Punishment in Plato's "Protagoras"

Author(s): R. F. Stalley
Source: Phronesis, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1995), pp. 1-19
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182485
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Punishment in Plato's Protagoras

R.F. STALLEY

Near the beginning of the Protagoras (319a-320c), Socrates questions the

sophist's claim to teach the art of politics and to make men good citizens. If

this can be taught, he asks, how is it that there are no recognised experts on
political matters? And why do great men not succeed in passing their excellence on to their sons? Protagoras replies to this challenge with a long and

impressive speech (320c-328d) in which he argues that, although all men

have the capacity for virtue, it is the sort of capacity which needs to be

developed by teaching. This fact is implicitly recognised by the Athenians

who use all manner of means to ensure that citizens receive the appropriate
kind of education. As evidence of this Protagoras cites the practice of punishment:
O&t?lk ycQ XOXQLrL tOV5 &&6xouvTag J7Q6Og TOVOU t6V VOVV EX(OV xai To0iToU

tvrxXC, 6TL 6lXTIOEV, bOTL t' &MCEQ OlQiOV AkOy LiOTg TlKQELTLL- 6 & tiEct&

k6yoii 7rXELQOV XOXdELV Ob TO 7TaQEXkV1IOTOgEVEXa &6lXiarTOq UtILOQELTaL - olb ya'Q &v T6 yE nQaX06Ev AtvqTov OEiii - dkk6 toi [itovowo
XdQLV, YvQ Rti a'tO dLbx1O, [LitE aclho OntOg tLTTE dtXog 6 TOiTOV t&6V
xoWaOO&vta. xaL TOLCEflTV b6LCVOLCtV XWV 6LQVOCLTCEL TEM10lTTV EIVaL
&QETTV' dE1TQOZTQn youv EveXaE xokcat. (324a6-b7)

This is translated by Guthrie as follows:

In punishing wrongdoers, no one concentrates on the fact that a man has done
wrong in the past, or punishes him on that account, unless taking blind vengeance

like a beast. No, punishment is not inflicted by a rational man for the sake of the

crime that has been committed (after all one cannot undo what is past), but for the

sake of the future, to prevent either the same man or, by the spectacle of his
punishment, someone else from doing wrong again. But to hold such a view
amounts to holding that virtue can be instilled by education; at all events the

punishment is inflicted as a deterrent.'

A number of scholars have seen this passage as establishing Protagoras'

l W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato: Protagoras and Meno, (Harmondsworth: 1956).

Phronesis 1995. Vol XLII (Accepted August 1994)

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position as a major figure in the history of penal theory.2 Among the claims
which have been made about it are the following:

1. It is likely to embody the view of the historical Protagoras.

2. It rejects outright any kind of backward-looking justification of punishment. In this respect it is conspicuously more enlightened than the
views of most Greeks in the fourth and fifth centuries.
3. It commits Protagoras to a deterrent theory of punishment.

The passage is seen as having much in common with what appears to be

Plato's own theory of punishment as that emerges in dialogues such as the
Gorgias and the Laws, though there are also significant differences. Among
the points made here are the following:

4. Plato agrees with Protagoras in rejecting a purely backward-looking vindictive view of punishment.

5. Plato agrees with Protagoras in assigning a significant role to deterrence

in his accounts of punishment.

On the other hand it is argued that:

6. Protagoras sees punishment primarily as serving the interests of society

at large while Plato believes that it must benefit the individual who is
punished.

7. Protagoras assumes that injustice can be voluntary, whereas Plato be-

lieves that injustice is necessarily involuntary.

8. Plato therefore, unlike Protagoras, sees injustice as analogous to disease

or even as actually being a disease of the soul. He likewise sees punishment as being like a cure and the judge as being like a doctor.

I shall argue that these claims need to be treated with considerable caution.

Although they all contain an important element of truth, they need to be

qualified in important respects. I shall claim, as a consequence, that the
picture of Protagoras as a pioneering penal theorist who anticipated Plato in

some respects while differing from him in others rests on very slender

2 See in particular:
T.J. Saunders, Plato's Penal Code, (Oxford: 1991), especially 133-6 and 162-4; 'Protagoras and Plato on punishment', in G. B. Kerferd (ed), The Sophists and their Legacy,
(Wiesbaden: 1981), 129-41;

M. M. Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment (Berkeley: 1981), especially 188-192;

G. Vlastos, Socrates (Cambridge: 1991), 179-199.

I shall also refer to:

W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists (Cambridge: 1971);

G. B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: 1982);
J. de Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens (Oxford 1991 );
C. C. W. Taylor, Plato: Protagoras (Oxford: 1976).

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foundations.3 But the passage cited above is nevertheless of key importance

for our understanding of Plato's own reflection on matters of penology.

Does the passage embody the authentic views of Protagoras?

Many scholars have assumed that the great speech, as a whole, may be
regarded as an accurate account of the views of the historical Protagoras.
For example Guthrie, Kerferd and de Romilly in their books on the sophists

use the speech as the basis for extended accounts of what they take to be
Protagoras' own teaching about morality and about the nature and origin of
society.4 These authors do surprisingly little to defend their claim that the

speech as a whole is authentically Protagorean, but there would appear to be

three main grounds for accepting it:

1. It is argued that the speech presents a naturalistic view of the origins of

society and of the nature of virtue which fits well with what we know of
the general tenor of sophistic thought and is consistent with much of the
other evidence we have about Protagoras' teaching. In particular it

would appear to be consistent both with the relativism implicit in Protagoras' most famous doctrine, that 'man is the measure of all things', and
with what we know of Protagoras' close association with Periclean democracy.

