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Well, if one was to sum up, it would be hard to go past Plato’s own summary:

“And of all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well in public as in private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and be chastised and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric and any other art should be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a view to justice.��

I’ve read this book as someone who is an atheist and therefore someone who can place little concern on the rewards or punishments of the afterlife. Much of Plato’s argument is supported by the idea that we should be moral in this life to avoid punishment in the next life. I would like to think that his conclusions still stand for an atheist, even if his arguments do not.

I’m not sure how well Socrates answers Callicles�� arguments �� or rather attack. Nietzsche later says much the same things about Socrates and his arguments �� his denial of life and how ugly Socrates is and how lacking in taste and common sense. It seems clear for much of the text that Callicles is bored by Socrates�� arguments and only agrees to continue listening to Socrates because Gorgias asks to hear the rest of what Socrates has to say �� he abandons participation in the argument, which is not the same as him being silenced by Socrates�� argument. I would very much doubt that Callicles came away from this encounter feeling that Socrates was right and that one should prefer to suffer harm than to do harm.

The myth at the end was all very Christian �� and it is easy to see why Plato was so easy to be used by the Church. I found it very interesting that at least two of what are taken to be standard Christian messages are clearly put forward by Socrates �� turn the other cheek (literally in those terms, too) and the problem the rich and powerful will have in getting into paradise. The import of this dialogue seem to me to be an even clearer statement of the golden rule than that contained in the Christian message �� (surely the idea that we must avoid doing ill, even prefering bad things to be done to us, is more virtuous than merely treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves).

So, the question for me is whether it is possible to establish this as a conclusion an atheist could follow. And, to be honest, I don’t know. I can’t see what an atheist could base the ‘good�� that is necessary to sustain this argument on. Socrates is more than willing to be prepared to die for his truth because he knows there is an afterlife in which the pleasures and sufferings of this life are as nothing.

His argument is that doing wrong harms the wrong-doer’s soul �� I think this is true, even if I don’t believe in a ‘soul�� as such. If we know we have done wrong there is nothing worse than feeling we have been ‘rewarded�� for it.

When I was a child my mother caught me cheating at patience (or solitaire for my American cousins). I must have been old enough for her merely saying, “Are you cheating?�� to not really count for much. But what did count was when she said, “You are only cheating yourself.��

I’ve often wondered if that is a good lesson or not. I still don’t cheat and try to avoid situations where I can cheat myself or others �� but it does often seem that those who do cheat (perhaps both themselves and others) do end up better off. And people do seem to have a near infinite capacity to rationalise away their actions so that they always do tend to see themselves in the end as entirely justified. Plato’s myth at the end of this dialogue where the wrong souls are being sent to the wrong places because they were being judged in their worldly finery just before they die seems relevant here.

Perhaps a means of attack on this is that the benefits of doing wrong are generally short lived �� you cheat and the benefit is rather fleeting �� but the knowledge that you cheated, that you are the sort of person who would cheat, that can be something that lasts with you all of your life. Perhaps then this is the ground to support Plato’s conclusions without resorting to his arguments �� that in the end one needs to be able to live with one’s self �� and that is easier to do if we have been wronged, than if we have wronged others. That the punishments we inflict upon ourselves for wronging others are often worse than the punishments others would give us if they were to punish us.

I enjoyed this more than the last time I read it �� the last time I read it I was much more concerned that Socrates did not really answer Callicles’s argument �� I still don’t think he answers it, but I’m not as concerned now.