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The Desire for Good: Is the "Meno" Inconsistent with the "Gorgias"?

Author(s): Terry Penner and C. J. RoweReviewed work(s):Source: Phronesis, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1994), pp. 1-25Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182454 .

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The Desire for Good:

Is the Meno Inconsistentwith the Gorgias?

TERRY PENNER AND C.J.ROWE

At Gorgias 467A-468E, esp. 468C2-8, Socrates puts forward the arresting

view that if I (voluntarily) do something and it turnsout badly - worse than

other alternative ctions that were available thenI didn't wantto do theaction.Thus,whateverone mayhavethoughtat thetime,one never n fact

wanted o do anaction f thatactionturned utbadly.Rather, ll that s true

is thatthe action n question"seemedbest" o one.At Meno77B-78B,esp. 77D7-E4,on theotherhand at leastaccording

to Santas's ineexposition,which has becomethestandardnterpretationf

thispassage' Socrates eems to saythatone canwantbad thingsprovided

only that one wantthembelieving them to be good. Put in modern erms,

one can want things that are in fact bad if one wants them underthe

description goodthing'.This is of course ust what mostmodem philoso-phers - such as Anscombe and Davidson - would want Socrates to say if he

was to say something with a chance of being true.

So the two passagesseem to contradict ach other.

The apparentontradictionan be broughtout in anotherway. At Meno

77B-78B, Socrates s arguing hat'Everyonedesiresthegood'. OnSantas'sreading of this passage, it can only be saying that "Everyone desires the

apparentgood".(And such is indeed Aristotle'sreadingof 'Everyonede-

sires the good' when he wants it to come out true [Nicomachean Ethics

111.4,Topics VI.8.146b36-147a 1 ].)2 On the other hand, if 'Everyone desir-

' G. Santas, "TheSocraticParadoxes",?2, esp. para. 3ff, in ch. 6 of Socrates(Routledgeand Kegan Paul, London, 1979), reprinted romPhilosophicalReview,73 (1964).2 How does speakingof desiringapparentlygood things (Aristotle)differ from using the

schema 'desires object o underdescriptionD', and so speakingof desiring bad thingsunder the description 'good things' (Anscombe, Davidson, Santas)? Though we rejectbothways of speaking,we think the 'underthe description' schemafarclearer as a wayof expressingthis sort of view thantalk of an apparentgood. An apparentgood, like an

alleged assassin, is a combinationof an actual thing with a way that thing appears(perhaps ncorrectly).The 'under he description'schema breaksdown referenceto eachsuch apparentobject into referenceto its two components - the actual object (which

Phronesis 1994. Vol.XXXIXII AcceptedApril 1993)



es the good' is to be interpretedn accordancewiththe views of the Gor-gias, it would have to be readas saying that"Everyonedesiresthe real

good".

It followseither hatwe havemisinterpretedheGorgias passage;3rthat

shows up in the o position) and the appearance hat the object gives off to the relevant

desirer (which appearance hows up in the D position). The o position is "transparent",

admitting ubstitutionof any true descriptionof the object, whether he agent knows that

description to be true of the object or not. We may say that the o position gives the

"outside"of the object of desire, it being completely independentof how the agent may

view the object "from the inside".The D position, on the other hand, is "oblique",

admitting only substitutionof such descriptionsas the agent believes to be true of the

objectof desire. We may say that theD position gives the "inside"of the object of desire

(relative to that agent). The outside of the object can be identified with the Fregean

reference; and some insides - those insides which are true of, and uniquelydetermine,

the reference- can be identified with Fregeansenses. (Those insides which arefalse of

the referencewill have to be modified if they are to assign a Fregean sense to the D

position.)

One benefit which modernphilosopherssee in thus separating"outside"and "inside" n

this way is that it removes the dangersof talk of apparent objectsor intendedobjects.

[This is a benefit which Santasunfortunately orfeits. Having introduced he schema

'desires o under description D', Santas then reintroducesa distinction between actual

object and intended object. But the notion of intended object simply reintroduces he

kindof "apparent bjects"which the schema avoids. Santaseven falls into some confu-

sion over this too: See his hobnobbing with non-existent objects in his n. 22. It is

fortunate hat these confusions are inessentialto the mainpoints Santasis makingin his

paper.On the otherhand, it is unfortunatehat,as we shall see, the chancesof Santas's

interpretationeing textually ustifiable for the Meno are fargreaterusing the confusing

,apparentgood' terminology, herebeingno real hopeof reading he clearer erminology

into the text.

But modern philosophers have seen another benefit in thus separating"inside"from

"outside".For it enables them to say that differentpeople may desire the same thing

(since the objects of their desires have the same outside), but have [type-Idifferentdesires (since the objects of theirdesires have differentinsides). [Compare he way in

which Fodorand Salmon argue thatpeople may believe the same propositioneven when

the psychologicalstatesof the people in question- the believings- are type-different.Nathan Salmon, Frege's Puzzle (M.I.T. Press, CambridgeMA, 1986), ch. 8, JerryA.

Fodor, "SubstitutionArgumentsandthe Identityof Belief', in A Theoryof Contentand

OtherEssays (MIT Press, CambridgeMA, 1990), pp. 161-176.]We shall call these ways of thinkingof objectsof desire"descriptionist"r "separation-

ist", for the way in which they separate he objectas it is fromthe description he agent

would give of it, only the latterbeing relevant o the identityof the psychologicalstatein

question.

3 But we think not. See Penner's "Desire and Power in Socrates:The Argumentof

Gorgias 466A-468E that Orators and TyrantsHave No Power in the City",Apeiron,1991, pp. 147-202. Provided only that the view we attribute o Socrates makesphilo-

sophical sense (as we shall argueit does: ?1 below), thenthis interpretationeems to us

secure.

2



Santas has misinterpreted he Meno passage; or - least desirably of all - that

Socrates is expressing, in dialogues widely admitted to be close in time to

each other, views that are flatly inconsistent with each other.

What we shall argue in the present paper is that, in spite of there being

some temptationto adopt Santas's reading of the Meno as correct- because

of its conformity to modern intuitions about desire for the apparentgood,

and because of its, at first sight, quite plausible reading of the crucial pas-

sage 77D7-E4 - there is an alternative reading which is, at any rate, pos-

sible for the crucial passage, and which coheres far better both with the

passage as a whole and with the rest of what we see the Socrates of the

early dialogues saying about the desire for good.

In ?I, we explain briefly the view of desire in the Gorgias. In ?11, we

introduce the crucial passage at Meno 77D7-E4, showing how plausibly

Santas's interpretationtakes the passage. In ?111,we deploy our own in-

terpretationof the wider passage 77B-78B as a whole, taken also within the

general context of the differences between Socratic and Aristotelian ethics.

Then, in ?IV, we show how the crucial passage 77D7-E4, which at first

sight seems to tell so clearly for Santas's interpretationcan, with one small

change in punctuation,be read perfectly acceptably in accordance with the

naturalinterpretationwe developed in ?111.

I. Desire in the Gorgias

A brief word is necessary here about how the account of desire in the

Gorgias is to be taken. For otherwise it will seem just a silly view, which

should, at best, be written off as a temporary Socratic aberrationfrom the

saner view that everyone desires the apparent good. Still, what we have to

offer here cannot amount to more than a brief sketch, since the philosophi-

cal issues here are large - involving nothing less than an almost complete

repudiation of some standard ways of treating reference within psycholog-ical contexts. The fuller exposition of a more general treatmentof reference

within psychological contexts will be given elsewhere.4

What makes this interpretationof the Gorgias work philosophically is a

group of assumptions about those desires to do something which actually

result in an action. The first is that

(Al) no one ever desires to do a quite particular ctionjust for its own sake (for thesake of doing that particularaction whatever the consequences might be);5

4In Penner'sstill unpublishedmanuscript,Plato and the Philosophersof Language.s A defenceof this assumptionwouldtake us too farafield from ourpresentpurpose.Wereserve such a defence to anotheroccasion. ForSocratesas holding this view, cf Gorgias468C3.