2. On the surface at least, the speech is an unusually coherent and indeed

impressive piece of argumentation.S The element of parody which char-

3 Unfortunately there is virtually no independent evidence as to Protagoras' views on

punishment. There is, it is true, a story that he once spent a whole day discussing with

Pericles a question about responsibility for an accidental death in athletic practice. Gomperz (The Greek Thinkers, London: 1901-12, vol. I, 445-8) saw this as evidence of a
deep interest on Protagoras' part in questions of penology, but the fact that Protagoras
could devote time to a discussion of responsibility does nothing to indicate that he
expounded any view of the nature and purpose of punishment, still less that he is the
author of the views set out in the great speech.

4Guthrie, The Sophists, 63-8; G. B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement, 125-6; de Romilly, The Great Sophists, 196-203. Guthrie and Kerferd both criticise those who have
argued that the speech is internally inconsistent or incompatible with our general knowledge of the historical Protagoras, but offer little by way of positive argument for supposing that the details of the speech are authentic.

5 Some commentators have assumed that Plato must be fundamentally hostile to Protagoras and have therefore argued that the speech, while superficially coherent, is in fact

radically confused. Thus Gomperz (The Greek Thinkers, vol. II, 310) writes 'The truth is
that we have here a framework of confused and contradictory thought wrapped up in a

covering of brilliant rhetoric, full of spirit and life. Both framework and covering, it is
true are Plato's work, and the exact amount of resemblance between the original and the

caricature is impossible to determine.' A. E. Taylor (Plato, The Man and his Work,

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actenses Plato's treatment of other members of the sophistic movement,

such as Hippias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus appears to be absent. There

is, it is claimed, no reason why Plato should have put such a speech into

the mouth of the sophist if it was not at least a tolerably accurate account
of the kind of thing he might have been expected to say.
3. We know from Diogenes Laertius that Protagoras was the author of a

work 'On the original state of things' (TFQ' T1P tV 4QeXY XaTCTaCEcWg).6 It has often been suggested that the mythical account of the
origins of man and of human society with which the Protagoras speech
begins is derived from this work.7 This would establish the authenticity
of the mythical part of the speech, though it would bear only indirectly
on those parts of the speech, including our passage on punishment,
which fall outside the myth proper and which do not deal with 'the

original state of things'.8

Even if we take these arguments at their face value, the most they can do is

to establish that the speech, in its broad outline, reflects the kind of position
that was adopted by the historical Protagoras. They do not even purport to

show that it can be treated as an authentic work of the sophist. That would,
indeed be very unlikely. The speech, as we have it, is so admirably crafted
London: 1926, 243-6), sees the speech as coherent and even plausible in itself, but
argues that it does nothing whatever to support to support the claims of Protagoras, an
itinerant foreigner, to teach the Athenians how to achieve virtue. The trend among recent
commentators has been to emphasise the coherence of the speech and the skill with
which it is constructed. Thus Guthrie (The Sophists, 63 n.2) writes 'Protagoras has a
difficult position to defend and he does it with astonishing skill'; cf. J. S. Morrison 'The
place of Protagoras in Athenian public life', Classical Quarterly, XXXV (1941), 1-16;

G. B. Kerferd, 'Protagoras' doctrine of justice and virtue in the Protagoras of Plato',

Journal of Hellenic Studies, 73 (1953), 42-5 and The Sophistic Movement, 133-6.

6 9 55
7 Guthrie, The Sophists, 63; Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement, 125-6. M. Untersteiner
(The Sophists, trans K. Freeman, London: 1957) cites authonrties for the authenticity of
'the Myth' but does not seem to distinguish between the myth and the speech as a whole.
C. C. W Taylor (Plato: Protagoras, 78) notes that Protagoras' authorship of 'On the

original state of things' makes it plausible to suppose that the speech is based on an
actual work of his, but he also points out that 'nothing in the dialogue indicates that
Protagoras' story might be familiar to his audience.'

8 As Kerferd points out, the myth proper extends from 320c8 to 322d5. There is then a

brief explanatory passage (322d5-323a4). This is followed by a section (323a4-324dl)

which, superficially at least, seems to offer a series of independent arguments for Protagoras' position. Then at 324d5 Protagoras says 'For this point I shall no longer use a myth

but an argument' (TOl6OTV 6& Tt?QL, d Mx6QaTEq, ObXEtTL >0,6v QOL tQJ dkk
Aoyov). It thus appears that the section 323a4-324d1, which includes our passage, is in
fact to be seen as an explication of the myth. But there is nothing to associate this
passage with On the Original State of Things.

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to fit the dramatic and argumentative context of the dialogue that it is

difficult to see it as anything other than a Platonic creation, albeit one which
may draw on Protagorean material. Further argument is therefore needed
before attributing to the historical Protagoras any specific details of its

doctrine or phraseology. This, of course, applies to the passage about punishment as much as to any other. We cannot treat it as authentic simply
because it forms part of the great speech.

This point has been recognised by Saunders who noted in his 1981 article
that the genuineness of the Protagoras speech need not be treated as a

'global question' . He there gave the following specific reasons for believing in the authenticity of our passage: 'the omission of necessary qualifications', 'the contradiction of popular sentiment imperfectly concealed by

a touch of picturesque rhetoric' and 'the careful distinction between 7tQo'

TOVTUO TOv voiv 9Xnv and TOViTOU Kvrxa, which has no role in the argument and which therefore looks like as survival from some formulation in

which it might have been enlarged upon'. He argued, in short, that there is
'an awkward but tactfully judged lack of fit' between our passage and its
surroundings. He saw this as evidence that, whatever might be said about
the rest of the speech, these dozen lines preserve 'the actual penology of the
historical Protagoras'. '

One difficulty with this is that the features cited by Saunders are all to be
found in the five lines 324a6-b3 in which Protagoras is made to attack the
idea of punishment as vengeance. Thus, even if it was accepted that these
features were genuinely Protagorean, that would do nothing to establish the
authenticity of the remaining lines which introduce the positive suggestion
that the purpose of punishment is to prevent crime and associate this with
the idea that virtue can be taught.

