44408359_diotima’s eudaemonism in plato’s symposium

8/12/2019 44408359_Diotima’s Eudaemonism in Plato’s Symposium

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/44408359diotimas-eudaemonism-in-platos-symposium 1/30

Phronesis 54 (2009) 297-325 brill.nl/phro

Diotima’s Eudaemonism:Intrinsic Value and Rational Motivation

in Plato’s Symposium

Ralph Wedgwood Merton College, Oxford OX1 4JD, UK

[email protected]

Abstract Tis paper gives a new interpretation of the central section of Plato’s Symposium (199d-212a). According to this interpretation, the term “καλόν”, as used by Plato here, standsfor what many contemporary philosophers call “intrinsic value”; and “love” (ἔρως) isin effect rational motivation, which for Plato consists in the desire to “possess” intrinsicallyvaluable things – that is, according to Plato, to be happy – for as long as possible. An

explanation is given of why Plato believes that “possessing” intrinsically valuable things,at least for mortals like us, consists in actively creating instantiations of the intrinsicvalues, both in oneself and in the external world, and in knowing and loving these intrin-sic values and their instantiations. Finally, it is argued that this interpretation reveals thatPlato’s “eudaemonism” is a different and more defensible doctrine than many commenta-tors believe.

KeywordsPlato, Symposium, intrinsic value, rational motivation, eudaemonism

0. Introduction

Te heart of Plato’s Symposium (199d-212a) consists of a series of claimsand arguments that are represented as being put forward by Socrates, ashis contribution to a discussion of the nature of love (ἔρως). For most ofthis part of the dialogue (from 201d onwards), Socrates is represented asattributing these claims and arguments to a mysterious priestess whom hecalls Diotima. As I shall argue, these pages in fact contain a brilliant and



298 R. Wedgwood / Phronesis 54 (2009) 297-325

perceptive analysis of the nature of rational motivation – an analysis that isnever fully recapitulated in any other Platonic text.1

Te portion of the dialogue that I am concerned with falls into threeparts:

1. Te first part is concerned with characterizing the nature of ἔρως:this part begins with Socrates’ cross-examination of his host Agathon(199d-201c), and continues with the account of love that Socratesattributes to Diotima, culminating in her identification of love withthe desire for happiness (201d-206a).

2. Te second part turns to the characteristic action (πρᾶξις) or function

(ἔργον) of love, and focuses on the rather surprising ideas of “givingbirth” and “procreation” (206b-209e).

3. Te third part focuses on what Diotima calls the “ final and highestmysteries ” of love, which involve the lover’s finally coming to stand ina special relation to the Form of the Beautiful itself (210a-212a).

In the first three sections of this paper, I shall present my interpretation ofeach of these three parts of the dialogue in turn. In the fourth section, I

shall explain what this interpretation tells us about what exactly Plato’s“eudaemonism” comes to. Finally, I shall try to support my conclusion thatPlato’s analysis of rational motivation, when correctly interpreted, is bothmore plausible and more perceptive than is generally appreciated.

1. Te Nature of ἔρως

Te first part of the dialogue that I shall focus on here (Symposium 199d-206a) concerns the nature of ἔρως – where ἔρως is the kind of love thatinvolves some sort of passionate desire (such as sexual desire). In this sec-tion, I shall first briefly summarize the claims that Socrates is representedas endorsing in this part of the dialogue. Ten I shall present a series of

1) Even though it is one of the best-known texts of classical Greek literature, the centralityof the Symposium for the understanding of Plato’s moral psychology has not been widelyappreciated by scholars working within the tradition of analytic philosophy. Scholars whohave appreciated this point include Irwin (1995, chap. 18), Kraut (2008), Moravcsik(1971), Nussbaum (2001, chap. 6) and Price (1989, chap. 2). In my view, however, all of

these scholars have missed a crucial part of Plato’s view; in a couple of cases, they have alsoembraced some interpretive claims that seem to me implausible and ill-supported.



R. Wedgwood / Phronesis 54 (2009) 297-325 299

exegetical puzzles that these claims give rise to. Finally, I shall present myinterpretation, and defend it by showing that it provides a satisfying solu-

tion to these exegetical puzzles.Te part of the dialogue that we are concerned with begins with Socrates’

cross-examination of Agathon (199e-201c). Socrates gets Agathon to agreeto a number of crucial principles about ἔρως:

i. Love is always love of something – that is, ἔρως has an object (199e7,200e9).

ii. Whenever one loves something, one also desires it (200a4).iii. Whenever one desires something, it is something that one currently

lacks, not something that one already possesses (200a7, 200e).iv. Te gods love things that are beautiful (καλά), since it is impossible

to love things that are ugly (αἰσχρά) (201a5).v. All things that are good (ἀγαθά) are also beautiful (καλά) (201c2).

Many of these claims are confirmed by the statements that Socrates reportshaving heard from Diotima:2

It is because of Love’s lack of good and beautiful things that Love desires these thingsthat it lacks (202d1-2).

Love is love with respect to what is beautiful (ἔρως περὶ τὸ καλόν) (204b2; cf. 203c3).

Te lovable is what is in reality beautiful and graceful and perfect and blessed (204c4).

Here Diotima seems clearly to be ascribing to Love (whom she is conceiv-ing as a semi-divine being) the features that she regards as characterizingthe lover. So far, then, it would seem clear that Socrates’ conception ofἔρως is as a state that (i) has as its object something beautiful that one lacks ,

and (ii) involves a desire for that beautiful thing.3 More precisely, this desire

2) All translations are mine, although I have consulted the translations of Waterfield (1994),Rowe (1998), and Nehamas and Woodruff (1989), as well as the edition of Bury (1932).3) Socrates infers the further conclusion that the lover must himself “lack beauty” (201b3),and so cannot himself be beautiful (201b5-6). Nussbaum (2001, 178) objects strenuouslyto this inference: as she complains, the lover “may be quite beautiful, for all we know.” Inlight of the interpretation that I offer later on of what “lacking” something comes to, how-ever, we should interpret this claim that the lover is “not beautiful” to mean only that

the lover is not perfectly beautiful in the way in which the gods are – which would involvebeing unqualifiedly beautiful (that is, maximally beautiful in every way both eternally and




for beautiful things is a desire that those beautiful things should becomeone’s own (204d); this seems to be treated as coming to the same thing as

the desire to “have” or “possess” such beautiful things. As we have seen, Socrates and Agathon both accept that everything

good is beautiful (201c2). In fact, it seems clear that Socrates also acceptsthat everything beautiful is good. Diotima plainly assumes that the answerto the question, “What happens to you when the beautiful things that youdesire become your own?” is exactly the same as the answer to the question“What happens to you when the good things that you desire become yourown?” (204e5). But this assumption would be indefensible unless every-thing beautiful that anyone desired was also good. So it seems overwhel-

mingly plausible that Socrates and Diotima assume that the conceptsbeautiful and good are in fact coextensive: even if using these two conceptsinvolves thinking about the things that fall under the concepts in two dif-ferent ways, there is in fact nothing that falls under either of these concepts without falling under the other concept as well.4

It follows, then, that love involves a desire that the good things that onecurrently lacks should become one’s own. Tis, Diotima claims, is quitesimply the desire for happiness (205a). Moreover, she claims, love also

involves the desire that these good things that one currently lacks shouldbecome one’s own forever (205a and 206a); we may assume that this desireis simply the desire to be happy forever.

