in the
elenctic dialogues. Yet for any interpreter, even one who does not dispute the
doctrinal integrity of the proposition that all desire is for the good, the ques-
tion of whose good is at stake is still an issue. Plato ascribes motivations to
Socrates that fall outside of the compass of egoistic eudaimonism, by showing
Socrates as forming ties of friendship and love that involve generosity and the
sharing of another’s ends.
Plato goes out of his way to call attention to the exemplary figure of Socrates
as one who benefited the city. But what is remarkable is the extent to which
this formulation was already a part of the Socratic persona even in what is
24. Trans. Kahn (1994, 91).

possibly a pre-Platonic (and certainly an extra-Platonic) context. In fact, the

Aeschines fragment suggests that eros itself is a theia moira, a dispensation
from the gods that brings about the desire to benefit. 25 This formula is also
recognizably echoed in the early Stoic discussion of eros. One of Zeno’s
definitions of eros, as reported by Athenodorus (SVF I 263), τὸν ἔρωτα θεὸν
εἶναι, συνεργὸν ὑπάρχοντα πρὸς τὴν τῆς πόλεως σωτηρίαν, can be translated
as “eros is a divine partner for the purpose of saving the city.” This Zenonian
definition resembles a later formulation, preserved as an Academic definition
of eros, as “service to the gods for the care and salvation of the youth.” 26 Both
formulae have deeply Socratic overtones. In particular, the phrase “service
of the gods and care of the youth” in Polemo’s formula and the function of
eros as partnering with god for the salvation of the city in Zeno’s formula
recall the Apology’s association with Apollo and the altruistic motivations that
Socrates claims for himself there. But if so, then eros, the quintessentially
selfish emotion on the standard reading of the Socratic dialogues, will turn out
to be supremely altruistic. If all desire is for the good (Symp. 206a1–2), then
we can consistently interpret Socratic eros to allow that, at least sometimes,
desire is not strictly for the agent’s good alone, but that it may and perhaps
even primarily includes desire for the other’s good for his own sake. 27
Both the Aeschines fragment and the Socratic associations of the Stoic
formula suggest that according to certain important Socratic traditions it is
abnormal to attribute egoistic eudaimonism to Socrates. In other words, we
can fairly easily see via reference to this material that egoism is not consistent
with what some of the ancients saw as the core of Socratism. 28 The verb that
Plato has Socrates use when he addresses all of his fellow citizens, Ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς,
ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ (“men of Athens, I welcome you,”
Ap. 29d3), is etymologically related to a Stoic technical term, the noun aspas-
mos. It is one of the species of eupatheiai, states of mind associated with the
sage, which the Stoics delineate in contrast to the irrational and erroneously
generated emotions of ordinary people (fools). Under the genus of joy (chara
as opposed to the emotion hêdonê, or delight) come a number of species terms
25. Aeschines frag. 11.

26. Alesse 2000, 85, quoting frag. 113 Gigante (Plutarch ad Princip. Inerudit. 780d) and SVF 1 263.
27. The story of Alcibiades in the Symposium and its retelling in Alcibiades 1 is a cautionary tale precisely
because Socrates is made to see in the young Alcibiades such a dangerous combination of innate talent and
overweening ambition. One could argue that Socrates’ approach to Alcibiades is owing not to any special at-
tractiveness that Alcibiades presents, but on the contrary, owing to his menacing lack of virtue, restraint, and,
one might say, philosophical potential. In keeping, then, with the suggestions of the Stoic definition of eros,
Socrates will be using a divine power as a device on behalf of the salvation of the city.
28. Indeed the Plutarch passage is taken as evidence of the Socratic tendency of Polemo. Eros, construed
as a Stoic topic, is subject to two treatments. One is as a species of rational wish, the other is as a species of
emotional desire: “There are two senses in which one may speak of the ‘erotic person’; one in reference to
virtue, as one quality of the righteous person, and one in reference to vice, as if blaming someone for love
madness” (Stobaeus 2.75b9, quoted by Graver 2007, 185). Graver also quotes D.L. 7.113: “love is a desire
but not among the virtuous.” Might we not see in this dualistic approach an antecedent of the Socratic func-
tion of eros, i.e., one species, a needy desire for the good one lacks, the other, a state of eunoia or friendly
mindedness toward another? If, as seems clear, no ancient thinker ever recognized anything like a doctrine of
egoistic eudaimonism in the teachings of Socrates, whether one construes Plato’s Socrates as historical, partly
historical, or largely fictional, and whether or not there are any reliable reflections of Socrates’ teaching in the
various Socratic traditions, then it is of interest to ask how at least some ancient thinkers, Plato included, did
explain the activity of Socrates.

