Decent and base

Use in the book

The companion calls lovers of gain base at the start and later contrasts them with decent people who do not dare profit from some sources. His proposed classification is ethically selective: everyone may want advantages, but not everyone accepts every means of obtaining them. The dialogue’s ultimate universalisation threatens this use of lover of gain as a reproach, not necessarily the whole distinction between decent and base character.

At 227e the companion explicitly names base gain as a source of loss. Socrates answers by asking whether something decent and good can be base, then recalls the goodness of gain as the opposite of bad loss. The denial that the same thing is both decent and base under the same description is unproblematic. What needs examination is whether gain has yet been established as decent, and whether harmful consequences disqualify a profit from being a gain in every relevant sense.

After the retraction, decent and base people provide a model of a common kind surviving opposed evaluations. Neither is more or less human. Socrates transfers the point to gains: the decent and base are equally gain. This is a legitimate distinction between classification and evaluation, but it cannot by itself establish that their amounts or effects are equal. At 230c–d the language of more and less makes that risk explicit.

The description of drink as decent or base at 230e–231a2 is deliberately broad. The terms here concern the quality or fitness of wet nourishment, not the beverage’s moral agency. Preserving the verbal repetition allows the reader to see the analogy being stretched across people, profits and consumables. At 232b–c the personal opposition returns: decent people wish for all good things and base people love gains small and great. Both consequently fall under the reconstructed label. Their conduct is not otherwise declared indistinguishable.

Places to read

1. 225bπονηροὺς καὶ ἥττους τοῦ κέρδους — Base character forms part of the initial accusation.
2. 227dοἱ χρηστοὶ οὐ τολμῶσι κερδαίνειν — Decency is exhibited through a refusal to use certain sources.
3. 230cὁ μὲν χρηστός ἐστιν — A decent person supplies one instance of the common kind human.
4. 232cκαὶ οἱ χρηστοὶ καὶ οἱ πονηροί — The conclusion includes both moral classes.

Translation in this edition

The edition admits that “decent or base” sounds stiff when applied to drink, but retains it to make the analogy traceable. Smoothing this into “wholesome or spoiled” in a lexicon quotation would conceal the movement of the Greek adjectives. Its Key Words section gives the broad practical and moral ranges; this article follows those ranges without treating an etymological association as a definition of every occurrence.

Use in the book

At 137c Socrates asks whether the craft that makes animals best and punishes them rightly is also the one that recognizes the decent and worthless among them. The identification is plausible if a trainer must assess the condition and defects that training is meant to improve. It gives corrective activity a diagnostic foundation.

The same claim is then extended to human beings. The knowledge that improves and punishes people must distinguish the decent from the worthless. When this knowledge is called the judge’s and identified with justice, evaluation of people becomes part of an account of civic authority. The argument treats right punishment as informed rather than arbitrary, while leaving the substantive criteria of good human quality unspecified.

At 137e–138a2 the distinction is transferred to the evaluated being’s own understanding. A horse that cannot discriminate good and bad horses will not know what sort of horse it is, and the human analogue follows. This is a significant change of subject: a trainer who knows horses is not the same knower as a horse knowing itself. The recurrence of the same quality words makes the transition easy to follow verbally, but does not prove it.

The human conclusion asks whether one oneself is decent or base. “Self-knowledge” is accordingly tied to an ability to place oneself within evaluative distinctions that also apply to others. The dialogue does not offer a separate account of introspection or private psychological access. Its ambition is to unite knowledge of self and others with the ability to correct and judge them, an ambition supported by a short chain of assents rather than a detailed theory.

Places to read

1. 137cγιγνώσκει τοὺς χρηστοὺς καὶ τοὺς μοχθηρούς — The trainer’s craft is said to recognize good and bad quality.
2. 137dδιαγιγνώσκουσαν τοὺς χρηστούς τε καὶ μοχθηρούς — The discrimination is extended to human beings.
3. 138aτοὺς χρηστοὺς καὶ μοχθηροὺς ἀνθρώπους — Ignorance of others’ quality becomes the premise for ignorance of oneself.

Translation in this edition

Edition note 24 separately identifies chrēstos, ponēros and mochthēros and explains its three English renderings. The apparatus records variation between the two bad-quality words in some passages. Claims here concern the chosen running text and its translation, not an assertion that every manuscript consistently preserves that lexical differentiation.

Use in the book

At 314e the pair chrēstos–ponēros divides the class of civic resolutions. The companion accepts that some resolutions are decent and others base. Since he has already agreed that law is fine and good, a base resolution cannot count as law. The result is initially negative: an institutional description is insufficient because it includes morally defective enactments.

Socrates then carries the same pair into opinion. If law is opinion, and not base opinion, it must be decent opinion. The companion further agrees that the decent opinion is the true one. It is important to preserve the successive subjects: resolutions, opinion, truth. The adjective's favorable force helps the transition, but does not by itself establish that every practically good opinion is true or that every true opinion has the value required of law. Those identifications are agreed in the exchange rather than independently demonstrated.

At 319a the terms return in a different task: learning to distinguish decent from base people before praising or censuring them. Socrates' warning against impiety makes the good human being most sacred and the base person most polluted. The question about law's quality has become a question about the quality of the supposed lawgiver. Minos' bad reputation is not to settle that question without examining its source.

Phaulos enters the argument at 320b when Socrates refuses to make Minos someone who thinks one thing fine yet acts otherwise. This is a premise of consistency attributed to a good man; the work does not narrate an independent audit of Minos' private conduct. At 321d phlauros locates poor as well as good things within the speakers' own souls. The close brings the evaluation back from resolutions and heroic reputations to the investigators themselves.

Places to read

1. 314eτὰ μὲν χρηστὰ δόγματα, τὰ δὲ πονηρά — Decent and base resolutions
2. 314eεἴπερ δόξα νόμος ἐστί — The inference about decent opinion is conditional upon law being opinion
3. 314eΔόξα δὲ χρηστὴ τίς ἐστιν; οὐχ ἡ ἀληθής; — Socrates proposes truth as the relevant goodness of opinion
4. 319aδιαγιγνώσκειν χρηστοὺς καὶ πονηροὺς ἄνδρας — Learning to distinguish decent and base men
5. 319aμιαρώτατον ὁ πονηρός — The base person is called most polluted
6. 320bὥσπερ γε φαῦλος ἄνθρωπος — The inconsistent sorry fellow whom Socrates refuses to make Minos resemble
7. 321dτὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ φλαῦρον — Good and poor things within the souls under examination

Translation in this edition

“Decent” and “base” preserve chrēstos and ponēros as a pair and leave “good” for agathos. Phaulos is “sorry” at 320b, while phlauros is “poor” at 321d. The apparatus records a spelling variation for the latter; it is not a second moral condition or a license to substitute the earlier word into the final sentence.

Base — πονηρός (ponēros)

πονηρός (ponēros)

Base. The defective class of resolutions that the favorable account of law must exclude. Attested: πονηρά (314e). Decent and base.

Decent — χρηστός (chrēstos)

χρηστός (chrēstos)

Decent. The favorable class of resolutions contrasted with base ones. Attested: χρηστὰ (314e). Decent and base.

Fit or be appropriate — ἁρμόττειν (harmottein)

ἁρμόττειν (harmottein)

Fit or be appropriate. A base resolution would not fittingly be law given the preceding favorable premises. Attested: ἁρμόττοι (314e). Decent and base.