Tese claims give rise to a series of exegetical puzzles. More specifically,I shall focus on the following puzzles:

a. What exactly does Plato mean by the terms “beautiful” (καλόν) and“good” (ἀγαθόν) here? Why does he treat these two terms as coexten-sive here?

necessarily ). As I shall explain in Section 2 below, such a perfect being would indeed beincapable of ἔρως as Plato understands it.4) For more evidence that Plato believes that everything καλόν is ἀγαθόν, see e.g. Protago-ras 360b3, where Socrates thinks that it is obvious that if courageous acts are καλά, theymust also be ἀγαθά. Te point that “καλόν” and “ἀγαθόν” are distinct but coextensiveconcepts is understood correctly by Price (1989, 16). Price’s interpretation is disputed –

wrongly in my view – by Gerson (2006), who claims (without any evidence that I can see)that according to Plato the beautiful is hierarchically subordinate to the good, and by Lear(2006, 104) who claims that Plato only thinks that everything beautiful that is desired is

good because “no one desires anything unless it is good” (although this latter claim does notseem to me clearly supported by the text of the Symposium).




in people’s souls (which seems to include the beauty of customs andlaws, and of branches of knowledge) is more precious (τιμιώτερον) than

the beauty of the body (210b7). Finally, it appears to be implied that theForm of Beauty is the most beautiful thing of all (θαυμαστὸν τὴν φύσιν καλόν) (210e5).

So “καλόν” as it is used here does not apply only or even primarily tothings that are physically or sensuously beautiful. Te term could equally well have been translated by such terms as “fine” or “admirable” or even“honourable”. (Indeed, in such works as De Offi ciis , Cicero translated theStoics’ use of “καλόν” by the Latin “honestum”.) Fundamentally, I believe,the term stands for the property of being something that is an appropriate

object of a certain sort of pro-attitude , on the part of anyone who is in aposition properly to appreciate the object in question.6 Specifically, therelevant sort of pro-attitude includes both admiration and all the attitudesof appraisal that involve contemplating something with fascination anddelight. So the attitudes in question are those that are characteristicallyexpressed by enthusing about something, praising something, or cherish-ing something, and the like.

o say that what is καλόν is an appropriate object of such pro-attitudes

on the part of anyone who is in a position to appreciate the object ade-quately is to say that being καλόν is in a way an agent-neutral feature of theobject in question. What is καλόν is simply what merits being admired orpraised or valued by anyone . Tis explains why the property of being καλόν is not agent-relative in the same way as the property of being good for me .Statements of the form “ x is beautiful” or “ x is admirable” are capable of beingstraightforwardly true or false; but “ x is good for” cannot be true or false –only “ x is good for y ” can be true or false. (In other words, “. . . is goodfor. . . .” is a 2-place predicate, while “. . . is beautiful” is a 1-place predicate.)

6) Enthusiasts for contemporary ethical theory will recognize this as the so-called “fittingattitude (FA) analysis” of evaluative properties. For examples of philosophers who haveembraced this FA analysis, see Brentano (1969, 18), Broad (1930, 283) and Ewing (1947,142). I am not claiming here that Plato endorses this FA analysis; I am endorsing this FAanalysis myself , as an essential analysis (or “real definition”) of the property that Plato’s useof the term “καλόν” refers to. (Plato could be referring to this very property even if he isignorant of its real definition or essential analysis.) However, I am only invoking this FAanalysis for the very limited purpose of clarifying Plato’s use of the term “καλόν”. Nothingin the rest of my arguments will depend on whether or not this analysis is correct. So even

those who reject the FA analysis can accept these arguments, so long as they succeed inlatching onto the sense in which Plato is using the term “καλόν” here in some other way.




In short, I think we can say that Plato is deliberately using the term“καλόν” in a very broad way, so that when the term is used in this way, it

applies to everything that has agent-neutral , non-instrumental value . Forshort, I shall say that the term “καλόν” simply refers to everything that hasintrinsic value .7 (Some philosophers – most notably, Christine Korsgaard(1983) – have insisted that in the end we need to distinguish betweenintrinsic value and other sorts of agent-neutral, non-instrumental value. Ishall assume that this distinction does not matter for the purposes of Pla-to’s theory; in effect, I shall assume that Plato does not recognize any kindof agent-neutral non-instrumental value other than intrinsic value.)

What about the term “ἀγαθόν” (which, like everyone else, I have trans-

lated “good”)? As we have seen, Plato seems to treat the terms “καλόν” and“ἀγαθόν” as coextensive (at least in this context). However, he also treatsthe two terms as differing in meaning, since he thinks that it is easier to judge that one becomes happy when good things “become one’s own” thanto judge that one becomes happy when beautiful things “become one’sown” (204d-205a); if the terms were synonymous, there would be no dif-ference at all between the judgment expressed by one of these terms andthe corresponding judgment expressed by the other. So what exactly is the

difference in meaning between these two terms in Plato’s usage?I tentatively suggest that, as it is used in this context, “ἀγαθόν” has aconceptual tie to the notion of the good life : something counts as ἀγαθόν in the relevant sense just in case it is one of the constituents of the goodlife – where it is assumed that the good life is the happy life, and the lifethat we have most reason, all things considered, to wish for ourselves. Atall events, Diotima seems to commit herself to the biconditional claim thatone will become happy if and only if good things become one’s own. Sheclearly asserts the right-to-left half of the biconditional, when she claims

that whenever good things become one’s own, one will become happy(204d7-e7). She also claims that “all happy people are happy by virtue ofpossessing good things” (205a1), which seems to entail the left-to-righthalf of the biconditional. So this supports the interpretation of “ἀγαθόν”as standing in this context for the constituents of the good life (that is, thehappy life). On this interpretation, then, Diotima is claiming that a life