including eunoia, eumeneia, and aspasmos, 29 all of which involve the primary
meaning of goodwill or wishing well attended by the desire to benefit the
object of one’s boulêsis. The last term, aspasmos, is defined as “constantly
renewed goodwill.” It would not be too much to connect this nexus of ideas
with Socrates’ activity in the Apology, with his constant goodwill or wishing
persons well for their own sakes, and so with Socrates’ comportment toward
the Athenians as a whole.
At the very least, the evidence of Plato’s Apology shows that it is coun-
terintuitive to interpret the ethical exhortations of Socrates as motivated by
his pursuit of his own happiness. The Apology contains a number of state-
ments that appear to be primarily other-regarding. For example, the Athenians
require that Socrates suggest a counterproposal in exchange for his capital
sentence, whereupon Socrates insists that what he ought to have from the
state is a reward, since he has spent his life “conferring upon each citizen in-
dividually what [he] regard[s] as the greatest benefit” (36c3–4). Again, in the
Apology, Socrates describes his philosophical activity in the following way:
“the Olympian victor makes you think yourself happy; I make you be happy”
(36e9). But if Socrates says that what he is doing is making others happy, then
how can we construe his version of eudaimonism as egostic? What motivates
this Socratic activity? Does Socrates pursue the well-being of his community
and bestow upon it “the greatest benefit” in pursuit of his own happiness? In
practicing what he calls a service to the god, does Socrates operate within the
constraints of psychological egoism, according to which it is impossible for
him to seek other than what is in his interest? In order to answer this question,
we need to take into account several kinds of evidence. In the first place, we
can notice what kinds of reasons Socrates invokes as an explanation for his
activity. If there are multiple reasons, then we can try to sort out which of
these has priority. Second, we can ask if Socrates appeals to the principle of
eudaimonism to explain his philosophical activity.
As Plato has Socrates tell the story at 20e6–23c1, Socrates undertakes his
lifetime of elenctic examination as a form of latreia, of service to Apollo
(23c1). In this same passage, Socrates tells us that as a result of his service,
he is unable to undertake any action on his own behalf (πρᾶξαί μοι σχολὴ
γέγονεν ἄξιον λόγου οὔτε τῶν οἰκείων). Yet why did Socrates initially enter
into this service? Socrates, again as Plato tells the story, is puzzled about the
meaning of an oracle. He recognizes that Apollo cannot be lying when he
claims that “no one” is wiser than Socrates; he uses the phrase, “it is not law-
ful.” The Greek phrase here (οὐ γὰρ θέμις, 21b6) refers to matters of religious
29. Graver 2007, 58–59 and n. 48. Graver cites D.L. 7.116 for the list of eupathê. For definitions, we must
turn to a much later source: [Andronicus] On Emotions 6 (SVF 3.432).
Εὔνοια· εὐμένεια· ἀσπασμός· <ἀγάπησις>
αʹ Εὔνοια μὲν οὖν ἐστι βούλησις ἀγαθῶν <ἑτέρῳ> αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν
ἐκείνου. βʹ Εὐμένεια δὲ εὔνοια ἐπίμονος. γʹ Ἀσπασμὸς δὲ ἀδιάστατος.
Goodwill, good intention, welcoming, love
a. Goodwill is the desire for good things for another person on account of that person himself.
b. Good intention is abiding goodwill.
c. Welcoming is steadfast goodwill.

propriety. The suggestion is that Socrates embarks on his activity to fulfill a

duty, or in recognition of an obligation for which there is divine sanction.
Later in the speech, Socrates seems to recognize the service he renders to
Apollo as a kind of order, station, or post: “Wherever one takes up his post in
the belief that it is better or is assigned a post by a superior” (οὗ ἄν τις ἑαυτὸν
τάξῃ ἡγησάμενος βέλτιστον εἶναι ἢ ὑπ’ ἄρχοντος ταχθῇ, 28d7). In this later
passage, Socrates gives two possible motivations for his continued practice
of philosophy. Either he judges it best or else he is obeying the orders of a
superior. This reason does not necessarily take into account the benefit that
would accrue to Socrates personally. He believes it to be best, but this best
does not have to have self-reflexive properties. It may or it may not. To judge
that by “best,” Socrates means here, “what is best for himself,” is to prejudge
the issue of Socratic egoism; only if we presumptively import an egoistic
reading into the text do we have reason to regard this account as supporting
the thesis of Socratic egoism.
One other passage is relevant to this discussion of Socrates’ motivations in
the Apology. At 25d9–e9, in the course of his cross-examination of Meletus,
Socrates recognizes the eudaimonistic appeal that benefiting one’s neighbors
offers to the agent who bestows such benefit:
Are you so much wiser at your age than I am at mine that you understand that wicked
people always do harm to their closest neighbors while good people do them good, but I
have reached such a pitch of ignorance that I do not realize this, namely that if I make one
of my associates wicked I run the risk of being harmed by him so that I do such a great evil
deliberately, as you say? (Trans. Grube)
Proponents of Socratic egoism might wish to cite this text in support of their
position, that Socrates recognizes the primacy of self-regarding reasons. We
have at least a case of overdetermination, where Plato offers us an account
of Socrates that appeals to several considerations: the latreia that Socrates
undertakes; the fact that Socrates considers his philosophical activity best;
and Socrates’ awareness of the eudaimonistic structure of human motivation
generally.
According to common sense, Socrates suggests, to harm others increases
the probability that one will in turn be harmed by them; hence it is unlikely
that he would harm fellow citizens, for to do so would be rash. Yet he says this
in admonition to the rash Meletus, whom he accuses of being severely derelict
in undertaking the prosecution of Socrates in the first place. Since, however,
Socrates believes that he has led a good life, he knows that in fact he cannot
be harmed by his fellow citizens, regardless of what they actually succeed in
doing to him: “Neither Meletus nor Anytus can harm me—it would not be
possible—since I don’t think it is permitted for a better man to be harmed by
a lesser one” (29c7–d1). Socrates does not seriously entertain the possibility
that his fellow citizens might harm him: “a good man cannot be harmed either
in life or death” (Ap. 41d1). 30
30. Contra Vlastos 1991; for Vlastos, virtue is sufficient for happiness but external goods can still contrib-
ute to it. Cf. Irwin 1995 section 40 on the relationship of external goods to happiness. On the Hellenistic use of

