Socrates-Plato's Ethical System and the Critique of Sophistic Morality in Classical Greece

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MA of Philosophy, Farabi Campus, University of Tehran, Qom. Iran

2 Professor of Philosophy Department, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Greek society was in the search for virtues and prosperity, at the end. In their traditional teachings, only the virtues obtained from the gods' attention and related to society were cherished. However, they gradually found out that the gods were their paragon for morals and virtues for no rationale. On this ground, their traditional beliefs started to change gradually. During the course of these changes, Sophists introduced themselves as the tutors of the new Greek generation. In their opinion, adherence to necessities beyond individuals is pointless, and human virtuosity is meaningless; Humans' prosperity is formed due to their nature and their natural demand of political power reinforcement. Yet Socrates's point of view was adaptable neither to sophists and the new Greek generation's moral system nor to traditional definitions of morality. Socrates demonstrated that if a moral system is not built on truth, all of the principles in the society are incorrect, creating harmful results instead of resulting in humans' prosperity as the extremity of every moral system. In his ethical system, virtue is not limited to minor matters. Still, it is a kind of human maturity that contains humans' grown dignity in every aspect of life in addition to political issues. In his view, all of the virtues are lucrative due to taking advantage of the idea of goodness. He believes that the knowledge of the concept of goodness is the foundation of all virtues, giving the human the might to identify evil and virtuous and leads him to prosperity.

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