Answering the Immoralist - Nick Gooding

About this event

In the Gorgias and Republic , we encounter two of the more memorable characters in Plato’s dialogues. Callicles and Thrasymachus take a hard-nosed look at some of our most deeply held moral convictions, and see right through them. What we have been trained to think of as demands of justice are only rules imposed by the powerful to make us compliant subjects. A truly courageous, strong, and cunning individual would be guided by the “law of nature,” as Callicles calls it, and pursue his own self-interest unencumbered by any moral qualms. What reason, then, do we have to be just?

In this talk, I want, first of all, to understand “the immoralist challenge” itself: On what basis do Callicles and Thrasymachus criticize justice? What would it take to answer their critique? And why do we feel that if we cannot do so, justice would be revealed to be baseless or spurious? Then, turning to Socrates’s response, I will argue that, if we interpret that response as an effort to meet the challenge on its own terms—that is, as an effort to provide Callicles and Thrasymachus themselves with a reason to be just, a reason that they ought to be able to recognize from where they are—then we must conclude that his response is a failure. In fact, I will argue that it’s not clear what could possibly count as a philosophically satisfying response to the immoralist. Finally, I will consider what we might learn about moral life from the fact that the immoralist challenge seems to demand an answer from us, and yet (if I’m right) cannot be answered on its own terms.