Notes on Plato’s Gorgias, Part 8
The Taming of Polus

Harmen Jansz Muller, Chilon Philosophus Spartanus (1596) (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

2,168 words

Part 8 of 14 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 9 here)

Polus Refuted

Polus believes that it is better do injustice than to suffer it. Socrates claims that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it, and he offers to refute Polus by questioning him. Polus agrees. But before Socrates begins his refutation, he establishes that Polus believes the following claims:

1. Suffering injustice is worse for a victim than doing injustice is for a perpetrator.
2. Doing injustice is more shameful (aischron) for a perpetrator than suffering injustice is for a victim.
3. The more shameful is not the greater evil (kakon).
4. In sum: “The noble (kalon) is not the same as the good (agathon), or the disgraceful (aischron) as the evil (kakon).”

On the contrary, Socrates believes that doing injustice is both evil (kakon) and shameful (aischron). He also believes that, deep down, Polus believes the same thing but doesn’t know it yet. Socrates’ argument aims to get Polus in touch with his real beliefs.

Socrates begins his refutation by establishing the principle that things (bodies, colors, figures, sounds, institutions) are kalon (noble, fine, beautiful) either because they are useful (chresimon, ophelimon) or because they give us pleasure (hedone). Polus agrees with this heartily. Socrates also establishes that something is aischron (shameful, the opposite of kalon) because it is either painful (luperon) or useless/evil (kakon). Again, Polus agrees.

From this, Socrates argues that if one thing is more kalon than another, it is because it is either more useful, pleasurable, or both. Likewise, if one thing is more aischron than another, it is because it is either more useless/evil, more painful, or both. Polus assents to both claims.

Then Socrates analyzes Polus’ claim that doing injustice is more shameful than suffering it. If doing injustice is more shameful than suffering injustice, then it must be either (1) more useless/evil, (2) more painful, or (3) both.

Doing injustice is not more painful than suffering it. For instance, the man who commits an assault feels less pain than the victim. Thus doing injustice must be more shameful by being more useless/evil. (If doing injustice is not more painful than suffering it, then it cannot be shameful in virtue of being both more useless/evil and more painful.)

Socrates now confronts Polus with a contradiction in his own beliefs. Before Socrates began his argument, Polus assented to the claim that the more shameful (doing injustice) is not more kakon than suffering it. But now Polus has come around to the admission that doing injustice increases one’s level of kakon. How then can Polus really believe that it is better to do injustice than to suffer it? Socrates asks Polus to level with him, to speak honestly from his heart. “Would you prefer a greater evil or a greater shame to a lesser one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician without shrinking, and either say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to me.”

Polus: I should say “No.”

Socrates: Would any other man prefer a greater to a lesser evil?

Polus: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.

Socrates: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any man, would rather do injustice than suffer it; for to do injustice is the greater evil of the two.

Polus: That is the conclusion.

Socrates has tamed the colt, sometimes with harsh words, sometimes with gentle ones. But simply by speaking.

Is it Better for the Guilty to Escape Just Punishment?

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Socrates then turns to the question of whether it is better for the guilty to escape punishment. Earlier, Polus said yes. Now, Socrates will change his mind.

Before beginning his argument, Socrates first establishes that suffering punishment means being justly corrected when one does wrong. Then he establishes that just things are kalon (noble, fine, beautiful).

Socrates’ argument begins with the premise: Where there is an agent, there must be a patient — meaning, whenever there is action, there is also the acted upon. If someone strikes, there must be something struck. If someone burns, there will be something burnt. Is someone cuts, there will be something cut. These examples are clearly chosen to bring punishment to mind.

Socrates’ second premise is that the agent communicates its qualities to the patient. For instance, if someone strikes violently and quickly, that which is struck will be struck violently and quickly. If a cut is deep and painful, the one cut will experience it as deep and painful.

Socrates’ third premise is that a punisher is an agent, and the punished party is a patient.

If a punisher punishes justly, then he communicates that quality to the punished party. If this is true, then one becomes more just by being punished. And, as has been established, justice is kalon, Thus, just punishment makes one better than escaping just punishment. Socrates specifies that being justly punished means improving the soul: “He who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul.”

Socrates then argues that the evil of the soul is the greatest evil. The greatest evil of one’s possessions is poverty. The greatest evil of one’s body is sickness. The greatest evil of the soul consists of things such as “injustice and ignorance and cowardice,” in other words, vices.

Polus readily admits that vice is more shameful than the other evils. Now Socrates offers an argument that vice is more evil than poverty and sickness. Recall that if something is worse, it is worse either because it is more painful, more useless/evil, or both. Neither Polus nor Socrates thinks that vice is necessarily more painful than poverty or sickness. Thus vice must be bad in virtue of its uselessness/evil. Indeed, vice is characterized by “monstrously great harm” and “astonishing evil.” Thus, “injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity of the soul, are the greatest of evils.”

If the art of money-making delivers us from poverty, and if the art of medicine delivers us from sickness, Socrates suggests that the art of the judge would deliver us from the sicknesses of the soul by means of just punishment. Since the soul is more important than property and the body, justice is the most important of the arts.