3



rather,any quite particular ction whichis desired is desiredalways as a means

to some furtherend, which may itself be desired for the sake of some further

end, . . ., which is desired ultimatelyfor the sake of some final end, such ashappiness,which is the one thingdesiredfor its own sake.6

Thus desire to do a particularaction always involves a desire for a (final)

end and a desire for a proximate means. Notice, now, before we begin

elaborating on the Socratic assumption (Al), that, so far we have nothing

incompatible with the Aristotle-Santas-Anscombe-Davidson view that all

desire is for the apparent good. On that view, (Al) will translate into the

claim that

(Al*) all desire to do something is desire for the apparentlybest means to the appar-

ently best end.

It will be expected, given what we have already said about the Gorgias

above, that Socrates will dissent, both on the question of a (final) end and

on the question of means.

Ia. Desire for a (Final) End

Turning first to desire for ends, we get, on the Aristotelian view in (A1*),

that everyone desires as their end their apparent happiness, not their realhappiness.7 By contrast with this view, we claim that what the Gorgias is

saying is that

6 Gorgias 467C5-468C8 (though happinessis not mentioned here). For the Socratic-

Aristotelian assumption that the means-endhierarchy involved in every deliberately

chosen action ends in a single object, see Lysis 218C-220B (and for love and desire

being treated nterchangeably n this context, 221B7, 221E3-4, and 221E7-222AI). For

the identifying of the single object as happiness,see Symposium204EI-205BI, and

Euthydemus 78Dff, esp. 282AI-5. The Socratic-Aristotelian ssumption hatall chosen

actions aim ultimately at a single thing, happiness (or apparenthappiness), is of course

denied by many modems who hold that the final ends of particular ctions may not onlybe different, but also incommensurablewitheach other. We do not in this paperattempt

to take account of this importantpossibility. It will be enough for us if we convince

readers on the startling difference that, in para. 3 above, we claim there is between

Socrates and Aristotle. Neither Socrates norAristotle is an incommensurabilist.NoticeRichardJeffrey's use of De Anima 434a7-10 as an epigraph for his book The Logic of

Decision (McGrawHill, New York, 1965).]

7 To say this is of course not to say that people say to themselves "WhatI want is my

apparent happiness,not my real happiness".This would be an entirely superficialob-

jection to the Aristotelianand descriptionistview that all desire is forthe apparent ood.

What people say to themselves is of course, "What I want is my real happiness".The

reason why, accordingto the Aristotle-Santas-Anscombe-Davidsoniew, we must nev-ertheless say that everyone desires their apparent happiness is that some people are

mistaken n whatthey identify as their real happiness.Helen, mistakenly dentifyingher

4



(A2) what one desiresas one's end is one's real happiness,even if that differs from

what one thinks it is.

Now, it might seem that (A2) couldn't be right. How can we say Helen

desires her real happiness (say, successfully actualizing her considerable

intellectual and social skills), when what she goes for all the time is, in-

stead, the maximizing of bodily pleasure?

We offer here three very brief argumentsto indicate the way in which we

would defend (A2). First of all, it is surely arguable that the only reason one

could have for thinking that

(El) Helen desires, as her end, the maximizing of bodily pleasure (her apparent

good),

is that

(E2) Helen (falsely) believes that the life of maximizing bodily pleasure is, in her

case, her realgood.

But then, to get (El) by a substitutionusing (E2), shouldn't we have that

(E3) Helen desires, as her end, her realgood?

It is true that modems will hope to get (El) from (E2) plus (E3) understood

as

(E3a) Helen desiresas herend (whatshe thinksof as) her realgood,

ratherthan as

(E3b) Helen desires as her endher real good (her realhappiness),even if it is different

from what she thinks it is.

So furtherargumentwill be required. (For the moment our point is just: It is

her desire for good which explains her desire to maximize pleasure- which

drives the desire to maximize pleasure - and not the other way around.)

This brings us to our second argument (borrowed from op. cit. in n. 3).This is to point to a closely related phenomenon which appears to give

some support to the possibility of reading (E3) as (E3b). Keith Donnellan8

has argued that when Jones uses the words 'the man in the cornerdrinkinga

realhappinesswith the maximizingof bodily pleasure,desiresas herend the maximiz-ing of bodily pleasure.Since this is not what her realhappiness s, we must say (accord-ing to Aristoteliansanddescriptionists) hatwhatshe desires as her end is herapparenthappiness- what appearsto herto be her real happiness.8 "Referenceand Definite Descriptions",Philosophical Review 75 (1966), 281-304.Donnellan'sdistinctionbetween referentialand attributiveuses of definite descriptions

is accounted for by others using a distinctionbetween namesand demonstrativeson theone hand and definite descriptionson the other. One can sympathize with the formal

motives for following the lattercoursewhile still thinking Donnellan is the more nearlyright.

5



martini' o refer to someone who is in fact - andunbeknownsto Jones-

only drinkingwater rom a martiniglass, thesewordscan, in one perfectly

standard se, be taken o refer o theman in thecornerdrinkingwater roma martiniglass. We endorseDonnellan'sargument.But we wantto go onestep further,and arguethat in such cases, Jones's state of mind is one of

intending o refer to the man in the cornerdrinkingwaterfrom a martini

glass.We are not just speakingof a "transparent"eadingof 'Jones ntends

to refer o x' (giving us the "outside" f the objectof the intention o refer:

n. 2 above).We arespeakingof theinsideof Jones'spsychological tate.Itis Jones's intention o refer to the man as he actually is andeven if how

Joneswoulddescribehimis other hanhowhe actually s. Joneswantshow

it is with theman in question o over-rideanyerrors n Jones'sconceptionof him. (In general,people are well aware thattheirconceptions,and de-

scriptions,of peoplethey arereferring o, are inadequate.) Buthe's only

drinkingwater,"we say to Jones. "Whatever "e replies,"Youfix it up.

(And whenyou've fixed it up, that's thepersonI intend o refer o.)"9

Oursuggestion s that ust as, concerninghequestionwhatJones'spsy-

chological stateis in intending o referto the manin thecorner, he way it

actually s withthe maninquestionmaybe intendedfrom he"inside" )o

dominate he descriptionactuallyused;so too, concerningHelen's desire

for ends, how it actuallyis with Helen's happinessalso dominatesthedescription maximizingbodily pleasure'.WhatHelen desiresas her end

(both nsideandoutside ) s therealgood.10

9 Another example, this time from the idea of giving an order. The tyrantorders his

minion to bring him a glass of rose water immediately.But it turnsout that the only way

to get rose water immediately (as opposed to some orange water, which, it turns out, is

much more readily available, and which the minion knows the tyrant likes nearly as

well) is to blow up the East Wing of the Palace. So the minion blows it up. 'Well, sir,

you wanted rose water immediately,' the minion explains to the open-mouthed yrant.

The moral of this last story is that orders are given with an understandinghatthe letterof the descriptionsin the order is to be over-riddenby higher background nds if the

explicit description s inconsistentwith those background nds. An order always has an

implicit rider: 'This order may in various ways be inappropriate r based on false

assumptions. f so, fix it up ' Why shouldn't t be the same with a person'sstate of mind

when he or she desires to do a specific thing?

We note, parenthetically, hat Plato knew something of the dangersof following orders,

or the law, to the foot of the letter:Statesman 294A-C, esp. C1 4, and295B-296A.

'0 The idea of over-riding is of course doubly exercised when one desires to do a

particular ction. One's descriptionsof the end may needto be over-ridden so thatit is

one's realhappiness hat is the end. But also one's descriptionof the action may need to

be over-ridden f we are to capturethe actual action done which is the explanandum.This may lead to a certain "incoherence n the desire",on which see the second last

paragraph f ?1 below.

6



This sortof view of psychological tateswe call a "Dominance"iew, by

contrastwith"Descriptionist"r"Separationist"iews, andalsoby contrast

with Fregeanviews."

Ourthirdargumentor the conclusion hat Helenstill desiresas herend

her real happiness (also borrowed rom op. cit. in n. 3 above) is this:

Consider he fact thatwhen, lateron, Helen looks back over her life, she

says, "Youknow,I used to think hatmaximizingbodily pleasureswas the

way to be happy.I now see I was wrong."Is Helen not hererecognizing

that,afterall, the life of maximizingbodily pleasurewas only a means to

her end even at the time - namely, a means to whatever her real happiness

actuallywas? At any rate, nothingseemsto stop us fromtakingthe life of

maximizingbodily pleasurenot as Helen'sapparenthappiness,but as the

apparently est (ingredient)means to Helen's actual end - her actualend

being her real happiness, even if that real happiness differs from what she

thinks it is."2

Thus,as far as desire for (final) ends is concerned,we claim thatdesire

forsomethingas a (final)endmay perfectlywell be readas desirefor one's

real happiness treatingany case of desiring some apparenthappiness

whichis not identicalwithrealhappiness,as a case of desiringsomething

as an (ingredient)means rather hanas an end. The end can thus remain

one's realhappiness.Notice that any case there is for Helen's desiring the maximizingof

" Fregean views are also separationist, ince the reference represents he outside of the

object of the psychological state, the sense the inside. There will be more detail on

dominance theoriesvs separationist heories in the work cited in n. 4 above.