7) o clarify: I am not claiming that Plato has two notions – one that he expresses with“καλόν” and another separate notion of “intrinsic value”. I am saying that the notion that

he expresses with “καλόν” is the notion that I am expressing here by means of the term“intrinsically valuable” (or is at least necessarily coextensive with that notion).




counts as a good or happy life to the extent that the person who leads thislife is “in possession of” things that are καλά, or have intrinsic value – or

in other words, to the extent that things that have intrinsic value “becomehis own”.Tis shows how important it is to understand what Plato means by speak-ing of one’s “having” or “possessing” something (ἔχειν), or of the relevantthing’s “becoming one’s own” (γένεσθαι αὐτῷ). It is clear that it would bea serious mistake to read these terms in a narrow sense, as signifying simplythe material possession of an object, or the legal ownership of an objectunder a system of property rights. Tat would be an absurdly acquisitiveconception of the good or happy life. Tese terms must be being used in a

much more general and abstract sense – such as the sense in which onemay be said to “have” a brother or to “possess” knowledge or virtue. Inshort, it seems to me that to “have” things of intrinsic value must meansimply to stand in the appropriate relation to these things. o lead a good orhappy life is to lead a life in which one stands in the appropriate relationsto things of intrinsic value. (We shall investigate what exactly these “appro-priate relations” are later on.)

Tis now helps us to understand what Socrates means in this context by

speaking of what one “lacks” (ὧν ἐνδεής ἐστιν, 202d2). As a first approxi-mation, we might try interpreting this term by identifying what one “lacks” with everything of intrinsic value that one does not stand in the appropri-ate relation to.

However, this interpretation cannot be quite right as it stands. Accord-ing to Socrates and Diotima, one desires the beautiful things that one lacks(202d2); and as Socrates explains (200b-d), if one is strong and healthy ata given time t , then at t , one cannot strictly speaking desire to be healthyand strong at that very time t , but only to be healthy and strong in the

future times after t . But suppose that one will in fact succeed in satisfying this desire; that is, one will in fact be healthy and strong in the relevantfuture times after t . Ten presumably one does stand in the appropriaterelation to the beautiful things (being strong and healthy at those futuretimes) that one desires. So it would not be true to say that one does not stand in the appropriate relation to those beautiful things – even though,ex hypothesi , they are things that one “lacks”.

For this reason, I propose to interpret Socrates’ claim that “we onlydesire what we lack” as equivalent to a point that we could express by means

of the slogan “Desire is practical.” When we desire a beautiful thing, it

b.b.




knowledge of the nature of what one lacks in order to desire it. Te lover of wisdom (that is, the philosopher) is in a condition that is intermediate

between knowledge and ignorance – a condition the paradigm example of which is a true belief that falls short of counting as knowledge (202a5).Tis makes it plausible, it seems to me, that the desire for a beautiful objectthat is involved in ἔρως may often be based on some such imperfect repre-sentation of the beauty of its object.

If this right, then the sort of desire that is involved in ἔρως has a distinc-tive character. First, this sort of desire responds to an appearance of beauty.Indeed, it appears to be assumed that whenever one perceives something asa beautiful object that one “lacks”, one loves it; otherwise, Diotima could

not explain why Love loves wisdom in the way in which she does (204b3),simply by pointing to the fact that wisdom is one of the most beautifulthings. Secondly, this sort of desire typically leads the desirer to engage in“scheming after the beautiful and good” (203d3). As we might put it, it isan essential feature of this sort of desire that it is an at least potentially ratio-nal desire.9 It is the sort of desire that is capable of being guided by moreperfect and more rational representations of the beauty of its object, andunder favourable conditions, this sort of desire motivates a sort of rational

deliberation about how best to achieve its object. Finally, when this sort ofdesire is informed by a genuine knowledge of the Form of Beauty itself,then this is the motivation that is characteristic of the perfectly virtuousperson: as Diotima puts it, once one has such knowledge of the Formof Beauty, one “will bring to birth, not phantoms of virtue . . . but truevirtue” (212a5).

As we have seen, Diotima interprets love as involving the desire for goodand beautiful things, and identifies this desire with the desire for happiness(205d) – which is said to be a desire that everyone possesses (205a7).

Moreover, Diotima gets Socrates to agree to the assumption that we desirenot only to be happy, but to be happy forever (206a). Several scholars –such as Sheffi eld (2006, 82) – have complained about this assumption. Butthe assumption seems reasonable to me. It is surely reasonable to say (evenif it is not obviously true) that everyone would prefer to have a happylife that lasts n + 1 years, rather than a life that is exactly similar exceptthat it lasts only n instead of n + 1 years. It follows that we would prefer

9) Te significance of this point is correctly perceived by Sheffi eld (2006, 48-51).




most of all to live a happy life forever, and in that sense would prefer tolive forever.

Te identification of love with the desire for happiness has given rise to acontroversy among scholars.10 o what extent does the Symposium acceptthe conception of desire, which is sometimes known as “psychologicaleudaemonism”, according to which one never desires anything except whatone believes to contribute to one’s own good or happiness? Tis concep-tion of desire is a prominent feature of some of the Platonic dialogues thatare widely thought to have been composed earlier than the Symposium,such as Protagoras (358c-d), Gorgias (468b), and Meno (78b). On the otherhand, this conception of desire appears to be decisively rejected in Pha-edrus and the Republic (438a), both of which emphasize the presence in thesoul of entirely non-rational desires that have nothing to do with the desir-er’s beliefs about what will contribute to his happiness.

Te main evidence for seeing such psychological eudaemonism in theSymposium is Diotima’s remark “there is nothing else that human beingsare in love with except the good” (206a). Another piece of evidence is thefact that Diotima’s theory of love is meant to cover even sexual attractionamong non-human animals (207a-b) – which is precisely the sort of desire

that the Republic would have treated as a non-rational desire or appetite.However, this evidence does not seem decisive to me. Neither Socrates norDiotima anywhere says that all desire is for the good; they only say that alllove (ἔρως) is for the good. It is consistent with this that there are somekinds of desire that do not flow from love; these other kinds of desire may well also have no connection to the desirers’ beliefs about their good ortheir happiness, or to their representations of beauty. For these reasons,then, it seems to me that there is insuffi cient evidence to decide whether ornot the Symposium is committed to psychological eudaemonism.

