[70] Plato, Gorg. p. 494 E.
[71] Plato, Gorg. pp. 494-495. ἦ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄγω ἐνταῦθα, ἢ ἐκεῖνος ὃς ἂν φῇ ἀνέδην οὕτω τοὺς χαίροντας, ὅπως ἂν χαιρωσιν, εὐδαίμονας εἶναι, καὶ μὴ διορίζηται τῶν ἡδονῶν ὁποῖαι ἀγαθαὶ καὶ κακαί; ἀλλ’ ἔτι καὶ νῦν λέγε, πότερον φῂ εἶναι τὸ αὐτὸ ἡδὺ καὶ ἀγαθόν, ἢ εἶναι τι τῶν ἡδέων ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγαθόν;
Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical. Sokrates refutes him. Some pleasures are good, others bad. A scientific adviser is required to discriminate them.
Upon this question the discussion now turns: whether pleasure and good are the same, or whether there are not some pleasures good, others bad. By a string of questions much protracted, but subtle rather than conclusive, Sokrates proves that pleasure is not the same as good — that there are such things as bad pleasures and good pains. And Kalliklês admits that some pleasures are better, others worse.[72] Profitable pleasures are good: hurtful pleasures are bad. Thus the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, if they impart to us health and strength — bad, if they produce sickness and weakness. We ought to choose the good pleasures and pains, and avoid the bad ones. It is not every man who is competent to distinguish what pleasures are good, and what are bad. A scientific and skilful adviser, judging upon general principles, is required to make this distinction.[73]
[72] Plato, Gorgias, pp. 496-499.
[73] Plato, Gorgias, pp. 499-500. Ἆρ’ οὖν παντὸς ἀνδρός ἐστιν ἐκλέξασθαι ποῖα ἀγαθὰ τῶν ἡδέων ἐστὶ καὶ ὁποῖα κακά, ἦ τεχνικοῦ δεῖ εἰς ἕκαστον; Τεχνικοῦ.
Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the Protagoras.
This debate between Sokrates and Kalliklês, respecting the “Quomodo vivendum est,”[74] deserves attention on more than one account. In the first place, the relation which Sokrates is here made to declare between the two pairs of general terms, Pleasurable — Good: Painful — Evil: is the direct reverse of that which he both declares and demonstrates in the Protagoras. In that dialogue, the Sophist Protagoras is represented as holding an opinion very like that which is maintained by Sokrates in the Gorgias. But Sokrates (in the Protagoras) refutes him by an elaborate argument; and demonstrates that pleasure and good (also pain and evil) are names for the same fundamental ideas under different circumstances: pleasurable and painful referring only to the sensation of the present moment — while good and evil include, besides, an estimate of its future consequences and accompaniments, both pleasurable and painful, and represent the result of such calculation. In the Gorgias, Sokrates demonstrates the contrary, by an argument equally elaborate but not equally convincing. He impugns a doctrine advocated by Kalliklês, and in impugning it, proclaims a marked antithesis and even repugnance between the pleasurable and the good, the painful and the evil: rejecting the fundamental identity of the two, which he advocates in the Protagoras, as if it were a disgraceful heresy.
[74] Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 D. ἵνα τῷ ὄντι κατάδηλον γένηται, πῶς βιωτέον, &c. 500 C: ὅντινα χρὴ τρόπον ζῇν.