12 Ingredientmeans are not just mere instruments o getting happiness- desired only

because without them one can't get something else, happiness (cf Lysis 219D-220B) -

but are themselves ingredients (perhaps even the single ingredient)of that happiness.

See, in modem times, J.L. Ackrill,"Aristotleon Eudaimonia",Proceedings of the Brit-

ish Academy (1974), 339-59. Also, on there being no reason not to allow Socrates thenotion of ingredientmeans as well as instrumentalmeans, Penner's "Socrates and the

Early Dialogues", in Richard Kraut (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cam-

bridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1992),n. 14.

As Pennerhas also remarked lsewhere (p. 192 of op. cit. in n. 3), the present argument- makingthe maximizing of bodily pleasure a means- will perhapsremind readersof

the standardphilosophers'defence of the Aristoteliandictum thatone never deliberates

about ends, only about means. This defence has it thatto deliberate s to try to settle on

some means to one's end. So if one could deliberateabout whetheror not to maximize

one's bodily pleasure,one mustbe taking one's goal (happiness,presumably) o be other

thanthe maximizingof bodily pleasure- presupposing he goal and deliberatingabout

the means. (None of this blocks whatanyone could wantto do by way of "deliberatingabout alternative ends" - say, bodily pleasure, or honor, or the political life or the

intellectual ife.)

7



bodilypleasure, ven as a means,will remaindrivenby Helen'sdesireforherrealhappiness.ThustheargumentEl)-(E3) abovebecomes

(El*) Helen wants, as herend, her real happiness.

(E2*) Helen (falsely) believes that the best (ingredient)means to herrealhappiness s

the maximizing of bodily pleasure.

So, at best,

(E3*) Helen desires the maximizingof bodily pleasureas a means to her real happi-

ness.'3

lb. Desire for Means

We now need to take up desire for means. If the precedingargumentssuggestreason orsayingthatonedesiresas one's endone's realhappinessrather hanone's apparent appiness,we now needa reason or saying, asSocratessays in the Gorgias,thatwhen one (voluntarily) oes a particularaction that does not resultin maximizingone's realhappiness,one didn'tafterallwant o do thataction. Thepositionat468C2-5 s this:If theactiondoes result n one's realgood- if it is the bestmeansto one's realgood-

then one does want to do the action. But if it does not result n one's real

good - if it is not the best means to one's real good - one does not want todo the action.)Helen takes the ice creamcone thinkingthat action will

maximizebodilypleasureand so best lead to herhappiness.But actually,andunbeknownsto Helen,eatingthat ce creamcone is not thebest means

either to maximizingherrealhappinessor to maximizingbodily pleasure.(As for maximizingbodilypleasure, he'd do betterwaitingfor tomorrowwhenshe'll havea littlemorecash, andcanget a chocolatemalted nstead.)Howcanit be said thatHelendidn'twant o takethat ce creamcone?Whatotherexplanation ould therebe of her(intentionally)aking t?

To successfullyanswer hischallenge,we mustattribute o Socrates hefollowing view about he identityof actionsactuallydone:

(A3) The identityof a given particular ction is fixed by all the particularproperties

the action actually has, including the consequencesthat action has; it is not

fixed by particulardescriptionsunderwhich the agentdoes it.'4

'3 We say that the argument eads to (E3*) "at best" since the argument o which we

immediately urn, aboutdesire for means, will show that even (E3*) is not justified.14 Thus we need a Davidsonian criterion for identity of actions, not a Goldmanian

criterion.That Socrates individuates actions by means of a totality of attributes hat

includes consequences seems clear from the treatmentof actions as means to ends at

Gorgias 467C5-468C8. See Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford

University Press, Oxford, 1980), by contrastwith Alvin Goldman,A Theoryof Human

8



Thus the particular ction of takingthe ice creamcone that Helen did -

going for it full of enthusiasm is nevertheless he actionwhich led to her

being overweight, o pimples,to the cloggingof her arteries, o no maxi-

mizingof bodily pleasure rememberhe chocolatemalted omorrow), nd

indeedto eventualmisery.Did Helen want that actionof takingthe ice

creamcone?If the identityof the action s given as in (A3), certainlynot

Helenwanted o do anactionwhich- in theactualworld,atanyrate she

couldn'tdo:anactionof eatingthe ice creamconewhich would lead to the

maximizingof bodily pleasureand to her real happiness.But thereis no

suchaction nthe actualworld.(Maybe here s in some other antasyworld

whichshe occasionally nhabits; ut not in thisworld.)Thus (A3) gives us a

defencefor theclaim that if Helen'sactionturnedoutbadly,she didn't dowhatshe wanted o do; shemerelydid what"seemedbest".Whatever esire

causedherto dojust this act, it was notthedesireto dojust thisact.

Of course o saythis is stillto leave unansweredhechallenge,"Howelse

are we to explainHelen'staking heice creamcone, if notbecause hatwaswhatshe wanted o do?"Actually,we cannotoffer a detailedanswerhere:

It is fartoo large a question.But the reader s owed at leasta sketchof the

linesalongwhichour answerwill be constructed.One partof our answer s

to insist that the desirewhichdrivesthe mistakenactionstill is the desire

(from the inside ) for her real good, even if that is differentfrom what shethinks t is. ("You fix it up,"Helen will say.) On the otherhand,any such

account must notice that the action to be explainedmust be the actual

action done - which precisely does not lead to that good. We thus have a

kindof incoherencen thedesire.She wants n one and the same actionthe

actual ice cream cone she took (you fix it up) which leads to her real

happiness you fix it up). This poses us with a problemnot unlike thatof

representinghe stateof mindof a personwho,unbeknownsto himselfor

herself,holds inconsistentbeliefs.Butthe latterproblems plainlyone that

any theoryof psychologicalstatesis going to have to deal with anyway.[For these sorts of cases, we shall resortto some variantof a Fregean

approach:ee op. cit. inn. 4 above.]So the "incoherencen thedesire"doesnot seemto us an insuperable ifficulty o ourproposal.

Action (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliff, NJ, 1976).

Of course questions of liability and responsibility- of what crimes or torts one has

committedin doing a particular ction- area quite differentmatter.They area questionof whatdescriptionsareassignedto crimes or tortsin the law, and whatdescriptions he

agentwas awareapplied to the crimesortorts.Inthe case of crimesand torts,neitherthe

law's concern with the agent's state of mind, nor society's concern, extends muchbeyond these descriptions.This is a point of which Augustinewas well aware: See De

Libero ArbitrioI.v.39-41.

9



So much, then,on our way of understandinghe view of desire for the

good in the Gorgias. It is obvious thatthis view is inconsistentwith the

view, so congenial o Aristotle,Anscombe,Davidson,andSantas, hat de-sire is for the apparentgood, not thereal good. In the nextsection,we turn

to the case Santashas presented or reading his latter,Aristotelian iew

into the Meno.

II. The Crucial Passage (Meno 77D7-E4); and Santas's Reading of it

The contextof the crucial passage is this: At Meno 77B, Socrateselicits

from Meno an accountof virtueas "desiring ood thingsandbeing able to

(6ivvaaOaL, having the power to) get them". Socrates objects to the useful-

ness of the first halfof this account:"desiring ood things".You'reassum-

ing,Meno,thatsomepeopledesirebadthings,andsome desiregood things.

