Nature And Convention Socrates Analysis

1. Callicles claims that we only have to look at nature to find evidence that it is right for better people to have a greater share than worse people. How does Socrates respond to this argument? Who makes the stronger case? Why? Socrates firstly exposes Callicles’ use of equivocation, a rhetorical ploy that avoids acknowledgement of an undermining truth while not being literally false, itself. He then accuses Callicles of equating strength with superiority, highlighting an absence of semantic specificity. He goes on to say that a collective is naturally stronger than an individual and it follows that the legislation prescribed by the general populace is a product of both nature and convention. Nature and convention therefore both assert
For instance, the stealing of medicine to ensure one’s or another’s good health is an immoral means in pursuit of a moral end. Moral ends are those which all ends are in pursuit of. Hence, there is no human action or means that escapes moral standpoint or pursuit. There are two types of goods which all human action is founded on: those which are good in themselves or inherently good (ends) and those which are in pursuit of and subordinate to other goods (means). A “greatest good” then exists and it is vital that we uncover the nature of this greatest good. This is the ultimate objective, dictating our behaviours. The chief good is necessarily: final (not preceding or subordinate to any other good) and self-sufficient (a properly basic belief, a proposition that can be deduced from no other
Thus, one’s rights are inherently redundant, as one’s focus should solely be on obligations. Weil also says that to say men have both rights and privileges is absurd, as “such words only express” shifts in “object and subject”. An obligation is the subject’s obligation to the object and a right is the object’s obligation to the subject. So, “a man” “in isolation” would have no rights, no principles of entitlement, as such rights require the existence of the object. Conversely, the man “in isolation” would have obligations “towards himself”. If the notion of possessing both rights and obligations is merely an expression of “differences in point of view”, then the two concepts are interchangeable. Weil’s attempted abolition of the notion of rights is therefore redundant. However, Weil’s intent is to prescribe to her readers that they should be entirely focused on obligations and that rights are then met as a logical