Question Socrates said "It is better to suffer evil than to do it". I am trying to work out if a consequentialist could make good sense of this claim, if anyone can!

Accepted:
October 5, 2006

Comments

From Socrates' point of view, doing wrong harms the soul. Since on his view the soul is the most valuable thing there is, it is important to protect the soul from this harm. Suffering evil, in contrast, doesn't harm the soul. It might harm the body. It might be psychologically difficult. But it doesn't harm the most valuable thing. So doing evil is worse than suffering it.

Is it possible to make sense of this without accepting that there is a soul? You might think that there are different sorts of value: aesthetic value, moral value, individual well-being, etc. You might also think that some of these can "trump" others. So, for example, occasionally I am required to sacrifice some amount of well-being in order to do what is right. There may also be times when I must suffer at the hands of others in order to do what is right. When there is a conflict, fulfilling one's moral obligations is more important than achieving individual well-being. But this comes close to what Socrates was suggesting: if you have to choose between doing evil and suffering it, where doing evil is doing something morally wrong and suffering it is a matter of falling a short on well-being, then because of moral value "trumps" individual well-being, doing evil is worse.

This isn't a consequentialist approach. It might be possible to work it out in consequentialist terms. So far, however, Socrates' idea seems to depended on there being different kinds of value, some of which "trump" other kinds. Many consequentialists would hold that all value is commensurable, so deny this assumption. Yet if all that matters is the amount of some single kind of good in the world, then whether it is better to suffer evil or do it will depend on whether in the particular case the amount suffered is greater or less than the amount produced. So on some accounts of value, Socrates' claim will be hard to make sense of!

Just adding one point. A case could be built, I imagine, for saying that doing wrong in the present makes it more likely that one will do wrong in the future. Or, similarly, one will be less able to resist the temptatation to do wrong in the future. (It might even be the case that suffering a wrong in the present makes it less likely that one will commit a wrong in the future.) These claims will be very similar to Socrates' harm argument: here, doing wrong harms one's character. So, a consequentialist would reason that not only the present act, but the increased or decreased likelihood of future acts, should be taken into account. Therefore, from the point of view of my decision whether to suffer or commit a wrong, suffering would generally be preferable on the consequentialist analysis. I can see many possible holes in this argument, but it's a start.

Socrates makes this remark in the Gorgias in a context in which he’s arguing against Polus’ conception of the good life– that is, the life that is good for the person who is living it. He is not arguing for the greater importance of moral value over prudential value (or what Sally calls individual well-being); he is arguing that a person who cares solely about his own individual well-being, as Polus does, should be concerned never to do injustice. This is not because he should worry about getting caught, or about the possibility of someone taking revenge on his unjust actions, but solely because being an unjust person, in itself, is a bad state to be in-- that is, bad for the person who is unjust. In fact, Socrates believes that being a virtuous person is of overriding prudential value. No other thing comes close to virtue in prudential value, and so, whenever one is faced with the choice between being virtuous and not being virtuous– no matter what benefits might result from one’s vicious actions--, it is always in one’s own best interest to choose the virtuous course of action.

You ask what the consequentialist should make of this. I am assuming that by “consequentialist,” you mean a person who believes that the moral value of an action (or policy, or state of character) is to be assessed solely in terms of its effects on the welfare of people (i.e., on prudential value). Consequentialists should pay attention to Socrates’ surprising thesis for at least two reasons. (1) Anyone who is concerned with welfare, as consequentialists are, should be concerned about what our welfare consists in. On Socrates’ view, our welfare depends largely on our virtue, and so, consequentialists who are interested in the implications of their own views should be concerned to determine whether Socrates is right. (2) Ultimately, though, Socrates’ position, if correct, is difficult to reconcile with consequentialism. After all, justice seems to have moral value, and Socrates seems to be saying, contrary to the consequentialist, that the prudential value of an action is to be analyzed in terms of its moral value, not the other way around. I myself don’t believe that this is what Socrates is saying because I don’t attribute to him a notion of moral value that is distinct from prudential value, and so, I think that it would be difficult for him to make sense of consequentialism (or its negation). On my understanding of Socrates, there is simply one question that is of practical significance for each of us– “What sort of life would be most worth living?” Since I can directly control only myself (my actions and my own character), this question in fact reduces to the question, “What sort of person should I be?”

Question Socrates said "It is better to suffer evil than to do it". I am trying to work out if a consequentialist could make good sense of this claim, if anyone can! Accepted:October 5, 2006

Question Socrates said "It is better to suffer evil than to do it". I am trying to work out if a consequentialist could make good sense of this claim, if anyone can!

Accepted:
October 5, 2006