But surely everyonedesires good things?Meno replies:No, some people

desire bad things. Fromhere, the argumentdevelops by deployingfour

possibilitiesMenobelievesin, namely:

(a) S desiresgoodthings 77B6-C2],(bl) S desires bad things thinkingthemgood [77C3],

(b2x) S desires to possess badthingsknowing thembadbutthinkingthem beneficial

[77DI-21, and(b2y) S desiresto possess bad thingsknowingthem bad and harnful [77D2-4, 77E5-

78A81.'5

IsThe argumentcan be representedusing a tree diagramas follows:

Desire

(a) good things (b) badthings

(bl) thoughtgood (b2*) knownto be bad

(b2x) thinkingbeneficial (b2y) knowing to be harmful

Iknowing they'll be unhappy

wishingto be unhappy

No one wishes to be unhappy

x

10



These four possibilitiesare thenshown to reduce o, at most,the firsttwo,

as follows. (b2y) is shownto reduce o impossibility 77E5-78B1],because

such people wouldhaveto desirewhattheyknow will makethemunhappy;

and no one wantsto be unhappy. b2x) is shown to reduce o impossibility

[77D4-7],becausepeoplewho thinkthe badthings theydesire will benefitthem obviouslydon't know thatthese thingsare bad - contradictinghe

original descriptionof themas desiringbad things they know to be bad.

Supposedcases of peoplewho desirethings theyknow to be bad, thinking

they will benefit them,actually all undercase (bl) [77D7-E4].'6But case

(bl), the case of people who desire bad things thinkingthem beneficial,

Socratesargues in thecrucialpassage will somehowor otherreduce o

desire for good things.We can thus conclude that of the two remaining

cases, (a) is overtlydesirefor good things, and (bl) reduces somehow or

otherto desireforgood things.So everyonedesiresgood things.

The questionhere s justhow (bl) reduces o desire or good at 77D7-E4.

Santasproposesone account,we proposeanother.For the restof this sec-

tion, we discuss Santas'sproposal; n ?111we point out drawbacks o his

proposal n the widercontextof 77D7-E4; and in ?IV we offer our own

proposalas to how to take77D7-E4.

Santastakes this passageas giving us that(bl) is a case of desiring he

apparent good - of desiringwhat is in fact bad under the description'good'. Thus Santasenvisages 'Everyonedesiresthe good' as holding of

case (bl) by reading hatdictumas sayingthateveryonedesires whatthey

desire under the description 'good' or as saying 'Everyone desires the ap-

parent good' (i.e. what[at least] appearsgood to them). In the translation

Santasuses, the crucialpassage goes like this [the numbers, nserted or

convenience n laterargumentation,re ours]:

"Obviously<1> they do notdesire bad things, the people who are ignorantof them,

but <2> [they desire] the things which they supposed to be good things, even

though<3> those things arein fact bad; so that <4> those who are ignorantof themandthinkthem good really desire good things."

16 It is true that Socrates doesn't actually say that case (b2x) reduces to case (bl). In

some ways, indeed, it mightbe betterto say: The people wrongly described under(b2x)arecases of desiring badthings thinkingthat possession of those bad things will lead to

benefit- and that is what case (bl) actually amountsto as well. [So that (bl) is actually

clarifiedby the modified (b2x) - since it introduces he means-end distinction into theidea underconsideration n (bl), of desiringsomethingthinking t good. As will become

clear, we believe this clarification is important o the argument n the crucialpassage.This clarification,we suggest, explains why Socrates doesn't discuss case (bl) at the

point where he introduces t (c3) but waits till 77D7-E4.] But whatever one says aboutthe relationshipbetween(b2x) and (bl), it is hardto believe thatany difference can be

intended between 'desiringbad things (wrongly)thinking themgood' and 'desiring badthings (wrongly)thinkingthem beneficial'.

11



Santas points out, first, an apparent contradiction between <1> (people

don't desire bad things) and <2> + <3> (which adds up to: people do desire

bad things); and, second, an apparent non-sequitur between <2> (people

desire things they think good) and <4> (people desire good things).

Santas's solution to this pair of difficulties is brilliant and simple:

Make <I> say that people don't desire things which are in fact bad under

the description 'bad' - apparently bad things (which are also in fact bad).

Then, <2> + <3> can say people desire things which are in fact bad under

the description 'good' - apparently good things (which are in fact bad).

And then <4> can conclude - as a way of reading 'people desire good

things' - that people desire [whatever they desire under the description]

'good things' - apparently good things. So all desire is for the good in the

sense: the apparent good.

Now we believe that there would be strong reason to adopt this in-

terpretationif (a) there were no other way to resolve the two difficulties

Santas pointed out; if (b) that interpretationwould fit Socrates' strategy in

the larger argument 77B-78B as a whole; and if (c) that interpretationwould

fit our understanding of Socratic thought generally. But in fact we reject

these three suppositions. So we shall be rejecting Santas's reading. In ?111,

we take up (b) and (c), and in ?IV, we offer an altermativereading of the

crucial passage, resolving the two difficulties (of self-contradiction andnon-sequitur)which Santas raises in a quite different way.

III. The General Strategy of 77B-78B as a Whole; and some Broader Con-

siderations relating to the Differences between Socratic and Aristoteliani

Thought Generally

R.W. Sharples in his commentary on the Meno (Aris & Phillips, Warmin-

ster, Wiltshire, 1985), appears to endorse a reading of the sort of Santas's.

He writes (commenting on 77D7-E4):

"Thearguments simplerhere than thatat Gorgias467a-8e. Thereit is argued hat

what people desire is the end not the means, and that people desire what is bad

because they mistakenlythinkthat it is a means to a good thatthey really desire;

here, more simply, it is arguedthatpeople desire what is bad underthe mistaken

impression hatit is good.

We note with approval Sharples's wish to bring the present passage into

relation with the Gorgias passage. But we also note that, as ?1 above in-

dicates, he has misread the Gorgias passage. The passage does not say that

we desire only ends, not means; and it does not say (inconsistently with 'we

don't desire means') that we desire bad things (as means to ends we really

12



desire). It says we desire means if they do lead to things good in them-

selves; and it says that we don't desire bad things at all.'7

All the same, there is strong agreement between Sharples and ourselves

that the way in which the Gorgias argues aboutdesire for good is by way of

means-ends hierarchies. How then is desire for good argued about in the

Meno? Sharples thinks, like Santas, that what is involved in the Meno is not

means to ends at all. In the Meno, Sharples says, "more simply, it is argued

thatpeople desire what is bad under the mistaken impression that it is good"

- a sentence which might naturally read as endorsing the sort of view

Santas proposes, that people desire what is bad under the description

'good'. [For qualifications on what Sharples may have intended, see n. 17.]

As against this reading, we shall suggest (in ?IV of the paper) that means to

ends are involved in the Meno as well. (We have already foreshadowed this

view in n. 16 above, in pointing out that Socrates doesn't discuss "desiring

bad things thinking them good" till he has rephrasedthis option as "desiring

bad things thinking that possession of those good things will be beneficial"

' We initiallytook Sharples'sconclusion about the Meno, in the passage quoted,

here, more simply, it is arguedthatpeople desire what is bad under the mistaken

impression that it is good

to plainly commithim to the view thatin the Meno, one can desire badthingsunderthe

description'good'. But correspondencewith Sharples has convinced us that a subtlerreadingmay be suggested in Sharples'sremarkon the Gorgias,

... peopledesire what is badbecause they mistakenlythinkthatit is a means to agood thatthey really desire.

Here the first occurrenceof 'desire' may be takento be intended to yield an inverted-

commas sense of 'desire' ("desire- as they think"),contrastingwith 'really desire' [='desire' in the ordinary ense] later n the sentence. On this reading,Sharples s certainlynotcommitted to Santas'sposition on the Gorgias, accordingto which to desirethe bestend is to desirethe apparentlybestend. [See Santas,p. 317, n. 24 with p. 190 ("doneforthe sake of possessing what the agent considers a good");also pp. 223-4 ("they wantthem if they think they will bring benefits or goods", "they are wanted if they are

thoughtto lead to the possession of good things"). (Ouritalics.) ]. But then, of course,Sharples's remarkon theMeno about"[desiring]whatis bad under he mistaken mpres-sion that it is good" would also have to be read in the invertedcomma sense. So read,

Sharples's remarkswould lend no support o the view of Santasand others thatwe can

desire what is bad under the description'good'. And so read, the only issue Sharples'sremarkswould raise,as far as the Meno is concerned, would be whetherthe means-enddistinction is present in the Meno as well as in the Gorgias (as we say), or not (asSharples says here).