A second, and perhaps more serious, difficulty is that all the specific

points which Saunders mentions can also be explained in terms of their

context in the Protagoras speech. Protagoras, as Plato depicts him, has the

9 'Protagoras and Plato on punishment', 134, n. 8.

'1 'Protagoras and Plato on punishment', 134. Saunders also suggests (140), admittedly
on the basis of 'slender probabilities' that the particular formulation of the phrase 'one

cannot undo what is past' (ob y6Q div T6 ye jtQaXONv tyVoTV OECT0), may be a
genuine reminiscence of Protagoras. While this is quite possible there is equally no
reason why Plato himself should not have provided these embellishments. It does not, in
any case, tell us anything about Protagoras' view of punishment, except that he rejected
purely backward-looking justifications. In Plato's Penal Code Saunders restricts himself
to the remark that 'there seems no reason to suppose [the remarks put into Protagoras'
mouth by Plato] were not those of the great sophist himself (132).
5

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difficult task of showing that men in general and the Athenians in particular
believe that virtue can be taught and he wants to use the practice of punishment as evidence for this thesis. He has therefore to assimilate punishment to teaching. Teaching obviously looks to future rather than to the
past - one does not need to wait for an 'offence' before teaching someone.
So in this context Protagoras has every reason for playing down the fact that
punishment is normally seen as referring to the past. This is the point of the

two phrases aQo6g ToUtO t'v vof'v PXwv and TOITOV Ev?xa, which, between them, preclude any kind of backward-looking account of punishment
- a rational man does not punish for the sake of the past nor does he think

about the past at all in such contexts. Similarly Protagoras has good reasons
to talk as though men in general accept his view of punishment; if they did
not in fact agree with him, his remarks on the subject would provide no
evidence for his thesis that the Athenians and others believe that virtue can
be taught. Thus, far from being awkward, the passage fits admirably with
the rhetorical needs of its context.

A different form of argument was suggested by Vlastos. He argued that

the distinction between punishment and revenge is a 'powerful innovation'

which could only have come from a daring and original thinker'. He therefore concluded that 'when Plato (who has no motive for favoritism to the

sophist) assigns it to him we have good reason to accept that assignment'."

This argument rests on some questionable claims about the 'power' and

originality of the doctrine attributed to Protagoras. These claims will be

discussed below. The claim that Plato had no motive for favouritism to
Protagoras is equally dubious. The picture Plato presents of him in this

dialogue is generally favourable. Indeed some readers feel that he comes

better out of the discussion than Socrates. Protagoras is also mentioned with

respect in the Theaetetus. One cannot therefore take it for granted that Plato
would have been reluctant to put into his mouth a doctrine which he himself
saw as containing a substantial element of truth. On the other hand, we may

acknowledge that the attack on the idea of punishment as vengeance is

expressed in particularly striking and forceful terms. It would certainly have

been incongruous to put this attack into the mouth of Protagoras unless it
was, at very least, the sort of view he might have been expected to hold.
The probabilities are therefore that Protagoras himself had criticised the
retaliatory view of punishment, or, at any rate, that Plato found it historically plausible to attribute such criticism to him. But to say this is not to

suggest that Protagoras can be held responsible for the way in which the

' Socrates, 187 n. 30.

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criticism is stated in the great speech or for the positive theory of punishment that is developed out of it.

The upshot of all this is that, although our passage may contain genuinely
Protagorean elements there is no way in which we can with confidence
disentangle these from their Platonic context. There can therefore be no
justification for taking our passage in isolation and treating it as though it

contained the ipsissima verba of the sophist. All that can be said is that
Plato, in composing the Protagoras speech, has made the account of punishment part of an argument to show that, by implication at least, the Athenians are committed to regarding virtue as teachable. A satisfactory interpretation of our passage must treat it in that context.

The rejection of retaliation.

Vlastos regarded the distinction, made in our passage, between punishment

and revenge as 'one of the most momentous of the conceptual discoveries
ever made by humanity in its slow, tortuous, precarious, emergence from

barbaric tribalism', while Saunders credits Protagoras with 'a single bril-

liant insight, that punishment is bestial, illogical, irrelevant and unjustified

except in terms of its future results' .2 Claims such as these raise two ques-

tions: (a) 'Was Protagoras really original in his condemnation of retaliation?' and (b) 'Should we regard his view as enlightened?'

(a) Both Vlastos and Saunders argue for Protagoras' originality by pointing
to the contrast with what we know about prevailing attitudes in the Greek
world. Vlastos argues that Greek literature in general and tragedy in partic-

ular usually takes for granted that retaliation in some form is an appropriate
response to injury, while Saunders shows that much the same goes for the
forensic speeches of the orators who generally seem to have no inhibition

about asking the courts to grant them vengeance on their opponents."3 This
suggests that popular attitudes must have been fairly vindictive.'4 But that
does not mean, of course, mean that intellectuals of the late fifth or early
fourth centuries B. C. would have taken the same view.

In determining what views about the nature of punishment might have

proved attractive to thoughtful and philosophically aware Greeks of this
period we have to rely largely on the evidence provided by Thucydides in

12 Vlastos, Socrates 187; Saunders, 'Protagoras and Plato on punishment', 140-1. Guthrie (The Sophists 67) refers to Protagoras' 'enlightened rejection of the motive of vengeance or retribution'.