On the other hand, it seems overwhelmingly plausible that the theorythat Socrates and Diotima outline in the Symposium is committed to a sortof rational eudaemonism. Te special sort of rational motivation thatDiotima is concerned to outline in her speech – which is also, as we haveseen, the motivation of the genuinely virtuous agent – is a sort of motiva-tion that in some way flows from the desire for one’s own happiness. WhenSocrates and Diotima consider the question of why one wants good and

10)

For a valuable discussion of this controversy, see Kahn (1987); my interpretation of thispassage is fundamentally the same as his.

d.d.




b. Tis is apparently because we all necessarily “want to be immortal”(206e-207a) and it is only through such “procreation” that a mortal

being can partake in immortality (207d, 208a-b). It seems to beimplied here that we are mortal (206c, 208a-b) – even though severaldialogues that probably date from the same period in Plato’s career,such as the Republic, Phaedo, and Phaedrus , argue strenuously thatthe soul of every human being is immortal .

c. Love is of procreation “in the beautiful” because we apparently can-not procreate in what is ugly, but only in what is beautiful (206c).

d. At one point, it seems to be implied that “everyone does everythingfor the sake of immortal virtue and such a glorious reputation” (208d).

I shall discuss each of these puzzling claims in turn.

Why does Diotima say that love is “not of the beautiful”? She has previ-ously stated (204b) that Love loves wisdom because wisdom is so beauti-ful, and that Love is “love with respect to what is beautiful” (ἔρως περὶ τὸ καλόν). Tis appeared to imply that at least under normal conditions, one will love an object x if and only if one perceives x as a beautiful object that

one in the relevant sense “lacks”. In that sense Diotima’s earlier statementsimply that love is “of the beautiful”. Can Diotima really be recanting whatshe said earlier on?

A number of scholars take Diotima quite literally here: according tothese scholars, the earlier claim that the object of love is the beautiful isrejected as an imprecise first stab, which is refined in the later parts ofDiotima’s speech.11 But none of these scholars has succeeded in identifyingexactly what in Plato’s view was imprecise or misleading about the earlierclaim. Moreover, the idea that love is intimately bound up with our

response to beauty seems crucial for understanding much of what Diotimasays later in the dialogue. For example, the “ascent of love” that forms thecentrepiece of the “higher mysteries” (210a-212a) seems to be groundedon the ideas that at least so long as we are imperfect and needy beings, loveis our response to our apprehension of beauty, and that under favourable

11) For example, both White (1989) and Kraut (2008) interpret Diotima as literally claim-ing that in loving an object, one does not have to see the object as beautiful or καλόν in any

way. One of the reasons why this interpretation seems plausible to them is that they bothhave an unduly narrow reading of what Plato means by “καλόν”.

a.a.




conditions, love will impel us to understand beauty more perfectly andthereby to perfect ourselves. It is hard to make sense of this if Diotima has

now rejected the idea that the object of love is the beautiful.I suggest that the solution here is to take note of Diotima’s characteriza-

tion as a seer and soothsayer. She often addresses Socrates in a gently mock-ing but authoritative tone, as if she were revealing arcane knowledge to anaïve neophyte. She occasionally favours an enigmatic and riddling styleof speaking. In this way, she is like the unnamed mystics whom Socratesalludes to as his sources for the Teory of Recollection in Meno (81a) – asource of genuine insight, perhaps, but not articulated with the same sortof clarity and rigour that we would expect from Socrates himself. Tis is

one way in which Plato may be signalling that the ideas that Diotima isputting forward are important and likely to be true, but in need of furtherclarification and development.

Tus, it seems to me that the simplest solution to this exegetical puzzleis simply to take Diotima’s riddling claim as a sort of “meta-linguistic nega-tion” (as in “It’s not big, it’s enormous !”). She is not saying that it is false toclaim that we love beautiful things. She is only saying that this is not anadequately illuminating account of the object of love. She has already argued

that the desire that is involved in love is the desire to stand in the right rela-tions to the intrinsic values. She now gives us a detailed and explanatoryaccount of what it is to stand in the right relations to intrinsic values, bymeans of the obscure metaphor of “procreating and birth in the beautiful”.Diotima’s first discussion of the idea of “procreation” (206b-e) is particu-larly oracular, but it is explained in more detail over the following pages.12 First, Diotima gets Socrates to agree that we not only desire happiness, but we desire to be immortal (207a). Tis is because, as they have already agreed(206a), we not only desire to be happy, but to be happy forever ; and it is

clear that we cannot be happy forever unless we are immortal.13

12) Price (1989, 27) takes “procreating in beauty” to be Diotima’s account of ἔρως in the“idiomatic” sense (that is, sexual or romantic love), not in the “extended sense” (in whichἔρως involves the desire to possess good things – that is to be happy – forever). Tis isadmittedly a possible reading of 206b1-3, but it does not seem very plausible to me. Indeed,Diotima’s view seems to be that the more general (or “extended”) sense of “ἔρως” is the genuine or at least the only philosophically important sense of the term “ἔρως”; so I wouldread “ἔρως ἂν καλοῖτο” to mean “would be properly called love” (not “is called love in com-mon parlance”).13)

Tis desire-ascription “we desire to be immortal” is better read de re (as equivalent to“there is something that we desire which requires being immortal”) rather thande dicto. Te

b.b.




It seems to be implicit in this that there are degrees of happiness, and what we all naturally (and presumably rationally) wish is to be as happy as

possible, which (other things equal) includes being happy for as long aspossible. Te maximum degree of happiness is here represented by the gods , who are conceived to be in absolutely secure and permanent posses-sion of all truly good and beautiful things, and so to have no desire orἔρως at all. Our desire is to come as close as we can to that divine form ofhappiness.

Now, one fundamental feature of any truly divine beings would seem tobe that the state that they are in is both eternal and necessary . As Diotimaputs it, the divine “is always the same in every way” (208a). Te soul of a

human being, on the other hand, even if it is immortal too, is embodied ina material animal body, and so doomed to ceaseless change (207d-208b).Moreover, since the state that the embodied human soul is in is contin-gent, there is always a chance that the change will be for the worse insteadof for the better.

If I am right, then, it is this contingency and changeableness of the stateof the human soul that Plato especially wishes to emphasize here. It wouldonly complicate matters for him to introduce his ideas about immortality

of the soul (he would have to grapple with the question of what sort of lifethe soul has before birth and after death – whether it is an endless cycle ofmetempsychosis, or whether we can at any time achieve a more godlikedisembodied existence, and so on). Tis is why he allows Diotima to implythat we are mortal.14 Even if strictly speaking, we are to be identified withour immortal souls, our present existence is conditioned by our embodi-ment in mortal animal bodies. Whereas the gods stand in the “right rela-tions” to the intrinsic values forever and as a matter of necessity, humanbeings will at best stand in the right relations to these intrinsic values con-

tingently, and at some times but not forever.So our desire for happiness can be understood as a desire to come as close

as possible to the divine condition of standing in the right relations to theintrinsic values necessarily and forever. But this point still does not answerthe question, “What is it exactly to stand in the right relations to the

de re reading obviates the objections of Rowe (1998, 184), who seems to think that Socratesis positing immortality as a separate goal of ἔρως, in addition to happiness.14) Tus, I am broadly in agreement with Luce’s (1952) reply to Hackforth’s (1950) argu-

ment that at the time of writing the Symposium Plato was not yet convinced of the immor-tality of the soul.




worthy of being loved and recreated. As Diotima insists, we do not haveany reason to love ourselves just because we are ourselves. As she says: “We

are willing to cut off our arms or legs if we believe that they are in a badstate” (205e). According to Diotima, then, we only have reason to loveourselves precisely to the extent that we are καλοί.