To conclude this investigation of Socratic motivation in the Apology, we

turn to 33a1. Here Socrates tells us the first and foremost consideration for
him in deliberation concerning any action:
“a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he
ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is committing an action that is right
or wrong, acting the part of a good or a bad man.”
The virtuous person asks, is the action just or not? 31 It may or may not turn
out to be the case that in performing such actions, the agent will thereby be
depriving herself of a good, such as life itself, or, alternatively, enhancing
her life by accruing the virtue of justice. Nevertheless, these eudaimonist
considerations do not orient the argument.
Primarily Socrates’ exhortations to virtue in the Apology amount to advice
to his fellow citizens to care for their souls, in order to make them as virtuous
as possible (Ap. 29e–30b2; cf. also 38a):
“For this is what the god commands me to do, and I am aware of no greater good to have
befallen you in this city than my service to the god. For I do nothing other than to go
around and persuade you, both young and old, to attend neither to your bodies nor to your
wealth, prior to, or with the same attention that you give to making sure that your soul may
be the best possible.”
In the Apology, Socrates makes the case that he cares for souls of his fellow
citizens on two grounds: first, his work is a service to the divine. Second, he
feels affection for his fellow citizens (ἀσπάζομαι, 29d3) and acts toward them
in the capacity of a father or older brother (31b4). He also makes it clear that
he attends to the souls of his fellow citizens precisely to do them good: “I
am aware of no greater good to befall you in this city than my service to the
god” (30a6). According to the narrative that Plato constructs in the Apology,
Socrates offers his philosophical activity on behalf of his fellow citizens,
and explicitly denies that his motivation involves any self-interest: “I am far
from offering a defense for my own sake, as one might assume, but rather, I
am defending myself for your sakes, lest you go astray in the god’s gift by
condemning me” (Ap. 30d6).
Part 2: The Dialectics of Happiness

What then are we to make of the frequent appearance of the prudential prin-
ciple, the thesis that everyone wishes to be happy? Does this principle have
Socrates as a model for indifference to external goods, self-reliance, or karteria, see Gill (2006, 89): “One of
the most prominent aspects of the presentation of the figure of Socrates in fourth-century Socratic literature is
his self-control as regards emotions and desires and his imperviousness to physical hardship and dangers. Xen-
ophon’s comment is typical: ‘Socrates was the most self-controlled of all men over sex and bodily appetite, the
most resilient in relations to winter and summer and all exertions, and so trained for needing moderate amounts
that he was satisfied when he had only little.’”
Different Socratic writers, as it seems from our surviving sources, conceive this feature in rather different
ways. In Phaedo’s Zopyrus, this trait is presented as the result of deliberate self-control exercised on an inborn
nature prone to sensuality. In Antisthenes, the ideal character state, exemplified by Socrates is that of tough-
ness and self-mastery as regards emotions and desires. Although Stoic writers draw on a variety of sources in
their picture of Socrates’ character, particularly Xenophon, Plato’s depictions have a special importance for
Stoicism.
31. Cf. Weiss 2006, 6–7; cf. also Ap. 32aa6; Crito 48d1; Gorg. 522b9–c1, listed there by Weiss.

the force of doctrine? If Socrates does endorse the principle, does he also
endorse the egoism that, as we have seen, modern commentators impute to
Socratic ethics? In this section, I will try to show that insofar as Socrates
advances the prudential principle in dialectical contexts, he does not reveal his
own commitment to this principle, nor does he embrace the egoistic implica-
tions of this principle, if it is one.
A fundamental consideration involves the extent to which Socrates may or
may not be seen as someone with positive psychological or ethical doctrines.
In general, we can say that when Socrates is asking about the beliefs of his
interlocutors, he is asking a series of questions and not making a series of di-
dactic statements. Moreover, Socrates often talks to interlocutors who already
possess various dispositions or intellectual commitments that can be linked
to radical teachings about human nature advanced by Sophists. 32 These dia-
logues include most obviously the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Hippias major,
but other dialogues also feature views associated with Sophistic writers, as for
example Critias in the Charmides, Nicias in the Laches (to the extent that he
admits the influence of Damon [200b4]), and Meno, who invokes the author-
ity of Gorgias at Meno 71c5 and signals agreement with Gorgias at 71d3.
Socrates comes onto center stage in the Apology offering a contrast to the
teachings of the Sophists, a group of people who rely more or less on cer-
tain brute, empirically observable “truths” about human nature and its social
manifestations. Socrates delivers his riposte to any who would assimilate him
to these teachers, and rather than pronouncing some ultimate psychological
truth, Socrates denies that he has any such doctrine to purvey (Ap. d2–8):
The likelihood is that neither one of us knows anything fine or worthy, but this fellow
thinks that he does have knowledge of this kind, whereas I, just as I really do not have any
knowledge, neither do I imagine that I do. And it is precisely here that I am apparently in
some small respect wiser, that is, that I don’t think that I know what I in fact do not know.
What kind of knowledge is it that Socrates denies having? He says that he