3 Vlastos, Socrates 180-4; Saunders, Plato's Penal Code, esp. ch. 4.

14 Of course much the same could be said of popular attitudes today.

7

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his account of the Mytilene debate and particularly in the speech of Diodo-

tus."5 Diodotus deserves credit for his efforts to save the Mytileneans but
there is nothing particularly humanitarian about the arguments Thucydides
attributes to him. In fact he strives to be more hard-headed even than Cleon.
The case for reprieving the Mytileneans is argued, not in terms of justice or
of mercy, but in terms of expediency. They should be reprieved simply and
solely because that is in the interests of Athens. In arguing this point Diodotus insists explicitly on the importance of looking to the future. He urges the
Athenians to consider what is in their interests rather than to give way to the

anger they rightly feel against the people of Mytilene.'6 There are thus
similarities between this passage and our passage from the Protagoras but
there are also important differences. In particular Diodotus does not deny
that it would be just to inflict severe punishment for what has happened or
that it would be proper to demand such a penalty if one was conducting a
prosecution in a court of law. He merely insists that it would be unwise for

the Athenians to do so. He thereby emphasises the contrast between expediency and justice. Thus the Diodotus speech does not in itself demonstrate

that the rejection of retaliation was a familiar idea even to intellectuals in

the late fifth century. On the other hand it may offer indirect evidence that
such ideas would not have seemed entirely novel, for the arguments used by
Diodotus could in principle be applied more widely. If it is unwise for the
Athenians to seek vengeance on cities which have done them wrong it
would be equally unwise to seek vengeance against individual wrongdoers.

So, once the conflict between retaliatory justice and the kind of rationality
' This is recognised by both Vlastos (Socrates 184-5) and Saunders (Plato's Penal
Code, 127-131).

16 V O>s( bt & ErQ toV [XXovTog 1ftct RaXXov POvXE16EaOML f Toi ;taQovgo;. xai
-touo 6 IakLOTaL KXAwv tUX1QAlEat, tg To XoI2rbv tVu#CpOV 9EcoOaC rQg T;O

0o(0ov cpCoTaCOCtL 0dvcvov aTV tCa`v IJtQOOEoOL, xoCd abtTo; QL tTOV t6 TO szkXov

xac ;g gXovTog dvTXtLQL16FEV0; TavCVTCa yLyVWOXO. xCai obx dt1 & 4ta; f t)
Et(QCTEI TOV ?Xe(VOU koXyOV TO XQlOLPOV Tof t[tOf t6o0au0al. 6LXa6TEQOg YaQ
CV acutoi 6 k6yo; 3EQ6; TIV VVV fJ[1ETtQaV 6QyiJv tg MUtkqvaiov; T%X' dV bLoJ6daCTo. f>?iLg &t 01) 6XactLEOiCta JTQO;g cbtOu;, &JTE T6tV 6LXCECWV 86rv, dAAaXt

PouXE6o[w0a nEQL acbT6v, 67tw; xQ(iULo ht~OVLV. (III. 44. 3-4)

'In my view our discussion concerns the future rather than the present. One of Cleon's
chief points is that to inflict the death penalty will be useful to us in the future as a

means of deterring other cities from revolt; but I, who am just as concerned as he is with
the future, am quite convinced that this is not so. And I ask you not to reject what is

useful in my speech for the sake of what is specious in his. You may find his speech
attractive because it fits better with your present angry feelings against the Mytileneans;

but this is not a law court where we have to consider what is fit and just; it is political
assembly and the question is how Mytilene can be most useful to Athens.' (Translation
from R. Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War (Harmondsworth: 1954).

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which considers only future good had been clearly posed, it must have
become clear to at least some people that the quest for vengeance was

difficult to justify in rational terms. Protagoras may have been the first
person to draw this inference, but there is no proof that he was.
(b) We naturally feel that the condemnation of vengeance in the Protagoras

speech is enlightened. By contrast, Diodotus' insistence on expediency,

while it may have saved the Mytileneans, is terrifyingly brutal in its implications. It suggests that the state may take any action whatever which it
takes to be in its interest. But a closer investigation of the arguments in the

Protagoras speech makes the contrast seem less marked. Protagoras, as

Plato presents him, insists that it is irrational when punishing to give any
thought to the past; one must think solely of the future. This implies that
any punishment which makes people avoid wrongdoing in future could be
justified. Vlastos took this to show that Protagoras' view (assuming that
Plato's account of it is fair) is 'indefensibly lop-sided'. To visit punishment
on a surrogate would be the height of injustice even if it had a deterrent
effect. 'So pace Protagoras we do, and should, punish a wrongdoer "for the
sake of what he did"' . Saunders, on the other hand, writes as though the
failure to recognise that punishment must be for an offence is merely an
oversight on Protagoras' part and argues that Protagoras could have admitted the relevance of past and still insisted on the need for relevance to

future. 'In extreme anxiety to stress the future perhaps Protagoras merely
stumbled into an unnecessary dismissal of the past' .8 But, whatever the
view of the historical Protagoras, there is little doubt that the words of the
speech are consciously intended to preclude any form of reference to the

past. It is difficult to see any other point in the double insistence that in
punishing one must neither attend to the fact that the one punished has done

wrong nor punish him for that reason (n(O'g TOUtq) TOV VOUV gXoV xctt
TOvUTO) EVEXa, 6TL i&xMCoEv).
Saunders doubts the coherence of the view that punishment should have

no reference to the past'9 but this seems to be a mistake. There is certainly

nothing logically incoherent about the idea that one should inflict punishment if and only if doing so would prevent future crime. The trouble with

this suggestion is that it would allow penalties to be imposed on an innocent

person in those rare cases where doing so would have a deterrent effect. We
may doubt whether penalties imposed in this way should properly be called

'punishments' and we may argue that a system which openly permitted the

7 Socrates, 188.

8 Plato's Penal Code, 134.

19 Plato's Penal Code, 135.
9

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infliction of penalties on those who have done no wrong could not survive,20

but this does not mean that there is anything incoherent about the idea that
we should reject any reference to the past. On the contrary, the problem for

the philosopher of punishment is that of seeing how to construct a coherent

theory which combines two different principles both of which commend

themselves to ordinary moral consciousness. The first of these is the retributivist's 'insight' that punishment must be of an offender and for an offence; the second is the principle, dear to utilitarians, that punishment is
justifiable only if, on balance, it does good.2' The position Plato ascribes to
Protagoras avoids this problem by rejecting any suggestion that punishment

must be inflicted for past wrongs. The objection to this view is not that it is
incoherent but that it is unacceptable on moral grounds. It is, one might
argue, at least as inhumane as the idea of punishment as vengeance which it
is supposed to replace.22

Is it a deterrent theory?

