Plato on the possibility of hedonic mistakes
| Abstract | Most of us — philosophers and non-philosophers alike — accept that at least some pleasures are appropriate targets of ethical criticism. Even hedonists typically concede that there’s something bad about taking pleasure in certain states or events, such as the undeserved suffering of other people.1 So it’s not particularly surprising to find that Plato, the first philosopher to deal with this issue in any significant detail, holds a similar view. In three of his most celebrated dialogues — the Gorgias, the Phaedo, and the Republic — he gives lengthy arguments to the effect that part of what it is to be virtuous is to be pleased by the right sort of thing in the right sort of way.2 In the Philebus, however, he takes this idea in a dramatic new direction. He has Socrates insist, with great fanfare, that pleasures are to be criticized in precisely the same way that beliefs are (36c-42c). Indeed, he has Socrates go so far as to say that pleasures, like beliefs, are bad just insofar as, and just because, they are false (40e9-10).3 This claim — which I will call the Grounding Thesis — is liable to strike most of us, at least initially, as misguided if not unintelligible. Even those who accept that pleasures and pains can be bearers of ethical value are not inclined to accept that the ethical value in question here is, or is grounded in, any sort of semantic or representational value.4 Nor are they likely to accept that it is useful (or even possible) to assign such values to.. | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesSandra Peterson (2011). Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato. Cambridge University Press.
Kristian Urstad, Pleasure in Plato's Phaedo. Philosophical Pathways.
Kristian Urstad, The Question of Temperance and Hedonism in Callicles. Leeds International Classical Studies.
Sylvain Delcomminette (2003). False Pleasures, Appearance and Imagination in the Philebus. Phronesis 48 (3):215-237.
Stuart Rachels (2004). Six Theses About Pleasure. Philosophical Perspectives 18 (1):247-267.
S. Delcomminette (2003). False Pleasures, Appearance and Imagination in the Philebus. Phronesis 48 (3):215-237.
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Gabriela Roxana Carone (2000). Hedonism and the Pleasureless Life in Plato's Philebus. Phronesis 45 (4):257-283.
Gabriela Roxana Carone (2000). Hedonism and the Pleasureless Life in Plato's Philebus. Phronesis 45 (4):257-283.
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