doesn’t know anything καλὸν κἀγαθόν (“fine and noble”), a collocation that is
shorthand for the idea of an ethical criterion; Socrates denies that he possesses
any moral knowledge. This statement on the part of Socrates, to the effect
that he actually has not formulated a program of ethics, raises the question of
how he can also be a promoter of egoistic eudaimonism, particularly insofar
as this position might be purveyed as dogmatic. In what follows we shall
look at the prudential maxim—the desire that everyone has to be happy—and
see that Socrates deploys it in the context of arguments that seek specifically
to show the disadvantages of wrongdoing to the agent. But by keeping a
paradigmatic view of Socratic beneficence in mind, it will be easier to argue
that this dialectical use of the prudential principle is not enough in and of
itself to prove or even make likely that Socrates ought to be associated with
egoism—the idea that only self-regarding reasons count as rational. Rather,
it might at the very least become plausible that Socrates’ dialectical reliance
32. See Weiss (2006, passim) for an interpretation of passages in which it is the Sophists, not Socrates,
who offer doctrinal pictures of human nature: Socrates uses their theses against them without thereby commit-
ting himself to any psychological theories, other than those entailed by common sense.

on the prudential principle is actually part of his larger purpose, the care for
the soul that he undertakes in service to the god and on behalf of all human
beings, citizens and non-citizens alike. In what follows I discuss three of the
dialogues cited in note four above (Gorgias, Euthydemus, Protagoras), in
which the prudential principle features prominently and show that at the very
least we ought to exercise caution before asserting that they provide evidence
of a Socratic doctrine of egoistic eudaimonism. I leave the Meno, a fourth
text, for the conclusion of the paper.
At Protagoras 354e6, Socrates indicates that the phenomenon of what “the
many” call “being less than pleasures” is something whose nature is difficult
to fathom. In fact, once the proper substitutions for the terms pleasure and
pain are made, and people use two terms instead of four, that is, “good” for
pleasure and “bad” for pain (355c6), it will turn out that the very structure
of akrasia is incoherent: how can a person be bested by the good, so that,
as a result, she fails to do good? Thus incontinence, knowingly doing what
is worse owing to being overcome by pleasure, is incoherent. In fact, people
who claim to be mastered by pleasure and ignoring what they know to be bet-
ter, are actually rationally choosing what they think is a greater good (355d2).
Therefore, akrasia turns out to be continence, which is nonsense.
In the Protagoras, calculation concerning the quantity of pleasure at stake
is a form of knowledge; by preferring or choosing a smaller amount of plea-
sure over a greater amount, the mistake one makes is an intellectual error
and not a failing to control oneself or one’s passions, owing to the agent’s
not possessing the art that governs the “power of appearance” (356d3). Plato
later identifies this techne as an epistêmê, a species of knowledge: ἆρ’ ἂν οὐκ
ἐπιστήμη; καὶ ἆρ’ ἂν οὐ μετρητική τις, ἐπειδήπερ ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ ἐνδείας
ἐστὶν ἡ τέχνη (“So then, this purported art of calculation controls the power
of appearance and arrives at a true assessment of whether or not an action will
result in greater or less pleasure,” 357a1).
We’ll return later to the strange dialectical procedure as the result of which
Socrates finds himself defending hedonism against the views of “the many,”
who accept akrasia. The argument is consistent with other expressions of
Socratic intellectualism, insofar as it argues that any agent, whenever she acts,
acts on a belief that the act will result in more or less of something. Whatever
the term we insert, the point, I take it, is that Socrates thinks that whenever we
act, we act according to a belief that corresponds to a motivationally relevant
object; we go for what we want, and we think that doing a certain act will
yield this “what we want.” Most commentators would insert “eudaimonia”
into the blank, and so this passage is used as evidence for the putative doctrine
of Socratic egoism. 33 For example, Reshotko, in her book, Socratic Ethics,
uses this passage of the Protogoras to infer a doctrine of psychological ego-
ism. She writes:
33. This discussion of the Protagoras’ hedonism in terms of the structure of a broader Socratic intellec-
tualism is owing to Evans 2010. On the moral psychology of Socrates in the Protagoras, see Brickhouse and
Smith 2010, 71.

In the Protagoras, Socrates describes all deliberation concerning voluntary action as a

cost/benefit analysis concerning which alternative will bring about the most pleasure for
the agent in the long run. There, Socrates is so bold as to argue that agents never choose to
do something other than what they think will bring them the most pleasure. 34
Now is what Socrates says in the Protagoras to be understood as part of