If the art of justice is more important than money-making and medicine, it is more important in terms of pleasure or usefulness or both. Since punishment is not pleasurable, justice must be more important in terms of its usefulness, specifically for restoring the health of the most important thing: the soul.

In terms of physical health, the happiest is the man who never gets sick. The next happiest is the man who gets sick but is then healed. The worst off is the man who gets sick and is never healed because he refuses to undergo the necessary pains.

In terms of spiritual health, the happiest is the virtuous man who never does wrong. The next happiest is the man who commits injustice but receives just punishment. The worst off is the man who commits injustice and gets away with it. He is never stopped from doing bad things. Nor does he have the opportunity to purge his soul of the effects of past injustices. He just sinks deeper and deeper into vice. The greater the crimes, the greater the suffering. Thus, “he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes, and who, being the most unjust of men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or correction or punishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates.”

Socrates’ argument raises a number of issues.

Is This an Adequate Theory of Punishment?

Is this is really an adequate theory of just punishment? There are four basic theories of punishment: deterrence, retribution, restoration (of the victim), and rehabilitation (of the offender). None of them are adequate on their own, but all of them can be elements of a criminal justice system.

If our goal is deterring future crimes, then we really need only one punishment: death. Death for murder, death for double parking, death for lying about the check being in the mail. Nothing deters like death. But we all recognize that there’s something a bit excessive, perhaps even unjust, about death for double parking. So deterrence can’t be all there is to punishment. The punishment must “fit” the crime. Socrates seems entirely indifferent to the motive of deterrence.

Retribution seems more in keeping with the idea of a fitting and balanced punishment. Serious crimes merit serious punishments; less serious crimes merit less serious punishments.

But what is the purpose of punishment? Is it to restore what was damaged or lost? In cases of property crimes, that would be best. If someone burns your house down, shouldn’t the criminal buy you a new house, rather than you, the victim, contribute to housing and feeding him for years? Socrates’ theory of punishment, however, makes no reference whatsoever to making the victim better off, only the criminal.

Of course, with the most terrible crimes, restoration is simply impossible. Is the purpose of punishment, then, to make other people feel better, as a catharsis for feelings of injury? I see no reason why vengeance should not play a role in punishing particularly heinous crimes. Why shouldn’t the guilty suffer? Why shouldn’t the innocent take pleasure in that? Socrates seems entirely indifferent to these motives as well.

Socrates is positing a very narrow conception of just punishment here: rehabilitation. Rehabilitative justice is entirely about improving the criminal. It is about doctoring his soul. This approach to punishment might make sense when talking about childrearing and education, since the characters of young people are still relatively fluid. Beyond that, we love the little “criminals” and want them to do better because we envision them becoming adult members of society. Rehabilitative punishment might also work with adults who commit minor crimes and who can be made into good citizens.

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But how would spiritual rehabilitation work with hardened criminals? How would it work for people who commit monstrous crimes? How would it work with Archelaus or any other tyrant? Since Socrates’ goal seems to be the restoration of the criminal’s soul to health, that would presumably exclude the death penalty entirely.

Socrates’ views here seem entirely too naïve and optimistic. The best we might be able to do for most criminals is simply stop them from committing more crimes. The closest thing to rehabilitation, then, may simply be arresting them. Restoring their souls to a state of justice may be impossible. Moreover, if a criminal is incarcerated, he generally becomes worse, because prisons are vast schools and playgrounds for crime and depravity. Thus, usually the only people benefitted by arresting a criminal are his potential innocent victims.

Moreover, isn’t there something obscene about society taking the role of stern and loving father with dictators, serial killers, and cannibals? Do we really envision a world in which they will be restored to society? Aristotle recognized that it is possible for human beings to fall below the level of moral agency. He called these people bestial. When dealing with the bestial, the only possible medicine for the soul may be euthanasia. They might be better off dead. There’s little question that the rest of us would be better off if they were dead as well. But the public interest is never mentioned by Socrates here.

One final note. If you, dear reader, have gotten away with a crime and now feel in need of healing, I hope that you will not be so naïve as to turn yourself over to the local authorities, wherever you are, in the hope that they will restore your soul to health. That’s not their goal. If anyone is spiritually improved by our criminal justice system, it is only by accident. You are better off talking to a priest or a psychotherapist.

So is it really better to be punished than to escape punishment? Yes, if punishment can actually improve your soul. If your soul is irredeemable, then you are still better off if your crimes are stopped. There’s at least a chance that it will prevent you from sinking deeper into vice (to say nothing of the rest of society’s interest in stopping you). But that can be accomplished simply by arrest. Punishment may produce no improvement whatsoever. Indeed, given most criminal justice systems today, incarceration will probably make you worse.

Socrates is committed to arguing that justice is always in our self-interest. This is commendable, for it gives people reasons to do the right thing of their own free will. But where self-interest fails to produce justice, we can always fall back on arguments from the common good. When justice is no longer in an individual’s self-interest, the rest of society can make it in his interest.