According to our passage punishment is inflicted so that neither the crimi-

nal himself nor one who observes his punishment may do wrong in future.
It is natural therefore to treat the passage as espousing a deterrent view of

punishment, that is, as arguing that the fear of punishment prevents the
repetition of crime. Guthrie writes this into his version by translating &no-

TQOrI;g YOiV tvexa xokaXIEt (324a6-b7) as 'at all events the punishment is
inflicted as a deterrent',23 though a more literal rendering would be 'at any
rate [the rational man] punishes for the sake of prevention.'

It is however misleading to suggest that the great speech presents nothing

more than a simple deterrent theory. The passage which we are discussing
forms part of a longer section (323c-324c) in which Protagoras is made to
20 This was argued, for example, by John Rawls in an influential paper 'Two concepts of
rules', Philosophical Review, 64 (1955), 3-32.

21 This point is emphasised by C. C. W. Taylor's (Plato: Protagoras, 90-6). Taylor

draws on the work of H. L. A. Hart who brings put very clearly the difficulty of

reconciling the principle that punishment should be inflicted only for offences with the
requirement that it serve some useful purpose.

22 Similar problems could arise for a curative theory of punishment. If punishment is a

means of curing wrongdoers of their wickedness it is difficult to see why one should
wait until a crime has been committed before applying the cure. See R. F. Stalley, An
Introduction to Plato's Laws (Oxford: 1983), 144-5.

23 Guthrie is followed in this respect by Saunders and by Taylor. &ioTQo0Pj ('turning

away' or 'prevention') could include deterrence but the word has no etymological or

other associations with the idea that fear of the punishment makes people refrain from
cnme.

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argue that the Athenians do not regard virtue as something which comes by
nature or of its own accord, but see it rather as something acquired by
teaching and careful attention. To demonstrate this he distinguishes faults,
such as ugliness, smallness of stature and physical weakness, which are the

effects of nature (qrAJL;) or chance (T1U.)xT), from faults, which stem from a

lack of careful attention (?tMLXAtc), of practice (cwiCXoig) or of teaching

(bL86Xl). Into this latter category he puts injustice, impiety and everything
else which is contrary to the virtue of a citizen. No one gets angry with
those whose faults are due to nature or chance; neither does any one subject

them to reprimand (voUOET1noL), teaching (bLbaxn) or punishment (xo6ca-

og). Such people are, rather, pitied. It is those who exhibit the other kind of
fault who are subjected to anger and reprimand. The reason for this is that
the virtue of the citizen is something which is acquired by careful attention

(?t7t1EEXLta) and learning ([t6a0otL). It is to reinforce this point that Protagoras introduces his account of punishment which he takes to imply, not just
that punishment prevents crime, but that virtue is instilled by education

(na6bEruv EvcaL AQFPjv). This, he claims, is recognised by everyone who

inflicts punishment whether in private or in public, so the fact that the

Athenians and others inflict punishments shows that they see virtue as

something that can be produced by teaching (7tcQoxEUaCTozv VCLL XCit

&bCt6XTO'V &QET'v). The effect of this part of the speech is thus to associate
punishment with ideas of teaching and reprimand and to present it as having

an educational role.
This educational view of punishment is re-emphasised later in the speech
when Protagoras is made to argue that the citizens of Athens and other

cities do, in fact, take great trouble to ensure that the young are taught
virtue. He points out that it would be very odd if they did not do so. After

all, they regard it as so important that they instruct and punish (b6dXetIV

xai xokXdiLv) every man, woman and child who lacks justice, until, as a
result of their punishment, they become better. Those who do not respond to

this punishment and instruction are regarded as incurable (&vLcEToq) and are
either exiled or executed (325a-b). The predominant idea here is that punishment is part of moral education, though that is combined with the idea
that it makes those on whom it is inflicted 'better' and may thus be said to

'cure' them. A few lines later Protagoras goes on to describe how the young
are taught justice. From their earliest childhood they are taught and ad-

monished. Parents, nurses and teachers struggle to make children as good as

possible. Whenever they do or say anything they tell the children 'This is
right' or 'That is wrong', 'This is good' or 'That is bad', 'This is holy' or

'That is unholy', 'Do this' or 'Don't do that'. If a child does not willingly

obey they 'straighten' him out with threats and blows, like a bent and
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twisted piece of wood. (325c-d) The education which children receive in

poetry, music and gymnastics is designed to produce a harmonious, selfcontrolled character. Then the city compels them to learn the laws and to

live by them rather than following their own whims. Just as a writing
teacher draws lines for the children to follow when writing their letters, so

the city lays down the laws and compels the citizens to govern and be

governed by them. Anyone who steps outside these limits is punished and
the name given to punishment in Athens and elsewhere is 'straightening' or

'correction' (000Ouva).
In expounding this view of punishment as a means of education Protagoras combines, without any apparent sense of inconsistency, the views that

punishment is a deterrent, that it is a form of instruction and that it makes

people better by in some way 'curing' them.24 It is surprising therefore that
Saunders having acknowledged that Protagoras, as depicted in the speech,
sees punishment, not only as a deterrent but as 'an efficient tool of education' goes on to complain that he does not pay attention to 'the possibility

that it may be more efficient to affect a criminal's moral beliefs, not merely
his conduct', and criticises him for failing to envisage the use of methods
which work by affecting moral beliefs, such as 'argument, persuasion, ca-

joling, or indeed any other measure that does not consist in the infliction of
suffering' .25 In fact Protagoras, in the speech, makes it very clear that the
punishment of adults is linked to teaching and reprimand. Moreover he sees
punishment as part of an on-going process of education in which all manner
of persuasive methods are to be used. It is clear too that he does not see
virtue simply as matter of conforming to accepted norms of external beha-

viour. Children at school learn poetry which describes and praises good
men of the past. The point is that they then desire to be like these people.
Their training in music is likewise designed to develop self-restraint