a formulation of an eogistic Socratic ethics? Not necessarily. When we look
closely at the language of the Protagoras, we notice that Socrates employs
the word phusis in framing the prudential paradox: “To go after what one
believes to be bad, instead of the good, is not, it seems, in human nature. . . .”
It will be useful to pause here and ask why Socrates mentions “human nature”
when replying to Protagoras. In our dialogue, the Sophist Hippias has been
pontificating very generally on the subject of nature. Hippias relies on his
claim to understand nature as a basis for the Sophistic teaching that is on dis-
play for purchase by the young men of Athens. Later in the dialogue Hippias
intervenes in the quarrel between Protagoras and Socrates, offering to advise
them on the basis of what nature prescribes (337c5–d5):
After him the wise Hippias spoke up. Gentlemen, he said, I count you all my kinsmen and
family and fellow citizens—by nature, not convention. By nature like is kind to like, but
custom, the tyrant of mankind, does much violence to nature. For us then who understand
the nature of things, who are the intellectual leaders of Greece . . . (Trans. Guthrie)
Hippias uses the word “nature” (phusis) three times in this short speech.
Clearly then, the Sophists in this dialogue have definite views about human
nature: about the nature of the psychê as it is in itself and as it is shaped by
convention, and about social order as a whole. Hippias suggests that the entire
company hold definite views about these matters and are justified in doing so:
τὴν μὲν φύσιν τῶν πραγμάτων εἰδέναι. They have actual knowledge, and it is
this knowledge that gives them the license to dispense ethical teaching above
all. We have seen already that Socrates emphatically denies having any moral
knowledge or that he is licensed to teach. In our dialogue, Socrates rather
suggests that such knowledge is potentially fatal to the one who possesses it,
or even to anyone who comes into contact with it.
How is it then that before our passage, at Protagoras 358c6–d4, Socrates
apparently makes a claim about human nature that, on the surface at least,
definitely vests human beings with an egoistic psychology?
“Therefore, is it not the case,” I said, “that no one advances toward bad things voluntarily,
or toward what he imagines as bad? To go after what one believes to be bad, instead of the
good, is not, it seems, in human nature and when one is compelled to choose between two
evils, no one will choose the greater when he might choose the less.”
This use of the word “nature” is meant to echo the views, teachings, and pre-
tensions of the Sophists and above all Protagoras, whose claims to intellectual
leadership on the basis of an understanding of human nature is what allows
him to sell his goods at or indeed above market price.
Socrates loosely talks about the views of “most people.” The many in
the Protagoras believe that owing to being overcome by pleasure, people
34. Reshotko 2006, 57.

choose what is either consequentially or intrinsically bad. By converting the

term “pleasure” to “good,” Socrates shows that this description is impos-
sible: people can’t choose the bad owing to being overcome by the good.
So Socrates stakes his claim on the refutation of a putative folk psychology:
in the Protagoras, “people” believe that there is a direct link from desiring
subject to object, which is what they call being mastered by pleasure. Socrates
interposes the role of belief to show that the subject is not merely a desiring
subject, but rather a subject that (always) makes a doxastic calculation, whose
aim is to assess the presence or absence of the relevant object. 35
Thus we must notice that there are two dialectical positions at stake: that
of the self-proclaimed intellectual leaders who hold definite views about hu-
man nature, and that of the contemptible “many,” which Socrates deploys as
a strawman to entrap Protagoras (Prt. 358a1–5):
“this is how we would have answered the many. Now, I ask you, Hippias and Prodicus, as
well as Protagoras—this is your conversation also, --to say whether you think what I say is
true or false?” They all thought that what I said was marvelously true. 36
Socrates operates in stealth, behind the scenes of the doctrinal formulation,

coaxing his interlocutor, Protagoras, into the open, attempting to remove his
mask. He therefore plays on the love of display, the performative virtuosity,
and blinding narcissism of Protagoras. Protagoras is fundamentally conflicted
about his own credentials: his philosophy relies on the claim (evidenced in the
Great Myth) that justice and shame are universally distributed to all citizens
(“‘To all,’ said Zeus, ‘and let all have a share,’” 321d2) and yet his own
expertise, superior to the attainments of the many, is on offer. Socrates am-
bushes Protagoras into a contradiction by appealing to this underlying inse-
curity. The entire “doctrine” of intellectual hedonism in this passage is sold
to the company of Sophists, and to Protagoras in particular, as a consequence
of their need to distinguish what they endorse from the views of the many.
Socrates shows us how Protagoras’ commitments lie in both directions: he
has to deny that there is anything like an elite knowledge of virtue, but he
has to separate himself from the conventions that, by definition, are matters
of common knowledge. As he says to Socrates, “Why should we care what
ordinary people think?” (353a8). By contrast to the views of the many, the
claim to having knowledge about phusis is a conceit that Sophists advance;
the Socratic point about human nature is in some way slanted to gain credence
with this particular audience.
The narrative frame, which stages the entire discourse as a nekuia, will
perhaps put the discussion of pleasure in the Protagoras into another con-
text. In the Protagoras, Socrates and Hippocrates, the latter functioning as
psychopomp (his staff makes us think of Hermes at 310a), make their way to
Hades, that is, to Callias’ house, where Protagoras is temporarily in residence,
having much difficulty in persuading the doorkeeper to let them in. There they
behold Protagoras, in procession with a train of devotees “in the manner of
35. Again, Reshotko 2006, 80.

