Contro Callicle e Trasimaco

Socrate e le ragioni eudemonistiche della giustizia

Abstract

Against Callicles and Thrasymachus. Socrates and the eudemonistic grounds of justice

This essay aims to analyse the dialectical challenge about virtue and happiness that Plato’s Socrates argues in dialogue with Callicles and with Thrasymachus (respectively in Gorgias and in Book I of the Republic). Both his antagonists present themselves as advocates of a lifestyle marked by selfishness and devoted to the oppression of others. More specifically, a comparison is developed between the argumentative strategies used by the philosopher’s antagonists and those that the Platonic character uses to refute their theses and to convince them to accept the reasons of justice, changing what is their anti-social model of happiness. The thesis that this essay intends to support is that the Socratic model of virtue and happiness, which holds together «self-care» and care for others, is ineffective, if proposed to individuals focused on themselves, indifferent to sharing feelings with others, accustomed to using their skills to prevail in the social and political sphere. The Platonic representation of Socrates’ difficulties therefore seems aimed at showing the inadequacy of a strategy of moral persuasion centered on single individuals, given the presence of strong selfish motives in the vast majority of men. Hence, Plato moves to open a political perspective, the entirely good city, in which Socrates' beliefs about the value of justice can find the appropriate framework.