(awcpQocnrvfl) and prevent them from doing wrong: not only do they learn
songs with improving sentiments but they also acquire rhythm and harmony
which are essential requirements in every part of human life. In gymnastics
they improve their bodies so that deficiencies of physique do not make them
cowardly in war or other activities (326a-c). Thus the theory of punishment

is linked to what seems to be a characteristically Athenian account of edu-

cation, one which gives a central place to the virtue of awTQoaVcvr, tem24 This is the implication of his description of some criminals as dvMaToq, 'incurable'.
As Saunders points out (Plato's Penal Code, p. 164, n. 56) it is relatively common for
offences to be spoken of in this way, though rather less common for this description to

be applied to the offender or his character. But the use of &vicaTo does not imply any

serious medical analogy any more than does the use of its English equivalent.

25 Plato's Penal Code, 135.

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perance or self restraint, and sees poetry and music as playing a key role in
harmonising the character.

The claim that punishment plays an essential role in developing these

qualities of character is not as startling as it might seem. Protagoras is

presented as taking for granted the belief, widely shared at least until the

present century, that punishment, particularly corporal punishment, is an

essential part of moral education.26 The punishment of adults may be a
different matter from that of children, but the implication of the Protagoras

speech is that no real distinction is to be drawn: the punishments of children

by their parents and of adults by the city are both seen as part of a lifelong
process of instruction and admonition. The claim that people are 'made
better' by punishment thus seems to rely on a cluster of pre-philosophical
popular beliefs. If everyone 'knew' that the punishment of children improved their characters it might seem obvious that the punishment of adults
could have the same effect.
Popular beliefs need have no clear philosophical or scientific basis. But it
is not difficult to think of at least three possible ways in which a Greek of
Plato's day might have justified the belief that punishment can improve the
character. The first is that punishment deters offenders from repeating their

misdemeanours and thus enables them to acquire better habits. In Aristotle's terminology they begin by doing just acts purely out of fear, become
habituated to just action, and end by doing just acts 'as the just man would
do them' .27 The second is that desires which meet with pain and frustration
become weakened. Aristotle also refers to this view and sees it as at least a

partial explanation of how punishment can cure vice.28 It would bear some
resemblance to the modern notion of 'conditioning'. If misbehaviour is
associated with pain, the misbehaviour itself begins to seem repellent.29 A
26 For some Greek views of the punishment of children see Aristophanes, Clouds, 14081446; Aristotle N.E. 1172a 18-23. Xenophon, Anabasis, V vii. 18, in arguing that he has
punished some of his men for their own good, explicitly associates the punishment of

children with that of adults. An important later treatment of the subject, strongly influenced by Plato, is that of Augustine (City of God, xix, 16) who, in arguing that just

punishment benefits those on whom it is inflicted, links punishments imposed by the

state with those imposed by the paterfamilias on his children and slaves.

27N.E. 1105a 18ff.

28 N. E. 1 104b 13-18. It is notable that in this context Aristotle describes punishment as
,cure' (taTQeGCL), and draws on the medical idea that 'it is the nature of cures to be
effected by contraries'.

29 This is how Grotius seems to have interpreted Plato. See De lure Belli et Pacis,

II. xx. 6. There is some support in the modern psychological literature for the suggestion
that the punishment of children may have this effect. See Derek Wright, 'The puni-

shment of children', in Discipline in Schools, Barry Turner (ed), (London: 1973), 33-44;
H.H. Marshall 'The effects of punishment on children', J. Genetic Psychology, 106

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third possibility, for which there is some support in later platonism,30 is that
punishment was thought to improve the wrongdoer's behaviour by forcibly
drawing his attention to the wrongness of what he had done.
Ideas such as these explain how punishment might be thought to play a
role in the training of character. They thus support what one might call an

'educational' view of punishment. But in saying this we have to recognise

that punishment, understood in these ways, does not address itself primarily
to the intellect. Obviously if punishment is to have an educational effect it
must be accompanied by some form of instruction. At very least, those

punished need to know what behaviour they are being punished for and why
that behaviour is deemed to be wrong. But the part punishment plays in the

educational process is to discipline and train the passions. In doing so it

may make the mind more receptive to instruction but it does not in itself
impart knowledge or understanding.

How does the doctrine of the Protagoras speech relate to Plato's own
view?

The Protagoras is not, of course, the only dialogue which touches on the

subject of punishment. In the Gorgias Plato makes Socrates draw a parallel

between punishment and medical treatment. Just as medical treatment bene-

fits us by curing sickness of the body, so punishment benefits us by curing

the soul of vice. We take the wicked man to the judge to be relieved of his
wickedness in the same way that we take the sick man to the doctor to be

relieved of his illness.3' There are also scattered remarks about punishment
in the Republic32 well as a comprehensive and complex account in the

Laws.33 Common to all these accounts is an insistence that punishment

should aim primarily at the good of those on whom it is inflicted, though it
may also serve as a deterrent to others. In many passages this point is made
in medical or quasi-medical language. Gorgias 525b is very typical:
It is fitting that everyone under punishment rightly inflicted on him by another
should be made better and profit thereby, or serve as an example to the rest, that
others seeing the sufferings he endures may in fear amend themselves.34

(1965), 23-33, reprinted in R. H. Walters, J. A. Cheyne and R. K Banks (edd), Punishment (Harmondsworth, 1972), 88-99.

30 This view, apparently derived from Taurus, is suggested by Aulus Gellius, Noctes
Atticae, VI, xiv.

31esp. 476a-479c. This passage is heavily tinged with irony, but the passages cited
below make it clear that Plato did take seriously the idea of punishment as a cure.

32 380a-b, 409e-410a, 445a, 591a-b.

