Theme of 'Akrasia Is Only Ignorance' Depicted in Plato's Protagoras

In the Protagoras, Socrates attempts to demonstrate to Protagoras that the traditional account of moral weakness is incoherent. He argues that akrasia, moral weakness, is simply ignorance. In line 353a10, Socrates embarks on a journey with Protagoras in which he asks “ordinary people” about being overcome by pleasure and doing something that was bad although they knew it was bad. Socrates employs the examples of using food and drink and having sexual relations to illustrate that people will partake of hedonistic pleasures while knowing that they may come to bad ends. He demonstrates that the immediate pleasure of an act, which may bring about “diseases and poverty,” is not what makes the act bad, but that the consequential disease or poverty, which becomes painful, makes the act bad (353d3). Socrates then uses the example of medical practices to show that things that might be immediately painful are good. He derives that the experiences are not good because of the immediate pain that they cause, but instead, the subsequent pleasure. These procedures rid a person of or at least allay their pain. Ultimately, safeguarding both the people and thereby the society that benefit is what makes the unpleasant experience good. The statement that symbolizes akrasia is that a person who knows the bad is bad, does it because they are overwhelmed by pleasure and the a person who knows the good to be good, refuses to do it because of the immediate pleasure. Socrates maintains that this argument uses too many names; he suggest reducing it to a matter of “good” and “bad” and then “pleasure” and “pain” (355c1). In the new statement, the words pleasure and good will be interchangeable as will pain and bad. This is the argument that follows:

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... that are closer; inability to discern which of these is actually the greatest is ignorance. Education, knowledge, is the cure for this because if a person knows that there is a more beneficial choice then they will receive their salvation or betterment. He holds that if the pleasant is also good then no one who knows that there is a better choice will advance to a bad thing. Socrates furthers his argument by saying that no one willingly chooses to indulge in the bad knowing there is an option to choose good and likewise, one will not choose a greater pain over a lesser pain. As a law of human nature, people will choose what is most beneficial to them – as with medical care. For example a person might choose to have a decaying tooth removed, this being painful, because it will alleviate more pain in the distant future.

Citation

Plato, Protagoras, 351b-358d