Tus, if one is oneself καλός, then whenever one creates something thatis καλόν (that is, something that instantiates intrinsic values) one is in asense recreating or reproducing oneself – or at least recreating that featureof oneself that is worthy of being loved and recreated. So the third main way for one to put oneself into the right relations to the intrinsic values isfor one to create things that instantiate these values, and thereby to repro-

duce or recreate this uniquely valuable feature of oneself.Tus, on my reading, the sort of “immortality” that we all desire consists

in standing in the right relations to the intrinsic values for as long as pos-sible, across the longest possible span of time. One way of doing this, itseems, is to create something of intrinsic value that survives for as long aspossible. So in general, Diotima seems to think, whenever one createssomething valuable, then the longer that valuable thing survives, the closerone has come to the divine condition of standing in the right relations to

the intrinsic values forever. If one creates an admirable work of art or anadmirable political constitution – as Homer and Solon were both tradi-tionally believed to have done (209d) – and one’s valuable creation sur-vives for over a thousand years, one has come closer to this divine conditionthan if one creates something valuable that lasts only for a day. In general,this third way of standing in the right relations to the intrinsic values con-sists in creating intrinsically valuable things that survive for the longestpossible time.16

to be especially concerned about yourself?) But it is surely wildly implausible to interpretPlato as accepting the Buddhist view. At all events, on my interpretation, Diotima’s viewdoes not invoke anything like Parfit’s idea that you have no special reason to be concernedabout yourself. On the contrary, on my interpretation, her view implies that if you arerational, then what you desire is that you should as much as possible stand in the right rela-tions to the intrinsic values; that is, if you are rational, your motivation is very much focusedon the relations in which you stand to the intrinsic values. Tis seems clearly incompatible

with Parfit’s idea that you have no special reason to be concerned about yourself.16) Kraut (1973, 340) sees part of this point, when he argues that according to Diotima, ifI “create virtue in someone who will survive me and who will in turn create virtue in some-

one who survives him . . . then there will always be some bit of virtue in the world for whichI am a cause, and this is a state of affairs similar to the state of my being virtuous eternally.”




Diotima illustrates this creative aspect of ἔρως in two ways. Te first wayis by pointing to giving birth and reproduction in the most literal sense.

Diotima seems to assume that the relationship between parents and theirchildren – and more generally, between ancestors and their descendants –is καλόν, something fine or admirable; as she puts it, “giving birth” is“a divine business” (206c). So, by having children, who in their turn havechildren of their own, and so on for as long as possible, one is in a way“participating” in the sort of “immortality” that she says that we all desire(208b); that is, one is creating something fine or beautiful – a lineage ofhuman beings – that lasts for as long as possible. In this way, according toDiotima, the desire to procreate, and the desire for sex which leads to pro-

creation, is one of the central forms that ἔρως can take (207a-b and 208e).Te second way in which Diotima illustrates this creative aspect of ἔρως

is by pointing to the creative achievements of those who are “pregnant insoul” as opposed to “pregnant in body” (209a). Tese achievements includecreating “discussions about virtue” (λόγοι περὶ ἀρετῆς, 209b) – which pre-sumably include Socrates’ own conversations, and are described as a way oftrying to “educate” people (209c). Tese achievements apparently alsoinclude creating admirable poems, like those of Homer and Hesiod, and

admirable political constitutions, like those of Lycurgus and Solon (209d).(We should not read too much into Diotima’s citing the examples ofHomer and Hesiod or of Lycurgus and Solon. Practically everyone in Pla-to’s audience would have assumed that these poems and political constitu-tions were indeed admirable or καλά. As the Republic reveals, Plato himselfmay have had his doubts about how admirable the achievements of Homer,Hesiod, and Solon really were, but he has suppressed these doubts herebecause they are not relevant in the present context.)I suspect that there is also a fourth way of standing in the right relations to

the intrinsic values. Tis fourth way seems to be implicit in what Diotimahas said so far: specifically, it is to love and admire the intrinsic values andthe objects that instantiate them.

Tis state of loving and admiring the intrinsic values and their instan-tiations presumably requires that one should attend to the intrinsic values.Indeed, this state of loving, admiring and attending to the intrinsic valuesis a psychological prerequisite of being motivated to achieve all the other ways of standing in the right relations to the intrinsic values. However,this state of loving and attending to what is fine and beautiful will be

impossible if one’s attention is grabbed by things that are loathsome or

c.c.




repulsive. Tus, it is a psychological prerequisite of being appropriatelymotivated that one should avoid having one’s attention grabbed by what is

repulsive; one must focus on, and in that sense associate with, what is fineand beautiful instead. Tis, I suggest, is why Diotima says that “naturecannot give birth in what is repulsive but [only] in what is beautiful”(206c), and that as a result those who are motivated to procreate “seek outthe presence of what is beautiful” (206d) in order to sustain their attentionto the intrinsic values. Tis explains why Diotima says, in her characteristi-cally enigmatic style, that the ἔργον of ἔρως is “procreation and birth in[the presence of] what is beautiful” (206b).

If one thing that is intrinsically valuable is admiration of what is intrinsi-

cally valuable, then another way of creating what is intrinsically valuable will be to cause people to have an appropriate sort of admiration for someachievement that is intrinsically valuable. So, if one achieves justified famefor one’s achievements, that is in itself a further way of creating somethingof intrinsic value. Tis is why achieving justified fame – even posthumousfame – is a way of ensuring that one stands in the right relations to theintrinsic values, and so (given Diotima’s interpretation of happiness) a wayof promoting one’s own happiness.