We note also, just to be quite clear, that Sharples's contrastbetween 'desire' and'really desire' in the Gorgias, as taken here, is precisely not identifiable with Dodds'scontrastbetween desires in the ordinarysense (desiresof the empirical self) anddesires

"in the restrictedsenses of 'true will' ". Pennerhas arguedagainst any such "restrictedsense" or any such ambiguity n 'desire', in "PowerandDesire", p. 175ff, esp. 199, with177, 178, 191.].

13



- that is, as desiring to possess bad things as a means to benefit.)

We begin by raising some problems with Santas's reading, problems

which will point us in the direction of a second possibility for interpreting

the crucial passage.

If Santas wishes to claim that 'desiring good things' in case (bl) is

desiring bad things under the description 'good' (apparently good things

which are in fact bad), and so tries to interpret 'Everyone desires the good'

as 'Everyone desires [whatever they desire under the description] "good

things" ' (or as 'Everyone desires the apparent good'), then he must argue

that case (a) - desiring good things - is actually either a case of desiring

good things under the description 'good', or (more simply) a case of desir-

ing apparently good things. Otherwise, he must make Socrates' thesis that

'Everyone desires good things' rest upon an ambiguity:Desire for good will

be the desire for really good things in case (a), while in case (b I) it will be

either desire for whatever one desires under the description 'good', or de-

sire for apparently good things.

But it seems certain that case (a) is not a case of desiring things under the

description 'good'. If it were, we should have to wonder where in the text

we were to find words for "underthe description 'good' ". From a linguistic

point of view, it will be far easier on Santas's reading to take (a) as 'desir-

ing apparently good things', with the 'apparently' simply understood.8 But

this also will not work. The whole point of Meno's dividing desire into (a)

desiring good things and (b) desiring bad things must, even on Santas's

view, be (a) desiring things that are infact good and (b) desiring things that

are infact bad. [See the diagram in n. 15.]

So Santas's view of the Socratic thesis 'Everyone desires the good' can

only be that the Socratic thesis is ambiguous, saying that there are two

cases: (a) which speaks of desire for really good things, and (bl) which

speaks of desire for apparently good things. This seems to us a most un-

fortunateresult, both philosophically and exegetically.We are more tempted by the readingof the overall strategyof the passage

in R.S. Bluck's commentary (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,

1961), 257. Bluck writes

18 Even though 'under he description'could be plausiblyread into the text in <1>, <2>,

and the antecedentof <4>, the impossibilityof honestlyreading 'underthe description

"good"' into the text at 77C1, which we note here, applies also to 77C2, 78A6, A8,

B1-2. The best Santascan do is to imaginean 'apparently'being read into the text at

these passages. Such imagined linguistic supplementsare, at any rate, what Santas's

readingof the crucial passagewill requirewithinthe largerpassage. ['Apparently' s theonly understood inguisticsupplement hat is at all plausibleforSantas n theconsequentof <4>: 'they desire good things'.]

14



"Socrates ... argues (i) thatanyonewho thinks thatxctxa are beneficial must be

failing to recognizingxcExa for what they are, and must really desire Ta dyaOa

(77D-E); and (ii) thatanyone who is aware that xaxd do harm to the personwhoacquiresthem can hardlydesire xaxd (77E-78B). Thereforeno one desires xa-

xa."

Bluck does not here address he issue of real good vs apparent ood. But it

is plainthathe is takinghis (ii), our (b2y), to be arguing hatno one desires

really bad things; and it is plain that in his (i), he is taking xaxadand

dyaOd to be reallybadthingsandreally good things. (Thetalkof "recog-

nizingxaxa for whatthey are"nails down thefactthatthe xcaxaare really

bad things.'9So surely, then, the contrastwith reallybad things mustbe

really good things.)We thinknot only that Bluck must have hadthis read-ing, in termsof really good things and really bad things,in mind;but also

that his readingof the overall strategy s correct that this will have been

thestrategySocrateshadin mind.It follows thatwhatwe mustargue, n our

readingof the crucial passage (and what Bluck needs for his reading), s

thatcase (bl) reduces o case (a) - desire for really good things.20

'9 On Santas's reading, by contrast, the reference to knowledge must seem curiously

irrelevant.Plato's optimumstrategy, if what he had in mind were what Santas says he

had in mind, would have been, insteadof the tree diagram n n. 15 above,the following:

Desire

(a) good things (b) badthings

(bl) thoughtgood (b2*) thoughtbad and harmful

This point is takenup again in the second last paragraph f ?IV below.

The referenceto knowledge in the argument in the choice, for example, to get at (bl)

only via firsttrying (b2x), which(we have alreadysuggestedin n. 16)bringsin means toends, andwhich, by the use of knowledgerather ets us onto thepathof being concernedwith really good things and really bad things- is crucialto our readingof this passage.

The resultingnotionof desireis thatof "desire(bothinsideandoutside)forgood things"which we talked about in ?1 above.20 One might think it just obvious, looking at the diagramin n. 15, that the fact that

possibility (bl) is not reducedto impossibility commits Socrates to the admission thatone sometimes desires things that are in fact bad. This would however be a serious

mistake. Socrates is not committed to (bl). This is a possibility introduced, not by

Socrates,butby Meno- and in oppositionto Socrates' claim thateveryonedesiresgoodthings, i.e., (arguably? ) hat everyone falls underpossibility (a). So the mere statement

of (bl) does nothing here to commit Socrates to the claim thatpeople sometimesdesirethingsthat arein fact bad.The entirematter urnsuponjust how possibility (bl) reducesto desiring good things. If it does so in the way Santasclaims, by simply identifying

15



But beforeactuallymaking he argumentn connectionwith(bl) itself,

Bluck's(i), let us workbackwardsowards bl), by lookingatthe reduction

to absurdity f possibility b2y), Bluck's(ii). Herewe areconcernedwith

the possibilitythat some people desire bad things knowingthey will be

harmedby them[77E5-78A8].The argument, uitesimply,is thatif they

know theywill be harmedby thesebad things, heyknowtheywill be made

miserableand unhappyby them.But no one wantsto be unhappy.So no

one wantsbad things [knowingthatthe bad thingswill harmthem]- at

least if no one wishesto be unhappy.For whatelse is it to be unhappybut

to desirebadthingsandget them?

Now, if Santas s right hat(bl) is aboutallowing he desireof badthings

thoughtgood, he must supposethat (b2y) is aboutdisallowingdesirefor

bad things houghtbad[cf n. 19above].So thepoint hatno one wants o be

unhappymustbe the pointthatno one wantswhat appearsto themto be

unhappiness;ndto be unhappymustbe to desireapparently adthingsand

get them. But this is plainlyunsatisfactory.What if the apparently ad

thingsarereallygood?Will it reallybe unhappinesso desireandget things

which,though heyappearbad,are reallygood?Surely hat s notSocrates'

intention.His intentionmust be that unhappinesss desiringreally bad

thingsandgettingthem.

We noticeherealsotheoftenremarked eliberate arody, n thisaccountof unhappiness,f Meno'saccount,at77B, of virtueas the desireforgood

thingsandtheability or power:63vcvawOc)o getthem.CouldMenoreally

haveintended o suggestthatvirtue s desirefor, andabilityto get, appar-

entlygoodthings?Surely t is clearheretoo that t is thereallygoodwhich

is intended.2'

But if ourreadingof the reduction o absurdity f (b2y) is correct, hen

"desiringgood things"hereas desiringthingsthoughtgood, thenSocratesis committed

to cases of desiringthings thatare in fact bad.If, however,(b I) reducesto desiringgood

thingsby reducing o case (a) - as we shall claim- then(b 1)does not leave us withany

cases of desiringthingsthatare in fact bad. In the analysisof the argumentprovidedby

ReinholdMerkelbach n his Germantranslationof the Meno (Athenaum,Frankfurt/M,

1988)], he also reduces(bl) to (a) - though not, as we have done, by way of (b2x).

21 Of course, it may be said thatMeno is a silly fellow. ButPlatosurelyhas a purpose n

having Meno put forwardthis particularaccount of virtue.Pennerhas suggested else-

wherethatSocrateshimself thinksthat virtueis the ability(power,or knowledge)to get

good things - even thoughhe refutesMeno when Meno defends that view (given that

Meno thinksthatwealthand high office are good things).If so, then Platomustwantus

to be consideringthe ability to get really good things, not just apparentlygood things.

[See Penner's"Socrateson Virtue and Motivation", n E. Lee, A. Mourelatos,and R.

