A Short History of Ethics

In chapters three and four of A Short History of Ethics, Alastair MacIntyre makes a clear distinction between two philosophical doctrines at loggerheads: the Sophists and Socrates. The Sophistic amalgam of personal success, lust and power is constantly interrogated by an interlocutor in an endless plight to reveal Sophistic ignorance, fruitless desires and the right to universal justice. MacIntyre identifies the codes of both parties, and further complements the debate with historic examples to conclude the social success (or lack thereof) and persuasion of both sides.

MacIntyre begins by outlining the general amalgam of Sophistic theory: success. The areté (virtue) of a Sophist is to be a successful citizen through conforming to the social convention of justice (14). Employing the dialogue, Theatetus, he reveals Protagoras’ doctrine as being the link between relativism to knowledge, “As things seem to an individual percipient, so they are” (15). The truth is discovered in personal perspective, and therefore it was required to adhere to public convention to achieve success. However, MacIntyre questions this take on “personal realism” because it interestingly defeats the purpose of Sophism; if all ideas are equal in comparison to the truth, then superiority of truth is undefined.

Unfortunately, social convention varies with each state. What a Sophist must heed in one state may be completely different in another. With this, MacIntyre exposes the first flaw of Sophism: an individual has not been given a guide to the social conventions of a city-state, and therefore must adapt to the criteria of each state (16). The questions of social action and living need to be defined as non-moral or pre-moral; a tool branded as the natural man....

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...strongly believes that good and bad cannot be synonyms for pleasant and painful, but really adjectives to evaluate the extent of pleasure and pain (30). This therefore reinforces the requirement of a limited desire since the desire itself can only be defined by evaluating the extent to which one wants the desire.

MacIntyre closes by evaluating the concept of good as per a desire and a goal. Without a goal, a limit cannot be defined, and therefore there will never be any satisfaction. And, when man does not know what a satisfying desire may be, then there is no guarantee of achieving this desire. If an object is to be good, Socrates justifies that it must be defined by your own rules of a good desire. The Sophist intent to disestablish the universal truth, render desire limitless and to persuade only for power promises a truly unintelligible and lost individual.