Tis, I suggest, is what makes it possible for Diotima to hold that anothercharacteristic manifestation of ἔρως is the love of honour (φιλοτιμία, 208c);she illustrates this point with the examples of Alcestis, Achilles, and the leg-endary Athenian king Codrus (208d). In this way, Diotima incorporates thedesire for posthumous fame into her theory of rational motivation.It is in this context that Diotima says that “everyone does everything forthe sake of immortal virtue and this sort of glorious reputation” (208d).I take it that she is not making the absurd claim that no one would everdo anything unless they believed that it would promote their reputation

(although admittedly this absurd interpretation may be encouraged by thefact that she has just said that Achilles would not have died to avengePatroclus had he not believed that by doing so his virtue would be remem-bered forever). Te phrase that I have translated “everyone does every-thing” does not have to be read as quantifying over all human actions. Itmay just mean “everyone does as much as they can”.17

17) Compare “ἄλλο πᾶν ποιοῦντα” earlier on (207b), which clearly means “doing every-

thing else possible”. A similar reading may also be correct of the notorious passage in the

d.d.




So what Diotima is saying here, I suggest, is just that, to the extent that we are motivated by ἔρως, we pursue the greatest possible justified fame

(since achieving such justified fame is one way to stand in the right rela-tions to the intrinsic values); and the more motivated by ἔρως we are, themore intensely we pursue virtue and the justified admiration that virtuecan win.

In this way, then, ἔρως as it is conceived by Diotima incorporates amotive that played a conspicuous role in traditional Greek thought – thedesire for justified admiration and posthumous fame. On my interpreta-tion, however, she is not endorsing the idea that fame as such (whether it is justified or not) is a way of living on after one’s death, and so something

worth desiring for its own sake. If anyone desires fame as such, purely forits own sake, then I think Diotima would have to regard this as a defectiveform of ἔρως, a form that mistakes fame, which is really only a shadow of what is καλόν, for the thing itself.

Tis then, as I read it, is the structure of the Symposium’s theory of ἔρως.Te first part of the discussion (199d-206a) deals with the nature of ἔρως as a response to the imperfection and contingency of human life, takingthe form of a desire for happiness (εὐδαιμονία), which consists in standing

in the right relations to the intrinsic values. Te second part of the discus-sion (206b-209e) deals with the characteristic work or activity of ἔρως, which is to motivate the only activity by means of which human beingscan stand in the right relations to the intrinsic values – specifically, a con-stant effort to create instantiations of these intrinsic values, both in oneselfnow and in the future of the world as a whole. Te third and last part ofthe discussion (210a-212a) turns to the ideal of the highest and most perfect form of ἔρως, the “final mysteries” of love.

3. Te Final Mysteries of ἔρως

Although the third and final part of Diotima’s speech is just over two pageslong (209e-212a), it has exercised commentators more than any otherpart of the dialogue.18 In fact, however, it contains fewer diffi culties that

Republic where Socrates says that “every soul . . . does everything for the sake of the good”

( ἅπασα ψυχή . . . τούτου ἕνεκα πάντα πράττει, 505e).18) For a particularly valuable discussion of this part of the dialogue, see Moravcsik (1971).




matter for our present purposes than the first two parts. Tere are tworeasons for this.

Te first reason why this third and final part of Diotima’s speech pres-ents us with relatively few diffi culties is that in some ways it says less thanthe first two parts. Plato is not claiming that he has reached the final mys-teries of ἔρως; he certainly does not expect that in two pages he will be ableto initiate his reader into these final mysteries. For this reason, Socrates isnot represented as claiming to the other guests at Agathon’s symposiumthat he has reached this point, and even Diotima – despite her tendencytowards a supercilious, condescending tone – is not represented as explic-itly claiming that she has reached that point. At best, the readers can be

given a rough sketch of the sort of illumination that they will only be ableto achieve as a result of a long and arduous process of development.

Te second reason why this part of Diotima’s speech confronts us withfewer diffi culties than the earlier parts of the dialogue is that our presentdiscussion is concerned with the ethical theory of Plato’s Symposium; andthe introduction of the Form of Beauty – which is the most striking featureof this part of the Diotima’s speech – is ultimately of more importance forunderstanding Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology than for understand-

ing his ethical theory. For these two reasons, then, I shall deal with this partof the dialogue in somewhat less detail than the two earlier parts. A number of writers have expressed some dismay at the way in which

this part of the dialogue seems to disparage the love of individuals, infavour of love of universals , such as the Form of Beauty itself (211d-e).19 But it is important to remember that the term “ἔρως” is being used in anextravagantly general sense here, so that it includes all forms that the desirefor happiness can take. As I have suggested, happiness according to Platoconsists in standing in the right relations to the intrinsic values. In speak-

ing of “intrinsic values” so far, I have not made it clear whether these “val-ues” are to be understood as particulars or as universals. But presumably,Plato believes that although happiness does indeed involve standing in theright relations to intrinsically valuable particulars, it more fundamentallyand essentially consists in standing in the right relations to the universal property of being intrinsically valuable.

What precisely is meant by saying that happiness consists fundamen-tally and essentially in standing in the right relations to this universal

19) Tis complaint was most famously made by Vlastos (1973).




property, the Form of Beauty? If my suggestion about what these right rela-tions are is along the right lines, then the point is that happiness consists

in instantiating the Form of Beauty, in making active efforts to maintain andrenew one’s instantiation of the Form of Beauty, in creating instantiationsof the Form of Beauty, and in loving and admiring instantiations of theForm of Beauty. Tis is the most illuminating account of the nature ofhappiness – the account of happiness that provides the ultimate explana-tion of all the other features that happiness has. In that sense, happinessessentially consists in standing in these four relations to the Form of Beauty:it involves standing in relations to other things only to the extent thatstanding in those relations to those other things is a way of standing in

some of these four central relations to the Form of Beauty. Tis claim is aclarification of Diotima’s earlier claim (205e) that – contrary to what Aris-tophanes had proposed – at least in so far as we are rational, we do not love what is ours simply because it is ours, but instead, we love what is good andbeautiful precisely because it is good and beautiful. Tis earlier claim isnow clarified by this later claim that to the extent that we are rational, thefundamental thing that we desire for its own sake is just to stand in theserelations to the Form of Beauty itself.

Tis point then is at least part of what Diotima means by saying that theobject of the ideal or most perfect form of ἔρως is a universal: happinessconsists most fundamentally and essentially in standing in the right rela-tions to a universal (not to individuals or particulars). But there is alsoanother aspect to what she is saying here – namely, that the ideal form ofἔρως involves being aware of this fact about happiness. In other words,the ideal form of ἔρως is a desire to stand in the right relations to thisuniversal – presumably a desire that is informed by an ideal knowledge orunderstanding of this universal and of what it is to stand in the right rela-

tions to it. Tis second aspect of what Diotima is saying here is a familiaridea in many of Plato’s dialogues – that the ideal form of motivation for arational and virtuous agent is one that is informed by the most perfectknowledge and understanding, especially of the universal principles con-cerning the nature of what is good and beautiful. Essentially the samepoint is made in Euthydemus (278e-282d) and in Meno (87c-89a), and,in a rather different way, at the beginning of Book VI of the Republic (484a-487a).