Rorty (Eds.),Exegesisand Argument:Studiesin GreekPhilosophypresentedto Gregory

Vlastos(Assen, 1973), 149-50.1

16



its conclusion, that no one desires really bad things, makes it virtually

certain that (bl) can only be intended to reduce to desire for really good

things (a). For consider: The reductio of (b2y) concludes [78A6-B2]

"Inthat case, Meno, no one [repeatednegative: A4] wishes Tc xCaxd [bad things:

general]if indeedno[one] wishes to be such [i.e., unhappy].For what else is it to

be miserablethanto desireTlt xax& and to acquire [them]?"

"You're probablyright, Socrates,and [probably]no one wishes T6 xaxd."

Now the conclusion ".... no one wishes la xaxa ...." is surely intended to

be the conclusion not only of the reductio of (b2y), but also of the entire

argument about desire for good. The idea is:

In all the other cases we have alreadyshownthatno one desiresTl xax&. So now,reducingthis last possibility to absurdity,we can concludethatno one at all - in

any of the possibilitieswe have considered- desiresla xctxd.

But in the case of (b2y) this says 'No one desires really bad things'. So that

must be what is being said of all the cases: none of them is a case of

desiring really bad things. (If anyone doubts that 'no one wishes T'a xaxa'

concludes the whole argument, they should consider Meno's restatement of

the conclusion "You're probably right, Socrates, and [probably] no one

wishes T'a xctxa." Meno is surely granting that in none of the cases they

have considered - (bI), (b2x) or (b2y) - do they have a case of desiring badthings.) Therefore, the conclusion to (bl) must also be: no one desires really

bad things. Thus our reading of the (b2y) argument actually requires that

(bl) not be read in accordance with Santas's reading.

One final point about the context which invites wider reflection on So-

cratic ethics generally, and indeed which shows that 'desires good things' in

Meno's proposed account of virtue must be desiring really good things.

After the larger argumentwith which we have been concerned concludes at

78B2, Socrates says to Meno,

"Surelyyou werejust now sayingthatvirtueis wishing good thingsandbeing able[to get them]... And surely in this statement,the wishing, [we have shown],

belongsto everyone. In thisway [that s, with respectto the wishing], no one is any

better thananyone else. . . But then it's clearthat- if indeed anyone is better than

anyone else - it will be by virtueof theirability [to get the good things wished]."

[77B3-8]

We suggest this is just the Socratic view familiar to us from elsewhere,

when we put together the theses that

Virtue is knowledge22 and vice ignorance

22 Cf Lesser Hippias 375D8-9: knowledge (itLoffJT ) or power (8'OvcaqL;).Cf "theability (81vVaGOcu)o get the good things" n Meno's account of virtue at 77B3-5.

17



and that

no one errs willingly.

The point is that people do not differ ethically in their desires, wills, or

characters, but only in their knowledge.23 This position - in such stark

contrast to what we find in Aristotle - could not be the view that we are all

the same ethically in that we desire our apparent good. For our apparent

goods do differ, as Aristotle noted,24and make us differ in the quality of our

desires. It is only if desire for good in the Meno is desire for the real good,

that it will be the case that the good do not differ from the bad in their

desires, but only in their intellects. Lamentably enough, Socrates is just

about the last philosopher in the West to think that the virtuous differ fromthose who are not virtuous in the quality of their understandingonly.25With

the advent of Plato's irrationaldesires, we begin to have a differentiation of

good people from bad people in the quality of their wills. In whateverother

ways Plato and Aristotle might differ from Kant, on this point they are at

one against Socrates. But to return to the present point, Socrates differs

from Aristotle precisely on the point whether the good we all desire is the

real or the apparentgood.

The contextual considerations suggested in the presentsection seem to us

to make it virtually certain that Socrates' intention in the crucial passage77D7-E4 must have been to reduce (bl) to (a). It remains to be shown thatit

is possible so to read the passage, giving alternativeways out of the surface

contradiction and the surface non-sequiturwhich led Santas to propose his

reading in the first place. To this we turnin the next section.

IV. An Alternative Reading of the Crucial Passage: 77D7-E4

We offer the following translation of the crucial passage - with one change

in punctuationfrom the traditionaltext in Burnet, Bluck, and others."Well then, it's clear that

<1*> these people [whateverwe may go on to say aboutthe others:[tvv don'tdesire

la xax',26 the people who don't know them li.e., thatthey arexaxal].

23 See the works cited in n. 21 and in n. 12 above.24 Nicomachean Ethics 111.5.114a31 b25. And in the passagejust preceding, 1I1 b14-

11 14a31, notice Aristotle's explicit rejectionof the Socraticview thatno one is willingly

bad (that is, baddue to theirdesires as opposed to their intellects).25 ChrysippusandSpinoza springto mind as possible exceptionshere.

26 We grantthat the reference o bad thingsin <1>, and to badthingsin <4> is general.But this shouldnot encourage readers o contrast hese generaldesiresfor badand good

things withdesiringparticular bad andgood things- as if the formerwerefor appar-ent-

18



Instead [&tXXC':trongly adversative],

<2*> they desire thosethings which [we

agree127they thinkgood.28

But,

<3*> these very things [,Tcti3tye] in fact are [position of 9OTLV]xaxt.

So, then,

<4*> [this first group,] those who don't know them [T&xctxa], and think thattheyareAyaO0, learlydesirea dta0."

On any reading, the dynamic of the passage is a movement from desires T'a

xatxa in <1*> to desires T' &-yatOin <4*>. If the latter is to be desires

apparent dyyaOd,as Santas has it, then the former must be desires apparent

xctxa. We think this a very unlikely way of taking <1*>. Far more likely is

that <1*> is saying "those who don't know the bad things that they are bad

ly bad and good things and the latterfor really bad andgood things.The idea to which we are objecting here is this: making (i) desiring good things ingeneral opaque (or, better, oblique), and making (ii) desiringparticular good thingstransparent.We are not ourselvessympathetic o this general use of opaque (or oblique)vs transparent.This usage presupposes that desire must be treatedaccording to the

schema 'desiresobject o underdescriptionD', with the o positionbeing transparent ndthe D position being opaque (or oblique). The whole idea of the presentaccount (?Iabove) of the Gorgias' treatmentof desire to do something,is to get away from thatdescriptionistor separationistapproach o psychological states in general,and to desirestates in particular.We are most reluctant to think that one can think of oneself asdesiring good things generally withoutthinkingof oneself as desiring particulargoodthings (even if the particular ood thingsare unknownto one).The generality involved in <1*> is surelyrather his: that these people are not cases of(the kind)people desiringbad things;and the generalityinvolved in <4*> is that thesepeople are cases of (the kind)people desiringgood things. When one says that"don'tdesire bad things"in <1*> and "desiregood things"in <4*> are general, there is no

linguistic reason for saying Socratesis talking aboutdesiringapparentlybad and goodthings.27 "whichthey were thinkinggood": We take this as a philosophicalimperfect[HerbertWeir Smyth's "imperfectof a truth ust recognized", n GreekGrammar HarvardUni-versity Press, Cambridge MA, 1920), ?1902]. This seems to us better than any otheroption we can think of for interpretinghe imperfect.The (alleged) truth ust recognized(thatthey desire things they think good) is presum-ably here identified with the claim at 77D5-6 thatthe people in questionthinkthe badthings benefit.See the suggestion in n. 16 above that Socrates is identifying 'thinkingbad things good' with 'thinking the bad things will benefit'. (Penner wishes to thankArthurAdkinsand ElizabethAsmis for pressinghim on the questionof this philosophi-

cal imperfect withoutsupposinghe has satisfiedthem.)28 Here we punctuatewith a full stop, insteadof with the comma Bumet and Bluck use.The significance of this change of punctuationwill emergedirectly.

19



do not desire the really bad things; and then <4*> says: "Those who don't

know them, thinking them to be good, [aren't amongst those who desire Tl

xaxa, but insteadare among hose who] desireTQa yaO6." Sucha reading,

we have seen, is strongly suggested by the contextual considerations ad-

duced in the preceding section. The big problem for us might seem to be

how to read the passage without having to admit that<2*> + <3*> gives us,

as a single unit, "desires bad things thinking them good".