36. Trans. Lombardo and Bell, in Cooper 1997.

Orpheus, attracting them with his voice,” among the otherworldly spectacles.
Socrates marks the mission as an underworld expedition with the Homeric
exclamation, “my eyes beheld Tantalus” (Od. 11.582). Plato invokes Tantalus
here before the proceedings begin, precisely because the company will engage
in a discussion about the place of pleasure in the good life, and will undertake
the difficult measurements involved in a hedonic calculus. The allusion to
Tantalus is Plato’s way of signaling that this attempt must ultimately fail,
and that pleasure cannot satisfy us or make us happy, no matter how much or
little we have, and will leave us in the state of Tantalus, who was unable to
satisfy his hunger. This Homeric tag then once more vitiates any attempt to
treat Socrates’ hedonic calculus here as a serious ethical program.
Conversely, in the Phaedo Socrates attempts to show that temperance has
an incoherent structure: what people call moderation actually amounts to a
form of incontinence (68e2). People exercise self-control in order to obtain
greater pleasures. They are actually overcome or mastered by those pleasures
(68e8) that they are afraid of losing, and that is why they refrain from other
pleasures. Therefore, continence or self-control is actually akrasia, which is
nonsense. My point here is that we need to exercise caution when ascribing a
doctrinal position to Socrates. By contrasting the Protagoras with the Phaedo,
we learn that when a person devotes herself to obtaining the greatest amount
of pleasure, this both does and does not constitute the condition of being ruled
by pleasures, the condition of akrasia. What are we to make of these two
instances where Socrates employs substitutions in order to demonstrate the
incoherence of two phenomena, exercising self-control and failing to exercise
self-control? How can they both be impossible? And how, in both of these
cases, do we reconcile the passages with each other? It seems unlikely that
one and the same person could consistently hold both analyses to be true:
what then does this inconsistency tell us about the nature of Socratic dialectic?
We come now to another text frequently taken to offer or to adumbrate the
doctrine of egoistic eudaimonism. Obviously the literature on the Gorgias
is vast and in the space of a brief article, it will be impossible to do this
dialogue justice. Nonetheless, the following remarks are designed to impugn
the idea that egoism receives a straightforward, dogmatic endorsement in
this dialogue. At Gorgias 475e4–6, Socrates uses the prudential principle to
demonstrate to Polus, an accomplished acolyte of Gorgias, that killing with
impunity, depriving of property, and other depredations for the sake of gain do
not, after all, empower the person who does them, if this person does not also
achieve or attain what he wants by means of them. We should not lose sight
of the fact that Socrates’ interlocutor is someone who has been convinced that
selfish egoism, the pursuit of desire for its own sake, and the fulfillment of
one’s own desires, all contribute to a satisfactory life. When Socrates argues
with this person, he starts from the interlocutor’s position of extreme egoism
and is attempting to steer him away from the narrow pursuit of self-interest.
At this juncture, Socrates offers an argument that relies on the appeal to eudai-
monist considerations. In this case, Polus ought to care more for his soul than
for any advancement that he thinks will accrue to him through the practice of
injustice. Does this attempt to persuade Polus that injustice will not bring him

the happiness he imagines, and further, to dismantle Polus’ bloated claims for
the power that rhetoric brings to its practioner, by diminishing Polus’ reputa-
tion in the eyes of the company, entail that Socrates also endorses a position
of egoistic eudaimonism?
The question is obviously of central importance, as commentators assert that
Socrates’ theory of action as articulated here entails that he endorses as true a
form of psychological realism. People act in order to secure their actual, and
not merely their doxastic or putative good. For example, Penner suggests that
“we do in fact aim at our real good, and at our real happiness.” 37 Presumably
Penner and others think that we aim at our real good because Socrates gets
Polus to agree that “we pursue the intermediate for the sake of the good.”
Yet Socrates and Polus are not in agreement about the nature of the good
that each would pursue. Socrates needs to find a dialectical hook, as it were,
for his examination of Polus and so he asks, “By ‘good’ you mean technical
expertise, 38 and health and wealth and the like?” (467e4). Polus agrees that
these are what he thinks of as “good”: Polus answers with a quintessentially
egoistic response, using merely the pronoun “I” (Ἔγωγε 467e6) to signal that
this is what he wants. However, in the context of this same dialogue, Socrates
doesn’t consider any of those things goods. At Gorgias 470e7, Socrates ap-
pears committed to the view that the only and sole criterion for determining
whether or not something is admirable is whether or not it is just. Just and
admirable are identical terms; unjust and bad are identical terms: “the admi-
rable and good person, man or woman, is happy, but the one who is unjust
and wicked is miserable” (470e7). 39 So when Polus agrees to the dialectical
stipulation, “everyone wants the good,” what he has in mind probably consists
in the list that Socrates asks Polus to agree to: everyone wants health, wealth,
and technical expertise. But we have just seen that Socrates makes clear that
he does not pursue or want these things. Thus if 467 is taken as evidence of
Socratic egoism, the interpreter must face the difficulty that by “good” Socrates
stipulates goods that he, at any rate, rejects later in the same passage. How
consequential, then, can this dialectical assertion be? Again, and on the con-
trary, Socrates vouches for the view that it is worse to commit injustice than
to receive it as his own: “I and you and everyone else” (474b4).
Coming now to the Euthydemus, we examine the dialectical context in
which Socrates discusses the pursuit of happiness. To be sure, there is no
denying that at Euthydemus 288d9–291d3, Socrates asks about an art or craft
of happiness “that will make him who obtains it happy,” whose structure
Socrates elucidates on the analogy of productive sciences, such as general-
ship and architecture: “we got to the kingly art and were giving it a thorough
inspection to see whether it might be the one which both provided and created
happiness” (291b5). Texts such as this one are frequently taken to provide
37. Penner 2005, 181.

