Comparison Of Protagoras And Republic IV

Both Protagoras and Republic IV explore the nature of desire and its relation to reason and will, and whether or not desire can overcome the will. Both have similarities to each other, however, their conclusions are distinctly different: In Protagoras, Socrates argues that akrasia is impossible, as a man making a bad choice stems from ignorance rather than weakness, while Republic IV presented a different conception, in which our appetites can lead us to make bad decisions if these appetites are not ruled by reason and spirit, implying that we can, in fact, be overcome by pleasure, and thus be akratic I find this idea to be more compelling, as I believe it appeals more to actual human behavior, and the possibility for a weak will that comes …show more content…
This begins at 351b, with Socrates asking Protagoras if it is true that some people live well and others badly, and, following this, Protagoras states that “everything peasant is good and everything painful is bad” (351d), which begins the discussion of whether “pleasure itself is not a good” (351e). The question of pleasure and pain as good or bad continues as a central part of this dialogue, and following Protagoras’ statement, Socrates and Protagoras politely agree to explore this question. In 353b, Socrates argues that most people see man as being driven by something other than knowledge, though man does possess knowledge. He adds that “knowledge is a fine thing capable of ruling a person, and if someone were to know what is good and bad, he would not be forced by anything to act otherwise”(352c), suggesting that men can be ruled by either knowledge or by “anything else- sometimes anger, sometimes pleasure... pain... love... fear” (352c), all of which operate outside of knowledge. Following this, Protagoras raises the issue of people believing that they, or others, have been “overcome by pleasure,” which he and Socrates then aim to prove as a fallacy- that people are instead failing “to do the best thing when they know what it is” (353a), and thus being motivated by something other than …show more content…
However, I will first point to the ideas in Protagoras that I do agree with, specifically the idea that weighing good and bad is a key part of making a decision, and that by doing so, one makes better choices. However, I do find this to be somewhat limited, especially in the suggestion that this is infallible- I do believe that people can make poor choices even if they do have adequate knowledge to know not to, usually as a result of “appetite” overcoming “reason.” I’ll use a personal anecdote to explain my thinking for this- when I was trying to quit smoking, especially in the first few days, not smoking was a stressful and difficult test of willpower. While I made the choice to quit for rational reasons similar to those Socrates mentions in Protagoras in reference to medicine- that “surgery, medicines, and starvation diet are good things even though painful... because they result in pleasure and in the relief and avoidance of pain” (354a,b). While it was certainly less pleasurable to go through withdrawal, rationally, the health benefits of quitting justified this pain. Past this, however, the decision to not smoke when presented with the temptation to do so was not one I overcome by simply “weighing” the decision of whether or not to do so, then following through on the rational choice not to without a second thought- even with the knowledge that I shouldn’t, the