Apart from these points, this third part of Diotima’s speech is concerned

with a sketch of a developmental process that leads the ideal lover to a




perfect knowledge of the Form of Beauty itself. Te process is described astaking the lover first (210a-b) from an initial focus on the physical beauty

of particulars (such as the beautiful body of a particular boy) to a focus on whole categories of physically beautiful particulars (such as beautiful bod-ies in general). Ten (210b-d) this process leads from a focus on physicallybeautiful things to spiritually beautiful things (such as beautiful souls orpolitical institutions or branches of knowledge); and finally (210d-211b)to a focus on the Form of Beauty itself. In this way, the process takesthe ideal lover from the particular to the universal, from the specific to thegeneral, from the concrete to the abstract, and from the empirical to therational. Tis conception of the process clearly reflects the belief (which

animates much of Plato’s middle period philosophy) that the most explan-atorily fundamental aspects of the world are abstract, universal, and highlygeneral, that these aspects of the world are the most important objects ofknowledge, and that they can be known only through reason alone, andnot through sensory perception.

For our purposes, however, the precise structure of this process is notimportant. It is instead the following two points that matter here. First, theideal form of ἔρως will be informed by a perfect knowledge and under-

standing of the nature of beauty itself. Secondly, the Form of Beauty is theabstract universal that explains the underlying similarity and unity amongall the particular things that are beautiful or intrinsically valuable; and soin this way the Form of Beauty also explains the nature of happiness, whichis the ultimate object of all our rational desires.

4. Platonic Eudaemonism

As we have seen, in this part of the Symposium (199d-212a), Socrates has

given an account of a certain sort of motivation, which he has called love(ἔρως) and has identified with the desire for happiness. I have also arguedthat this is identified with the motivation of the virtuous agent, and indeed with all rational motivation of any kind. Tus, even if, as I have suggested,the Symposium is not committed to psychological eudaemonism – the thesisthat all motivation whatsoever flows from the desire for happiness – itseems clearly committed to rational eudaemonism – the thesis that allrational motivation flows from the desire for happiness.

Rational eudaemonism of this sort can seem a thoroughly unsatisfactory

doctrine. On the one hand, it might seem that if we identify happiness




with an internal state of pleasure or satisfaction, then it cannot be true that whenever I am rationally motivated to act, I am motivated by the desire for

my own happiness. It could surely be rational for me to be motivated to actby the desire for things that are completely independent of my own inter-nal state of pleasure or satisfaction – as is shown by the fact that it could berational for me to be motivated to sacrifice my own pleasure or satisfactionfor some greater good. (For instance, we might think of Diotima’s ownexample of Alcestis, who sacrificed her own life to save her husband.) Ifeudaemonism denies that such self-sacrificing acts are rational, then it seemsto be a doctrine that is not only false, but morally objectionable as well.

On the other hand, if we just identify happiness with the life that one hasmost reason to lead , then we may worry that eudaemonism turns out to belittle more than the banal claim that rational motivation involves beingmotivated to do whatever one has most reason to do.

Te view that Plato explores in the Symposium has the resources to coun-ter this objection. According to this view, to desire happiness at a giventime t is to desire that one should stand in the appropriate relations to theintrinsic values for as long as possible after t . It is not obvious that Alcestis’self-sacrificing act cannot have been motivated by this desire. In sacrificing

herself, Alcestis might well have been motivated by the desire to put herselfinto the right relations to the intrinsic values. By sacrificing herself in this way, she would not only have put herself into the saving and protecting rela-tion to the intrinsic value of her husband’s life; she would also put herselfinto the instantiation relation to the intrinsic value of heroic virtue, andinto the creation relation to the intrinsic value of the admiration that sheinspired by her heroism. By trying to ensure that her husband lived as longas possible, and by achieving such immortal fame for herself, she also mayhave aimed to put herself into the right relations to these intrinsic values

for the longest possible time . At the same time, this view is clearly neither trivial nor banal. First, it

would be rejected by anyone who denied the existence of intrinsic values.Secondly, even philosophers who believe in intrinsic values would have toreject this view if they thought that there were forms of rational motivationthat had nothing to do with intrinsic values. For example, many philoso-phers think that the reasons for action that a given agent has all depend onthe desires (or on the subjective motivational set ) that the agent simply hap-pens to have, together with principles that specify certain purely procedural

requirements of practical rationality. Tis procedural or subjectivist approach




to reasons for action seems clearly to conflict with Plato’s approach – atleast given the assumption (which seems eminently Platonic in spirit) that

the truth about these intrinsic values is not reducible to any such purelysubjective or procedural truths.20

A more subtle point is that this view would also have to be rejected byanyone who thought that it could be rational to be motivated to act bypurely agent-neutral reasons for action. Te crucial point here is that thedesire for happiness according to this view is both agent-and time-relative :to have this desire at a time t is to have the first-person desire that one mightself-ascribe by saying “I want it to be the case that I stand in the appropriaterelations to the intrinsic values for as long a time as possible from now on”.

Tis desire contains an essential reference to the agent and to the present time. It is not a purely agent-neutral desire, like the desire that the instan-tiation of the intrinsic values should be maximized in the world as a whole. A consequentialist might think that at least some reasons for action arepurely agent-neutral – so that being motivated by one of these agent-neu-tral reasons would involve having such a purely agent-neutral desire, suchas the desire that the world as a whole should be as good a place as it pos-sibly can be. For example, one sort of consequentialist is a classical utilitar-

ian like Sidgwick, who might think that being motivated by the reasons ofimpartial benevolence consists in having an impersonal desire that thetotal quantity of happiness in the world should be as great as possible.