We have come to doubt that <2*> + <3*> should be taken as the unit:

"They desire things they think good, though they are in fact bad." The

Greeksupposed o yield "though heyare in fact bad", OTtV 6E&TCIaT ye

xaxa, does not seem to us to be quite so parentheticaland unemphatic as

this English translationsuggests. A more suitable Greek version for 'though

they are in fact bad' might be 6vTCt xaxa - or some other phrase rather

simpler than 90TLV &e TarTfr ye xax&. Why, for example, on Santas's

view, do we have the emphasis which the ye gives to the TacTvia n "though

they are in fact bad"?

Furtherto our inclination to take <3*> as no mere parentheticaladdition

to <2*>, we suggest a small departurefrom Burnet's punctuationbetween

<2*> and <3*>. We write a full stop there instead of the usual comma. On

this reading, we suggest, the emphatic TQjIvT6 yr is better motivated. The

thought we attributeto Socrates here goes something like this:

You might think that the object of desire is, not 'bad things', but 'things thought

good'. But those verythingsin facta-e badthings. [So the new suggestion,that the

objectof desire is things thoughtgood doesn't in fact get us anywhere,given that

in <1*> we have ruled out the claim that whatwe desire are(really)bad things.]

From here we get a good motivation for the "So" that introduces<4*>. The

idea is: both bad things and things thought good have been eliminated as

candidates for the objects of desire - things thought good turningout to just

be the bad thinigseliminated in <1*>. So all that is left is (really) good

things.29

29 Santas reads<4*> as follows: these people, not knowing these things are bad, and

thinking them good, [in thinking them good show thatthey] "desiregood things".Here

the second dependentclause, "[desiringthem] thinking hemgood," is takento identif y

what"desiringgood things" s. As againstthis, we suggest thatno one can doubtthatthe

pointof the firstdependentclause, 'not knowing the badthings', is

not knowingthe badthings,don't desire them.

Why would one not also naturally ake the seconddependentclause as adding

even if they arethought good?

The implicationwouldthenbe:They don't even desire the things thought good. What they desire is rathergood

things.

20



Thus, the crucial passage as a whole goes like this: We are trying to

identify the objects of desire in case (bl). <1*> rules out the hypothesis that

what is desired is (really) had things. <2*> tries a quite different hypothe-

sis: that what is desired is, instead, things thought good. Then <3*>, taken

here as a new sentence,30 says: Unfortunately, these very things thought

good in fact are bad things. But (really) bad things have already, by <1*>,

been ruled out as the objects of desire. Therefore (4kTE) what is desired

must instead be (really) good things.3'

This seems to us to make good sense of 77D7-B4, while at the same

keeping this passage consistent with the natural reading of the wider pas-

sage 77B-78B and the naturalway to differentiate Socratic and Aristotelian

ethics.

One problem remains. We read <4*> as saying that, after all, these cases

(of people Meno says desire bad things thinking they will benefit) are cases

of desiring really good things. What really good things? Our interpretation

certainly needs to provide a satisfactory answer to this question.

Let us remember that alternative (b1), desiring bad things thinking them

good has been clarified by 77C5-D7 as desiring to possess bad things

(wrongly) thinking that they will benefit. [Recall that case (bl) is not dealt

with when it first comes up (at 77C3).32Instead it is ignored while Socrates

asks about (b2): desiring bad things known to be bad. Isn't desire for suchthings desire to possess them, and indeed desire to possess them either

(b2x) (wrongly) thinking they will benefit or (b2y) knowing they will

harm? We thus have here (at 77C4-D7), immediately preceding the crucial

" Amongst older editors we were able to consult, Schmelzer,Bekker and Schanz, likeBumet, also use a comma between our <2*> and our <3*> - Bekker translating herelevantpassagealong Santas'slines, as "sedilla potius,quae bonaesse putaverint,C mtamenmala sint".On the otherhand, Ast uses a colon - also translating,along the linesof our suggestion, 'sed ea quae arbitrenturbona esse; sunt vero haec quidem mala'.

Fabricius(1781) splits the difference,using a full stop as we do, but translating,alongSantas'slines, 'sed illa potius, quae bona esse putarint,cum tamenmala sint'. HennicusAristippus(twelfth century, in Plato Latinus) translates more along the lines of oursuggestion:"immoea quae estimabantbona esse: suntautem hec mala."]"' Thus on our construal,the question at issue in the crucialpassage is one of gettingcorrectidentitybeliefs about the objects of desire. (The objectof desire is not this badthing 1<I*>], but is, at best, this thing thoughtgood [<2*>]; but then, since what isthought good is this same bad thing [<3*>], the object of desire is not this bad thing(which is also thought good), but ratheris some really good thing 1<4*>].)That the

question here should be raisedin the form of successive identity questions(comparethetreatmentof false belief at Theaetetus187-200 in termsof identitybeliefs) seems to us

quite likely - by comparisonwith raising the question in terms of the modem form'desires object o underdescriptionD'.32 Why not, on Santas'sview? Cf n. 19 above.

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passage, ustthe idea of desiringbadthings wrongly) hinking f themas a

meansto benefitwhich our readingrequires.]Accordingly,we thinkthat

this contextprovidesclear justification or taking the really good thingsinvolved o be: thebenefits he people n question wrongly) hink heywill

get from possessing he badthings n question.

The suggestion hattheMeno construesdesirefor somethingn termsof

means-endhierarchies desiring o possesssomethingas a meansto bene-

fit, andindeedas a meansto happiness is further onfirmedby thereduc-

tio of (b2y).Forin the reductioof (b2y),the desirefor somethingknown o

be badis conceivedof as desireto possesssomethingwhich leads to harm,

whichin turn eadsto miseryandunhappiness and the fact thatno one

desires(the end)unhappinesss givenas a reasonwhyno one desires as ameans) what leads to harm and so to that unhappiness.So too, in the

reductionof (bl) - as clarified to desirefor good, we thinkit entirelynaturalo suppose hatSocrateshadin mind to argue hat n case (bl) what

we haveis peopleallegedby Meno to desiresomethingwhich is in fact bad

as a means to benefitand so to happiness.33ut then the benefit and the

happiness anbe construed s real goodswhich the desirerwrongly hinks

the badthingsthey are goingforwill leadto.34:35

33 We note that our suggestionthat the Meno takes desire for somethingas desire topossess thatthing,and to possess it as a means to benefit and ultimately o happiness, s

well confirmed outside of the Meno and even aside from the Gorgias. See Symposium

204E2-205A3 and Euthydemus280B5-8 with Dl-E2. The Meno, the Euthydemusand

the Symposiumall construedesire for something in termsof means-endshierarchiesof

the form:desire to possess as a means to benefit as a meansto happiness.34 Suppose (bl) reducesto (a), as we claim. Then, if therehad also been a diagram n the

sand here (of the sort at n. 15 above), we might have imagined Socrates, when he

articulates<2*>, switchingfrom pointing at option(b2x) to option(bl ) - furthermotiva-

tion for the contrastpresupposed n dAkLX'xe vwv - andthen,when he articulates<4*>,

switchingfrom pointingat (bl) to pointingat (a).

Desire

(a) good things (b) bad things

(bl) thoughtgood (b2*) known to be bad

IT,

(b2x) thinkingbeneficial (b2y) knowingto be harmful

F 4- knowing they'll be unhappy

wishing to be unhappy

No one wishes to be unhappy

x

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Conclusion

We conclude(i) that the overall strategyof 77B-78B requires hat (bl)reduce o desireforreallygoodthings,andnotjustapparently oodthings,as Santassupposes; ii) thatthe differencesbetweenSocraticandAristote-lian ethics generally,along with the suggestionthatvirtuouspeople andpeoplewho arenot virtuousdo not differ in theirdesiresbutonly in theirdegreeof knowledge,require hatSocrates hinkof desire for the good asdesirefor the real good rather handesire for the apparentgood;and that(iii) the crucialpassage77D7-E4not only neednot be readin accordancewithSantas'sreading,as speakingof desireforthings houghtgood(though

they are in fact bad), but can be read, in some ways more plausibly,asdenyingthatone can desire badthings,even whenone thinksthemgood.What one desires is the benefits and the happinessone wronglythinkspossessionof the badthingsis a meansto. Thusthe accountof desireforgood in theMeno is not afterall inconsistentwiththeaccountof desireforgood in the Gorgias.36