33 esp. 731b-d, 735e, 843d, 854a, 862b-863a 933e, 941d, 957e.

34 trans W. R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, Mass: 1925).
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3TQOGYXELt & 3TCVTL TO 1 V TL[iO)QLq 6VTL, i,JT' &CXOi 6(Q0Og T4ItQO4LEVV, fi

FXT(OVL yLyVrOCOCL xCai 6V(VaCOOL, fl tCQabQ-LyIaLTL To^t dkkOlg yCyvEYoaL, tva

6kkot 6QO)V-t g naAOXovta ?i 3Lv La0xy WOfi)EVOL L P3EXt10J Y'LyVv@al.

A corollary of the demand that punishment benefit those on whom it is

inflicted is that punishment cannot look purely to the past. This point is
made forcibly in the Laws in language which recalls our passage from the
Protagoras while avoiding its suggestion that any reference to the past must
be avoided.35

The similarities between what appears to be Plato's own view and the
view he puts into the mouth of Protagoras are striking. As de Romilly notes
'the gap between the sophist and the philosopher is not nearly as deep as the
emphatic contrast drawn between certain of their doctrines might suggest' .36
But other writers, while recognising the similarities, have also wanted to
emphasise the differences. Thus Saunders suggests that 'Protagoras and
Plato share a single central insight: that punishment should not look to the
past but to the future.' They agree that the purpose of punishment is not to
inflict suffering on the offender for what he has done but to reform him.

However they understand this reformative process in very different ways.

Plato sees punishment as affecting 'something which no man would ever

choose to have: a state of injustice in his soul, which (if only he knew it) is
disadvantageous to him.' Thus in Plato's eyes the aim of punishment is not

simply to remedy bad conduct but to cure the state of mind which leads to
it. Saunders sees here 'a psychological emphasis ... which is missing from
Protagoras who seems to have thought in conventional terms only, of brute

deterrence through punishments of the traditional kind, consisting essential-

ly of the infliction of suffering'.37

This may be an accurate account of the views of the historical Protagoras

(though as such it is largely speculative) but it certainly fails to do justice to

Protagoras as presented in the great speech. As we have seen the doctrine of

that speech does not rely on brute deterrence but rather sees punishment as
an educational device. As Mackenzie puts it, 'punishment is primarily in-

tended to educate men in the business of being moral'.38 It would be equally

35 Laws 934a; the criminal is punished 'not because of the wrongdoing - for what is done
can never be undone - but in order that for the future both he himself and those who

behold his punishment may either utterly loathe his sin or at least renounce to a great

extent such lamentable conduct' (o01X tVEXC TOV XaXOleyfQGCL IbUObg Tqv 6lXTV, Of)
ycaQ Tbo yeYOVOg &YtVTITOV IOTacL 7OTxE, TOV 6' Et TIOV 00Lq tVEXa XQOVOV fl IO

CaQWVa L1i0aL T V 48L)X(av awYt6v te xst IOV5 ' 66vTa; albtv btxcLOvEvov, iE
W4pYJKaL ,'fQ1 aoXkkXa tTig TOLacfltTg t4V[PoQ&g).
36 The Great Sophists, 201.
37 Plato's Penal Code, 163.

38 Plato on Punishment, 190.

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misleading to suggest that punishment is seen in the speech as concerned

purely with external behaviour. It is presented as a means of inculcating
virtue and virtue is clearly not just a matter of achieving outward conform-

ity with the law but requires some form of inner harmony or adjustment.

But Saunders is, nevertheless right to suggest that there is a psychological

emphasis in the Gorgias, the Republic and the Laws, which we do not find
in the Protagoras. There are two aspects to this. The first is that in these

dialogues injustice is regarded as a state of the soul which is in itself bad for
us, so the wicked man is miserable even if his wickedness has no bad

consequences. The Protagoras speech on the other hand, seems to take the
view that justice is valuable purely because it enables us to associate with

others, while injustice is bad simply because it prevents such association.

The second is that, at least in the Republic and the Laws the idea that
wickedness is bad for us is bound up with a complex psychology based on

the tripartite division of the soul. In the speech Protagoras echoes what was
presumably a popular idea that virtue requires inner harmony. This presum-

ably implies that there are distinct elements in the personality which stand

in need of harmonisation, but the speech shows no trace of any theoretical

development of this point.

Both Saunders and Mackenzie argue that the Socratic paradox, that no

one voluntarily does wrong (which, of course, underpins the idea that injustice is a like a disease which stands in need of cure), plays no part in
Protagoras' conception of punishment, but here, again, the differences be-

tween the Protagoras speech and what seems to be Plato's own view may
not be so great as they appear. The Protagoras speech depends heavily on
the assimilation of virtues to arts or skills.39 Protagoras claims to teach the

art or skill of politics. It is for want of this skill that the first human beings
fell prey to the animals, but Zeus remedied their situation by sending them

the virtues of at&f; and btxl. In explaining why anyone is allowed to

address the assembly on purely political matters whereas only experts are
allowed to do so on matters which fall under some skill and why the sons of
great men are no better than other people, Protagoras relies heavily on an
analogy between the political art and the art of flute-playing. Yet this political art is apparently taught not simply by instruction but by other measures
including punishment. The implication of this is that injustice is assimilated
to the failure to acquire a skill.

In keeping with this picture Protagoras does not distinguish between

voluntary and involuntary offences but between faults that are due to nature
or chance and those which result from a lack of care or training. The same
39 On this see M. Stokes, Plato's Socratic Conversations (London: 1986), 210-229.

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attitude presumably underlies the assimilation in our passage of deterrence

and training. Thus although the Protagoras speech makes no explicit com-

mitment to the idea that no one willingly does wrong, it systematically

elides the difference between those who do wrong because they have deliberately chosen to do so and those who do wrong because they lack the skill

to do otherwise. Thus the difference between the doctrine of the Protagoras

speech and that of the Gorgias, is not so much that one treats injustice as

voluntary while the other sees it as involuntary; it is, rather, that while the
Protagoras speech tends predominately to assimilate injustice to a lack of
skill which requires to be remedied by training, the dominant picture in the
Gorgias is of injustice as a disease which requires treatment.