In this way, Plato seems to occupy a distinctive position. On the onehand, rational motivation always involves being motivated by intrinsicvalues; and these intrinsic values, as we have seen, are in a way agent-neu-tral, since they call for the same sort of attitude of admiration from everyagent, regardless of the agent’s identity or spatiotemporal location. On theother hand, the way in which it is rational for these intrinsic values to

motivate us to action is strikingly non-consequentialist: to the extent thatyou are rational, these values will motivate you, not to an impersonal desirefor the promotion or maximization of these values in the world as a whole,but to a radically first-personal and time-relative desire that you should put yourself in the right relations to these values now and henceforth. We mightput this as a point about reasons for action: all reasons for action, accord-ing to Plato, are reasons to put oneself now into the right relations to the

20) I have criticized such procedural and subjectivist views of reasons for action in Wedg-

wood (2003).




intrinsic values. In this way, all reasons for action are agent- and time-rela-tive, even though they all depend on intrinsic values, which are neither

agent-relative nor time-relative in this way.How is it that Plato can combine a belief in intrinsic values with this

view of reasons for action as being all without exception agent- and time-relative? Te fundamental explanation, I suggest, turns on a contrast betweentwo different sorts of attitudes. On the one hand, there are attitudes suchas admiration, or the attitude of contemplating something with disinter-ested appreciation and delight. Tese attitudes are appropriate to the intrin-sic values; we might imagine that these are the attitudes that the godsmight have towards the objects that they contemplate. On the other hand,

there are the essentially practical attitudes such as desire : when you have adesire at time t , Plato thinks, your desire is a response to a lack or a defi-ciency that you have at t ; so desire is not an attitude that can be ascribedto the gods. Tis contrast between these two different kinds of attitudehelps to explain how Plato can believe in intrinsic values while conceivingof reasons for action in this non-consequentialist, agent-relative way.

However, one might still object to Plato’s eudaemonism, in the follow-ing way. Plato’s eudaemonism allows that it can be rational to sacrifice

one’s own pleasure to the greater good; but it cannot allow that it can berational to sacrifice one’s own happiness for the greater good. According tothis eudaemonist view, whenever one has suffi cient reason to perform anaction, then that action must contribute at least as much to one’s own hap-piness as any available alternative course of action. But it might seem plau-sible that there could be cases in which it is rational to sacrifice one’s ownhappiness for some greater good.

Tis objection rests on the assumption that there is a clear and centralnotion of “happiness” that is distinct both (i) from the psychological

notions of pleasure or satisfaction and (ii) from the normative notion ofthe sort of life that one has most reason to try to lead. But on reflection itis far from obvious that there is any such clear and central notion here.

We might try to define this notion of happiness in terms of a specialsubcategory of the reasons for action that an agent has. After all, presum-ably, the proponent of this objection to Plato’s eudaemonism assumes thateveryone has some reason to promote their own happiness, but that thisreason can sometimes be overridden by other reasons (such as reasons thatstem from the interests of others). However, it is not clear exactly what this

special reason to promote one’s happiness is supposed to be. Of course, we




could easily define a special category of reasons for action: for example, wecould just say that this special category includes all and only reasons in

favour of courses of action that will either give the agent some pleasure orspare the agent some distress. But it is not clear that this category has anyspecial normative significance (although it may very well have some psy-chological significance). In just the same way, there does not seem to beany normative significance to the special subcategory of reasons for actionthat consists of reasons in favour of actions that will increase the agent’s wealth or social status (although this subcategory of reasons may also havesome psychological significance). So it may be that if we define this notionof “happiness” in terms of reasons, we will obtain an arbitrary notion

devoid of any special significance – not a notion that deserves to play acentral role in ethical theory.21

Alternatively, we could simply define happiness as the life that the agentwants to lead. Ten Plato would surely deny that we always have a reasonto promote our happiness as such. For Plato, some people might want tolive in a certain way, even though they do not really have any good reasonto live in that way; and leading such a life would therefore not be good forthese people at all. In general, it seems clear that Plato rejects any kind of

subjectivism, according to which all of our reasons for action are generatedby the desires that we just happen to have. For Plato, reasons for actionsurely depend on irreducible truths about what is good or beautiful – truthsthat are themselves explained by certain eternal and necessary universalprinciples about the good and the beautiful. Tat is, reasons for actionultimately depend on the Forms of the Beautiful and of the Good. In this way, then, it seems that Plato has good reasons for doubting that thereis any normatively significant notion of happiness that differs both fromthe notion of pleasure and from the notion of the life that one has most

reason to lead. We could certainly ask some further questions about Plato’s view of

reasons or rational motivation. First, he says almost nothing about what intrinsic values there are, or about which things are καλά. Secondly,he could have said much more about what are the “right relations” foragents to stand in to these intrinsic values. We might also wonder whether what he does say is entirely correct. A philosopher who believed in

21) Compare the conception of the normative significance of “well-being” that is advanced

by Scanlon (1998, 126-7).




“deontological constraints” might think that one important aspect of theseright relations is not to harm these intrinsic values, and that in order to

stand in the right relations to these intrinsic values, it is usually moreimportant not to harm these intrinsic values than to create them.

However, even if one thought that Plato’s view of what it is to stand inthe right relations to the intrinsic values should be revised in this way, onemight still support a broadly Platonic theory, according to which reasonsfor action are all without exception reasons for the agent to put herself intothe right relations to the intrinsic values. Te task of developing such abroadly Platonic theory of reasons for action would involve doing at leastthe following two things: first, one would have to articulate a general the-

ory of the intrinsic values; and secondly, one would also have to develop atheory of what are the right relations to stand in to these intrinsic values.

So Plato’s theory may need to be supplemented in these ways. Still, itseems to me that it is an extremely promising approach. Any philosopher who is sceptical about the subjectivist and purely procedural approaches toreasons for action, but also wants to resist consequentialism, has reason toexplore the prospects of this Platonic approach in more detail.22

References

Brentano, F. (1969). On the Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong , trans. RoderickChisholm (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).

Broad, C. D. (1930). Five ypes of Ethical Teory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).Bury, R. G. (1932). Te Symposium of Plato, edited with introduction, critical notes and

commentary, second edition (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons).Ewing, A. C. (1947). Te Definition of Good (London: Macmillan).Gerson, L. P. (2006). “A Platonic Reading of Plato’s Symposium” in Lesher et al. (2006):

47-70.

Hackforth, R. (1950). “Immortality in Plato’s Symposium”, Te Classical Review 64: 43-45.Irwin, . H. (1995). Plato’s Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

Johnston, M. (1992). “Reasons and Reductionism”, Philosophical Review 101: 589-618.Kahn, C. H. (1987). “Plato’s Teory of Desire”, Review of Metaphysics 41: 77-103.Korsgaard, C. M. (1983). “wo Distinctions in Goodness”, Philosophical Review 92: 169-

195.Kraut, R. (1973). “Egoism, Love, and Political Offi ce”, Philosophical Review 82: 330-344.

22)

I am grateful to members of the Ancient Philosophy Workshop at Oxford University,and also to Richard Kraut and Jessica Moss, for very helpful comments on earlier drafts.

44408359_diotima’s eudaemonism in plato’s symposium

Documents