3 For discussionof a reading of Santas'spaperdifferentfromour own, see the Appen-dix below.

36 Earlierdraftsof this paper(by Penner)were read at the Universityof Wisconsinandthe Universityof Chicago in Spring 1992, and LawrenceUniversityin February1993.Penner would like to thank those audiences, as well as a number of other friends,colleagues, andstudents,bothundergraduate ndgraduate.He is especiallyconsciousofdebts to RuthSaunders,DonnaMcCormick,BerentEnq,DennisStampe,PaulaGottlieb,MartyBarrett,LaVerneShelton, ArthurAdkins, Ian Mueller,RichardKraut,ElizabethAsmis, Scott Senn, Scott Senalik,to very useful correspondencewith Naomi Reshotko,andabove all to the writingsof Santaswhichhave been a continuingsource of scholarlyandphilosophicalstimulationoverthe years.We arealso bothgrateful o R.W. Sharples

for highly illuminatingcorrespondence.A word about ourjoint authorship.The philosophicalstrategyof the paper,and a num-berof the exegeticalarguments,originatedwithPenner,who also did the writing;butheacceptedso many changes in the actualdiscussionof the text of the Meno, andprofitedso much from Rowe's reading of the passage, his advice, criticisms, resistance, andalternativearguments, hat it was becoming impossibleto acknowledge in detail all theways in which Rowe had influencedthe paper. In the circumstances, oint authorshipseemed the appropriateway to represent he presentdraft.(Rowe shouldnot be thought,however,to be committed to the full range of underlyingphilosophicalviews indicatedby Penner,especially in ?I and in the Appendixbelow, norto all of Penner'sclaims, inarticlescited here, as to just how Socratesdiffers from Plato.) We are both extremely

gratefulto the Classics Departmentat Madison, as well as the Universityof WisconsinHumanisticTrust Foundation,who togethermade possible Rowe's visit to Madisonduringa sabbatical erm.

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Appendix:More on Santas'sReadingof the Meno and the Gorgias.

Before leaving the above treatmentof Santas's position, we should note that NaomiReshotko's recent "The SocraticTheory of Motivation",Apeiron,xxv, no. 3, Sept. 1992,

pp. 145-169, argues that Santas's approach o desire in the Meno and the Gorgias is

actually consistent with Penner's readingof the Gorgias in "Desire and Power"(and so

with our position in the present article). See Reshotko,pp. 149-50, esp. n. 7. Plainly, if

this is right,the present article is radicallymisconceived.Some comment is called for.

Reshotko's paper,which contains a numberof theses about the views of Socrates (and

a number of forms of explanation) which she shares with Penner, nevertheless mis-

construes one feature of the theoreticalapparatuswith which Penner is working in his

"Desire and Power".She claims, in effect, that"Desire and Power"reads 'S desires the

good' transparently. See her remarkabout understandingdesire for the good as not

involving any reference to the point of view of the subject (p. 147); and her remarkabout "ourperceptionof an object ... play[ing]no role in determiningwhether or not

we desire that object" (p. 149). This is exactly the idea of transparency apturedby the

idea of an "outside"of an object of desire which is completely separated from any

"inside", n the Separationist"Inside-Outside" iew. On the "inside-outside" iew (n. 2

above as well as the text to notes 8-11), the "inside"of the object is desired opaquely

(or, better, obliquely) while the "outside" s desiredtransparently.]True, (a) Penner s

denying that the Gorgias is to be readin terms of a Fregeanoblique sense or in accord-

ance with the 'desiresobjecto underdescriptionD' schema; and, true, (b) Pennerdoes

give an account of the identityconditions of action which will ensure that the sentence

'Helen desiresthis ice creamcone' will come out false in some circumstances as when

the ice creamcone in questionis one which leads to harmand unhappiness or Helen.Thatice creamcone Helendoes not desire.(It is these two facts, in themselvescompat-

ible with Reshotko'sreadingof the Gorgias, which lead her thus to misconstruewhat

Penner is doing here.) But to be quite clear here, Penner is not rejectingthe inside-

outside view just to opt for the transparentistiew Reshotkoendorses, where there are

no insides to objects of desire, only outsides. Whatwe here call the Dominanceview,

with its reference to the subject wanting any mistakes in the subject's pictureof the

objectof desireto be over-riddenby how it is with the objectof desire, certainlycannot

be taken to supposethat attitudes o the good (andpicturesof the good) do notenterinto

desire for good. (How could wanting mistakes in one's picture of something to be

over-riddennot involve an attitude o the thing in question?See also the talk,in the text

to nn. 8-10 above, of desire "bothinside and outside"for the good. To go back to theexample just above, it is true rom the inside that Helen does not desire the ice cream

cone thatwill makeher unhappy It is her attitude towards her own realhappiness hat

makes this claim true.) The point is not: to drop altogethertalk of the "inside"of the

objectof desire.It is rather: o droptalkof an "inside" hatis utterlyseparated romthe

"outside" that,for example,has its identity ndependentlyof what the "outside"s). We

preciselydo not give up altogetheron the idea of the subject havinga conceptionof the

objectof desire. Indeedwe cannotsee how therecould be sucha notionof desire. [Thus

it is even arguable hat theoristswho, like Fregeor Santas,hold thatthereis an oblique

notion of desire can have no grounds whatev,eror believing in a transparentense of

desire. For on such a separationistor descriptionistview, either(a) the supposedtrans-

parentsense of 'I want a sloop' quantifiesover senses, in which case the inside-outsideview must grantthatthe verb 'want' is still to be readobliquely;or (b) the transparent

sense of 'want' involves no attitudewhateverto the object desired - which we find

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entirely implausibleas a theory of desire or of any otherpsychologicalstate.By contrast,

as we havejust pointed out, on the "Dominance"view, thereis an attitude o the object

of desire. [It is in our opinion a historical anomaly that produced this superfluous"transparent"ense of psychological verbsamongst those who believe in obliquity. The

notionof transparencywas introducedby Quineto contrastwith the notionof opacity-

as opposed to obliquity. This is understandable n Quine's view - which is utterly

sceptical as to agents' conceptions of the objects of their psychological states. For such

sceptics, a notion of transparencys not superfluous.But for those who give indirector

obliquetreatmentsof psychologicalcontexts,the notion is superfluous.]

We come now to Reshotko's mistake in suggesting that Santas's view is consistent

with the view in "Desire and Power" (merely "obscured" n Santas's exposition, by

Santas'saddingan oblique or indirectsense of 'desire':Reshotko,n. 7). She rightlysees

in Santas's talkof the actual object of desire,as shownby behavior,an appeal to whatI

have been calling a transparent ense of 'desire'. But then she infers that Santas's view iscompatiblewith Penner'sview of 'desires the good' (which, as we have seen, she also

takes to be transparent).But Santas does not hold, as Reshotko does, that everyone

transparently esires the good - the trick done with Penner'saccountof the identity of

actions. On the contrary,on Santas's view, when Helen desires an ice cream cone as a

means to the good, but it turns out to lead not to the good, but to the bad, we have only

the following two options: (a) Helen obliquely (not: transparently) esiresthe realgood;

and (b) Helen transparentlybehaviorally)desires the ice cream cone that leads her to

the bad. See, for example,Santas'sconclusionat p. 188:

In sum,we can say (using the terminology ntroduced) hat what Socrates has tried

to show is thatin no case arebadthings the intendedobjectsof people's desires [cf

"oblique"], houghin some cases they arethe actualobjects [cf "transparent"].

This flatly contradicts he view taken up both in "Desire and Power" and in the present

paper, according to which no one ever desires what is in fact bad. And it flatly contra-

dicts Reshotko'sview as well.

We conclude thatReshotko'sattemptto make Santas's reading consistent with Pen-

ner's views in "Desire and Power", or indeed with our views in the present article,

cannot succeed.It would, after all, be surprisingf it could. Santas'sreadingof theMeno

on desire has represented, or decades, the best treatmentof Socrateson desire in the

literature; ndplainlyit is in the spiritof theAristotle-Frege-Anscombe-Davidsonort of

approach o desirethat is all butuniversal n ourtime. Forthis readingof the Meno- as

indeed for other readingsof early Plato - the field of Greek philosophy is deeply inSantas's debt. For good or ill, it is this reading, despite all its plausibilityand its many

merits,which the present interpretations rejecting.

Universityof Wisconsin

Universityof Bristol

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the desire for good

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