Doing good things · Lexicon

From the book

Charmides

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThe expression names the doing of good things, with τῶν ἀγαθῶν a substantivised genitive plural specifying what is done.
In the CharmidesSocrates extracts this definition from Critias' defence of doing one's own business (163d–e).
In this editionThe repeated “doing of good things” makes the definition explicit while preserving the earlier distinction from “making.”
A place to readCritias’ terminology is reformulated as an explicit definition by good action.

Meaning

The expression names the doing of good things, with τῶν ἀγαθῶν a substantivised genitive plural specifying what is done. It does not explicitly say “having good intentions” or “doing what one believes good.” Nor does it restrict the goods to possessions. The examples include beneficial professional activity and its effects on persons. The contracted τἀγαθά is τὰ ἀγαθά, “the good things.”

Use in the book

Socrates extracts this definition from Critias' defence of doing one's own business (163d–e). After allowing him to distinguish making, working and doing as he pleases, he asks for the underlying activity: is temperance doing or making good things? Critias emphatically says so, contrasting the person who produces good things with one who produces bad things. Socrates does not reply that good action is irrelevant to temperance; he says the proposal might be true and examines one implication.

The difficulty is awareness. A doctor can act beneficially for himself and a patient yet fail to know whether his treatment or its consequences benefit (164a–c2). If the definition classifies an act by its benefit, the doctor would act temperately while not knowing that he does. Critias refuses that combination and prefers retracting earlier concessions. The account therefore fails to satisfy his further demand that temperance include knowing oneself.

This leaves an important distinction open: an agent can produce a good result, possess technical knowledge and still lack the evaluative or self-directed understanding Critias requires. The discussion does not establish that accidental good fortune is virtue, nor that all good action is necessarily conscious moral expertise. Rather, it discovers a question a result-based formula has not answered. Knowledge of good and bad later returns to that gap from the cognitive side, but is not formally adopted as a replacement definition.

Places to read

163c–e2Critias’ terminology is reformulated as an explicit definition by good action
164a–d2Beneficial medical action without awareness conflicts with his requirement of self-knowledge
174b–dKnowledge of good and bad supplies the later evaluative counterpart

Translation in this edition

The repeated “doing of good things” makes the definition explicit while preserving the earlier distinction from “making.” Translating the phrase simply “virtue is goodness” would suppress both its active character and the ensuing question about the agent's knowledge.