The Critical Argument Sample Clauses

The Critical Argument. Socrates opens his critical argument by establishing the hedonistic thesis that pleasure is good and pain is bad.26 He then considers the multitude’s statement regarding self-control, which suggests, “frequently a man, knowing the bad to be bad, nevertheless does that very thing, when he is able not to do it, having been driven and overwhelmed by pleasure” (355b). Socrates shows that this statement is absurd in two ways. First, he draws on the hedonistic thesis to substitute every instance of ‘pleasure’ with ‘good,’ so that the multitude’s statement now reads, “a man knowing the bad to be bad, nevertheless does that very thing,” because he is overcome by the good (355c). But this proves the statement is, according to Socrates, “ridiculous,” since the good and the bad are objectively quantifiable – “one is greater and one smaller, or more and less” (355e) – and as such, the multitude’s statement would mean that a man is ‘overcome’ insofar as he purposely sets out to get more bad things for the sake of fewer good ones. Second, Socrates reverses the exchange and substitutes every instance of ‘good’ with ‘pleasure.’ The multitude’s statement now describes a man who “does what before we called ‘bad’ things and now shall call ‘painful’ ones, knowing they are painful things, but being overcome by pleasant things, although it is clear that they do not outweigh them” (356a). Once again, Socrates appeals to the objectively quantifiable nature of pleasures and pains to argue that the multitude’s statement would mean that a man is ‘overcome’ insofar as he chooses more and more intensely painful things for the sake of fewer and less intensely pleasurable things. In this way, Socrates uses both substitutions to prove that the multitude’s position regarding the power of pleasure results in an absurd conclusion.