38. I translate sophia here as “technical expertise” owing to its proximity with other goods that Polus aims
at. But one could also translate the word as “wisdom,” understanding of course that both Polus and Gorgias
consider rhetoric itself to be a kind of sophia.
39. Trans. Zeyl, in Cooper and Hutchinson 1997.

evidence that Socrates regards virtue, for which the “kingly art” stands in, as
instrumental to the obtaining of the genuine good, happiness. 40
When Penner and Rowe explain the deployment of the prudential principle
in the Socratic dialogues, they suggest that (for Socrates) whenever an agent
acts, she always acts with the view to maximizing benefit. The quote from
the Euthydemus cited at the beginning of this article (see n. 4, above) fits with
this picture of Socratic agency (278e3–279a1):
[Socrates speaking] “Do we human beings all wish to do well? Or perhaps this question
is one of those that I just now feared was ridiculous? For it is foolish, no doubt, even to
ask such things. What human being does not want to do well?” “Not a single one,” said
Cleinias.
The question then becomes, what is it to seek one’s good. The Euthydemus
passage is designed to help us examine this question (281d2–e5):
[Socrates speaking] “In sum, I said, it looks like this, Cleinias: as for all the things which
at first we said are good, our argument concerning them is not this—that they are by nature
good in themselves. Rather this appears to be how things stand; that if ignorance leads
them, they are greater bads than their opposites, to the extent that they are more able to
serve what leads, it being bad, while if intelligence and wisdom lead, they are greater
goods, but in themselves neither of them is worth anything. What then is the consequence
of what has been said? Is it anything other than that of all the other things, none is either
good or bad, but as to these two things, wisdom is good, ignorance bad?”—He agreed.
For Penner and Rowe this passage from the Euthydemus can be parsed to read,
“wisdom is the only thing good in itself as a means to happiness.” Penner and
Rowe believe that although Socrates says that wisdom is the only thing good
in itself, what the argument suggests is that wisdom is the only thing that “is
always a means to happiness.” 41
It is striking that Penner and Rowe place the eudaimonist structure of So-
cratic ethics on the foundation of a final good (that which is good in itself)
and yet treat wisdom, which Socrates says is good in itself, as a means, not as
an end. The question then becomes, what can maximal benefit consist in, once
we recognize that all states of affairs in the world are in themselves neither
40. Such instrumentalist interpretations of Socratic ethics are bolstered by the endorsement of Aristotle,
who no doubt has this kind of passage in mind when he criticizes Socrates in Eth. Eud. 1216b2–9: “Socrates
the elder thought that the end of life was knowledge of virtue, and he used to seek for the definition of justice,
courage, and each of the parts of virtue, and this was a reasonable approach, since he thought that all virtues
were sciences.” Aristotle thinks that Socrates’ conception of virtue is misguided. Conceived as a craft, virtue is
not happiness itself; instead happiness is its product. By contrast, according to Aristotle and contra his under-
standing of Socrates, virtue ought not to be valued because it produces something outside of itself (Eth. Nic.
1140b3–7). Virtue is concerned with actions that are ends in themselves. As Aristotle puts it, “good action is
itself an end.” Not so for Socrates, as Aristotle tells the story. Socrates’ conception of virtue, then, as a science
of happiness, assigns virtue an instrumental value; it is a means to obtain something else, something truly valu-
able, namely, happiness. Aristotle’s criticisms of the craft analogy, together with his insistence on Socrates’
endorsement of the analogy, are at the root of modern readings that interpret virtue as having an instrumental
value in the Socratic dialogues.
41. Penner and Rowe 2005, citing Euthyd. 266e5a and 267e7. To clarify their view, it seems that for Penner
and Rowe, things other than wisdom have “restricted” evaluations; that is, they are not inherently good or bad
but only so at a given moment, or for some people, or in some way. By contrast, wisdom is the object of an
“uncompromising evaluation,” in the sense that it is intrinsically good, for all people, something that everyone
will be better off having more of. I borrow this terminology from Graver (2007, 46–47).

good nor bad: “What then is the consequence of what has been said? Is it
anything other than that of all the other things, none is either good or bad.”
Do people strive to act in such a way as to be able to further pursue states that
are in themselves neither good nor bad? It seems that the circular nature of this
Socratic teleology, the fact that we constantly strive for happiness, whereas
anything that we go for can only belong to the set of things that cannot be
equated with the good, and hence that our actions can never actually achieve
our ends, would actually deprive the Socratic thesis of any explanatory power.
Indeed, how irrational, on this understanding, would all human action be!
Another way of stating this puzzle is to ask, if genuine goods are somehow
integral 42 as opposed to external, then what will the genuine good be like?
Will it be, as the Protagoras suggests, a state of pleasure? Yet we have seen
that such states are neither good nor bad. Does wisdom only operate in order
to obtain “more” of something or “less” of something, in the calculative way
prescribed in the Protagoras? Yet if that more or less that we obtain through
wisdom is just another thing that in itself is neither good nor bad, then how
can the goodness of wisdom consist in its being a means to the accumulation
or maximization of things that have no value in themselves? 43 Although the
Euthydemus may provide the outlines of an axiology that on the surface ap-
pears to be straightforward, we have seen that inherent within its argument
lurks a puzzle about what really constitutes a final end. 44
Conclusion: The Idea of Socratic Ethics

