Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar to himself. His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does not give the true reasons for it.
Sokrates proceeds next to prove — That the wrong-doer who remains unpunished is more miserable than if he were punished. The wrong-doer (he argues) when punished suffers what is just: but all just things are honourable: therefore he suffers what is honourable. But all honourable things are so called because they are either agreeable, or profitable, or both together. Punishment is certainly not agreeable: it must therefore be profitable or good. Accordingly the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good. He is benefited, by being relieved of mental evil or wickedness, which is a worse evil than either bodily sickness or poverty. In proportion to the magnitude of this evil, is the value of the relief which removes it, and the superior misery of the unpunished wrong-doer who continues to live under it.[50]
[50] Plato, Gorgias, pp. 477-478.
Upon this argument, I make the same remark as upon that immediately preceding. We are not expressly told, whether good, evil, happiness, misery, &c., refer to the agent alone or to others also: but the general tenor implies that the agent alone is meant. And in this sense, Plato does not make out his case. He establishes an arbitrary standard of his own, recognised only by a few followers, and altogether differing from the ordinary standard, to test and compare happiness and misery. The successful criminal, Archelaus himself, far from feeling any such intense misery as Plato describes, is satisfied and proud of his position, which most others also account an object of envy. This is not disputed by Plato himself. And in the face of this fact, it is fruitless as well as illogical to attempt to prove, by an elaborate process of deductive reasoning, that Archelaus must be miserable. That step of Plato’s reasoning, in which he asserts, that the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good — is only true if you take in (what Plato omits to mention) the interests of society as well as those of the agent. His punishment is certainly profitable to (conducive to the security and well being of) society: it may possibly be also profitable to himself, but very frequently it is not so. The conclusion brought out by Plato, therefore, while contradicted by the fact, involves also a fallacy in the reasoning process.
If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which punishment is considered would be reversed.
Throughout the whole of this dialogue, Plato intimates decidedly how great a paradox the doctrine maintained by Sokrates must appear: how diametrically it was opposed to the opinion not merely of the less informed multitude, but of the wiser and more reflecting citizen — even such a man as Nikias. Indeed it is literally exact — what Plato here puts into the mouth of Kallikles — that if the doctrine here advocated by Sokrates were true, the whole of social life would be turned upside down.[51] If, for example, it were true, as Plato contends, — That every man who commits a crime, takes upon him thereby a terrible and lasting distemper, incurable except by the application of punishment, which is the specific remedy in the case — every theory of punishment would, literally speaking, be turned upside down. The great discouragement from crime would then consist in the fear of that formidable distemper with which the criminal was sure to inoculate himself: and punishment, instead of being (as it is now considered, and as Plato himself represents it in the Protagoras) the great discouragement to the commission of crime, would operate in the contrary direction. It would be the means of removing or impairing the great real discouragement to crime: and a wise legislator would hesitate to inflict it. This would be nothing less than a reversal of the most universally accepted political or social precepts (as Kallikles is made to express himself).
[51] Plato, Gorg. p. 481 C. Kall. — εἰ μὲν γὰρ σπουδάζεις τε καὶ τυγχάνει ταῦτα ἀληθῆ ὄντα ἃ λέγεις, ἄλλο τι ἢ ἡμῶν ὁ βίος ἀνατετραμμένος ἂν εἴη τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐναντία πράττομεν, ἢ ἃ δεῖ;
Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily distemper — Material difference between the two — Distemper must be felt by the distempered persons.
It will indeed be at once seen, that the taint or distemper with which Archelaus is supposed to inoculate himself, when he commits signal crime — is a pure fancy or poetical metaphor on the part of Plato himself.[52] A distemper must imply something painful, enfeebling, disabling, to the individual who feels it: there is no other meaning: we cannot recognise a distemper, which does not make itself felt in any way by the distempered person. Plato is misled by his ever-repeated analogy between bodily health and mental health: real, on some points — not real on others. When a man is in bad bodily health, his sensations warn him of it at once. He suffers pain, discomfort, or disabilities, which leave no doubt as to the fact: though he may not know either the precise cause, or the appropriate remedy. Conversely, in the absence of any such warnings, and in the presence of certain positive sensations, he knows himself to be in tolerable or good health. If Sokrates and Archelaus were both in good bodily health, or both in bad bodily health, each would be made aware of the fact by analogous evidences. But by what measure are we to determine when a man is in a good or bad mental state? By his own feelings? In that case, Archelaus and Sokrates are in a mental state equally good: each is satisfied with his own. By the judgment of by-standers? Archelaus will then be the better of the two: at least his admirers and enviers will outnumber those of Sokrates. By my judgment? If my opinion is asked, I agree with Sokrates: though not on the grounds which he here urges, but on other grounds. Who is to be the ultimate referee — the interests or security of other persons, who have suffered or are likely to suffer by Archelaus, being by the supposition left out of view?
[52] The disposition of Plato to build argument on a metaphor is often shown. Aristotle remarks it of him in respect to his theory of Ideas; and Aristotle in his Topica gives several precepts in regard to the general tendency — precepts enjoining disputants to be on their guard against it in dialectic discussion (Topica, iv. 123, a. 33, vi. 139-140) — πᾶν γὰρ ἀσαφὲς τὸ κατὰ μεταφορὰν λεγόμενον, &c.