Gratifying many at once
SocratesThen I’ll put it to you more clearly. Since you and I have agreed that there is something good and there is something pleasant, and that the pleasant is other than the good, and that for each of the two there is a certain practice and preparation for getting it, the one a hunt for the pleasant, the other for the good—but first, on this very point, either agree with me or don’t. Do you agree?
CalliclesI do say so.
SocratesCome, then, agree with me about what I was saying to these men as well: whether I did, after all, seem to you then to be speaking the truth. I was saying, I suppose, that cookery does not seem to me to be an art but experience, while medicine is; saying that the one, medicine, has examined both the nature of what it cares for and the cause of what it does, and can give an account of each of them; while the other, the one concerned with pleasure, to which all its care is directed, goes after it quite without art, having examined neither the nature of pleasure at all nor its cause, and, entirely without any account, having reckoned up nothing, so to speak, merely keeping by routine and experience a memory of what usually happens, and it is by this, indeed, that it provides its pleasures.
So first consider whether this seems to you to be adequately stated, and whether there are also, concerning the soul, other businesses of this kind: some skilled in the art, having a certain forethought for what is best for the soul, and others that make light of this and have examined, again as in that case, only the pleasure of the soul, in what way it might come to it, but neither considering which of the pleasures is better or worse nor caring about anything other than merely gratifying, whether for better or for worse. For to me, Callicles, they do seem to exist, and I for my part say that such a thing is flattery, whether it concerns the body or the soul or anything else whose pleasure someone tends without considering the better and the worse; but you—do you join us in the same opinion about these things, or do you speak against it?
CalliclesNo, I don’t; I concede it, so that your argument can be brought to an end and I can gratify Gorgias here.
SocratesAnd does this hold where one soul is concerned, but not where two or many are?
CalliclesNo, it holds for two as well, and for many.
SocratesThen is it possible to gratify them in crowds too, all at once, without considering at all what is best?
CalliclesI think so.