The reader might have an objection to my approach: after all, I have claimed
that to impute a doctrine of egoism or egoistic eudaimonism violates the
Socratic paradigm in two ways. First, it makes of Socrates an egoist, am I not
inconsistent with his explanation for his own life and actions. Yet the second
way that I suggest egoistic eudaimonism violates the Socratic paradigm is that
it makes of Socrates a doctrinal teacher. But, somone might object, am I not
guilty of the same charge, in suggesting that Socrates is, far from egoistic,
positively altruistuic? Am I hinting at without actually acknowledging some
kind of doctrine of altruism? I don’t think so and here’s why.
At Meno 100a7, we are told about someone who possesses genuine virtue:
“here on earth such a man would be the real thing in comparison with shad-
ows as far as virtue is concerned.” Who is this man with genuine virtue? In
this paper, I have argued that Socrates is the exemplar or paradigm. In the
reading program of the dialogues, we are meant to notice the inversion of the
Socratic desire, to benefit all, in the interlocutor’s desire, for his own good.
The difference between them has to do with the difference between being the
cause of good, as the form is the cause of the good and benefits, and being
the recipient or participant in that cause, as the particular participates and
42. Again, I borrow this terminology from Graver (2007, 47–48). Graver explains “integral objects” as
“goods or evils of the psyche.”
43. On the aporetic quality of the Euthydemus’ puzzles over value, see McCabe 2007.
44. Irwin 1995, 71: “The final puzzle in the protreptic interlude of the Euthydemus offers Socrates a fur-
ther opportunity to deny that wisdom is a craft producing some product distinct from itself. If he denied this
assumption, he would be able to disarm the puzzle, but we have to reason to believe that he chooses this
solution.”

receives its good from the form, with which it is not identical. Socratic ethics
are paradigmatic in the sense that the Platonic form is a paradigm. In a similar
way, Socrates, Plato shows us, is the cause of good for others, or attempts
to function in this way; his interlocutors are the intended recipients of that
goodness. Thus Socrates’ motivations are normative in a way that those of
his interlocutors cannot be.
Socrates reveals that he does not share in the ubiquitous egoism that so
engulfs the people he encounters. Rather, everything he does is directed as
Plato tells us in so many words, toward “the common good,” 45 as he strives
to make his fellow citizens “actually be happy,” and even defends himself
against the capital sentence “for the sake” of those same citizens. Socrates’
life (a life that gave rise to a new genre of literature, the Sokratikos logos) is
replete with exemplary force. But he also accomplishes the task of initiating
those with whom he converses into the life of philosophy. Socrates’ mission—
to convert the ordinary person to the life of philosophy—starts with each
person as she is and not as she ought to be. This insight allows us to view the
egoism (commonly touted as Socrates’ great or even greatest psychological
discovery) that Socrates apparently assumes in or assigns to his interlocutors,
in its proper perspective. Socrates does not endorse this egoism nor does he
find it normative. Rather, as he finds human beings, their desires and their
knowledge are woefully amiss; they mistake the search for the good as the
pursuit of self-interest, and yet are at a complete loss as to the nature of the
self. The disparity between people as they are and people as they could be is
similar to the disparity between paradigm and particular that we find in Plato’s
metaphysics. In brief, it is the exemplary force of the Socratic paradigm,
rather than the dialectical positions that Socrates explores with his interlocu-
tors, that are, in Plato’s very words, “the real thing with regard to virtue.”
University of Michigan
45. “So too now I say that this is what I am doing, investigating the argument especially on my own behalf,
but perhaps as well on behalf of my other companions; or do you not think that it is a common good for all
human beings, for each thing to be completely evident, as to what it is in reality?” (Chrm. 166d4).
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Ahbel-Rappe and Kamtekar 2006, 493–510.
Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. 2010. Socratic Moral Psychology. Cambridge.
Cooper, John, and D. S. Hutchinson. 1997. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis.
Denyer, Nicholas, ed. 2001. Plato: “Alcibiades.” Cambridge.
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and the Good, ed. Sergio Tenenbaum, 6–31. Oxford.
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Graver, Margaret. 2007. Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago.

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Kahn, Charles. 1990. Aeschines on Eros. In The Socratic Movement, ed. Paul Vander Waerdt,
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Penner, Terry, and Christopher Rowe. 2005. Plato’s “Lysis.” Cambridge.
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Weiss, Roslyn. 2006. The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies. Chicago.


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Is Socratic Ethics Egoistic?

Author(s): Sara Ahbel-Rappe

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Classical Philology 107 (2012): 319–40

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explains his motives for the practice of philosophy in terms of dedication to

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Egoistic (as opposed to non-egoistic) strains of eudaimonism may be found

5. Kraut 1989, 81.

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8. Vlastos 1991, chap. 8 n. 14.

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Part 1: The Socratic Paradigm

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p­ ressure or occasions a growing expectation for a Socratic philosophy that can

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Quite possibly one of the earliest of Socratic dialogues is Aeschines’

Other Socratic writers home in on the beneficence of Socrates, as for example

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In Aeschines’ dialogue, Socrates compels “Alcibiades to weep, laying his head

24. Trans. Kahn (1994, 91).

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possibly a pre-Platonic (and certainly an extra-Platonic) context. In fact, the

25. Aeschines frag. 11.

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propriety. The suggestion is that Socrates embarks on his activity to fulfill a

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To conclude this investigation of Socratic motivation in the Apology, we

Part 2: The Dialectics of Happiness

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What kind of knowledge is it that Socrates denies having? He says that he

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In the Protagoras, Socrates describes all deliberation concerning voluntary action as a

Now is what Socrates says in the Protagoras to be understood as part of

34. Reshotko 2006, 57.

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choose what is either consequentially or intrinsically bad. By converting the

Socrates operates in stealth, behind the scenes of the doctrinal formulation,

35. Again, Reshotko 2006, 80.

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37. Penner 2005, 181.

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Conclusion: The Idea of Socratic Ethics

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Irwin, Terry. 1995. Plato’s Ethics. Oxford.

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p ressure or occasions a growing expectation for a Socratic philosophy that can