Although this point is important, there is a danger of over-emphasising it.

Plato does not seriously suggest that the distinction which ordinary courts
make between voluntary and involuntary offences should simply be abandoned. He is well aware that there is a difference between the man who
accidentally kills someone and the man who commits a deliberate murder.
He is even prepared to recognise that anger may be an appropriate reaction

to some forms of criminality.40 In the Laws he struggles to show how the

recognition of these points can be combined with the acceptance that injustice is involuntary.4' Similarly there is no explicit suggestion in the Protagoras speech that injustice is chosen voluntarily - the distinction Protagoras draws is between faults that are due to nature or chance and those

which result from a lack of care or training. But if I am unjust simply

because I have been badly brought up, it could not be said that my injustice
is voluntary. So, while Plato, not surprisingly, does not make Protagoras
openly expound the Socratic paradox that no one willingly does wrong, he
attributes to him a position which is not in practice very different.

Conclusion: punishment and moral education in Plato

If the arguments above are correct there has been a persistent tendency for
commentators to over-emphasise the difference between the account of

punishment in the Protagoras speech and those we find elsewhere in Plato.

This tendency appears to originate largely from the practice of reading the

passage cited at the beginning of this paper in isolation from the rest of the
speech. This practice in turn seems to result from the belief that that passage
embodies an authentically Protagorean theory of punishment. I have argued

40 In the Laws, 731c-d, the Athenian stranger allows that anger is the appropriate response to those whose wickedness is incurable,

4' 860a-864c.

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that we cannot, with any confidence, disentangle the genuinely Protagorean

elements of the speech from those contributed by Plato. All we can say is
simply that Plato has chosen to put into Protagoras' mouth an account of
moral education in which punishment plays a key role.
In the speech Protagoras does not take much trouble to explain exactly
what he takes virtue to be. He apparently assumes that it is simply a matter

of having the disposition to behave in ways that are conventionally judged

correct. Thus teaching virtue is largely a matter of character training. Everybody, Protagoras suggests, recognises the need to develop within the young
the kinds of disposition which will enable them to live as law-abiding
citizens and every parent tries to give such a training to his children. Some
are more successful than others, but if the attempt to socialise children is
wholly unsuccessful there is no way in which they can live together in a
community. It makes sense for Plato to put this view into the mouth of

Protagoras both because, as a sophist, he was professionally committed to

the belief that virtue can be taught, and because, in view of his close association with Periclean democracy, he would have to agree that all men have
some capacity for politics. Of course a different view of the nature of virtue
and the ways in which it is to be acquired is put into the mouth of Socrates.
He maintains that genuine virtue consists in a unitary knowledge of the
good. This obviously cannot be acquired purely by the kinds of character
training that Protagoras has in mind. So, at the beginning of the dialogue,

Socrates is rightly sceptical of Protagoras' claim to teach virtue. But as the

dialogue progresses it becomes clear that he, too, may be committed to
recognising a sense in which virtue can be taught. It is teachable, not be-

cause it consists in a set of character traits which may be acquired by

training but because it is knowledge.42
Most interpretations of the Protagoras assume that Socrates is Plato's own
mouthpiece. But it is clear that Plato's own view, at least as it emerges from
the Republic, is that both sides in this argument are partly right and partly

42 At the end of the dialogue, 36 1a-c, Socrates claims that he and Protagoras have
reversed positions. Socrates at first questioned whether virtue can be taught but now
seems committed to saying that it can be, while Protagoras, who began by saying that
virtue can be taught, now seems committed to denying it. As C. C. W. Taylor (Plato:
Protagoras, 214) rightly points out that neither party has been inconsistent. Protagoras
takes virtue to consist in the kinds of characteristic that lead to conventionally correct

behaviour. If teaching is understood in a broad sense to include all kinds of character

training Protagoras is right to claim that virtue in this sense can be taught. Socrates on
the other hand understands virtue to involve a unitary knowledge of goodness. This
cannot be taught by Protagoras' methods, but, if it is achievable at all, would presumably
require a training in Socratic dialectic.

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wrong.43 Protagoras quite rightly stresses the need to inculcate correct opinions into the young and to train their passions so that they can conform to
the norms in which they have been brought up. But because he cannot say
what virtue is, his account of moral education lacks any firm rational basis.

Socrates on the other hand maintains what is often called an 'intellectualist'

position, one which emphasises the importance of knowledge but attaches
too little importance to the correct training of the desires, appetites and
emotions. Thus neither party seems to have the monopoly of truth. Protagoras is right to emphasise the need for a moral education which disciplines

the passions and thus produces harmony in the soul. Socrates is right to
emphasise the importance of the intellect and the need for knowledge. An

adequate account of moral education must take account of both points of

view. This is precisely what Plato tries to do in the Republic. In books II

and III he makes Socrates prescribe for the young guardians a scheme of
training which is, in fact, simply a reformed version of the Athenian paideia
described in the Protagoras speech. But Socrates goes on to argue that the

city must be under the direction of philosopher kings who have not merely
belief but knowledge of what is right and good. The Republic thus combines the two strands of thinking which are opposed to each other in the
Protagoras.

Given this background it is hardly surprising that there should be striking

similarities between the account of punishment in the Protagoras speech and
those we find elsewhere in Plato's work. In the Protagoras the account of
punishment is located within a theory of moral education which emphasises
the need to discipline the lower soul. In the Gorgias its role is to create

health in the soul by restraining the appetites and desires (505a-b). Similarly
in the Republic punishment is part of the process by which the lower soul is

brought to order and made amenable to the direction of reason (591a-b).

The Laws argues at length that every aspect of the state must be geared to

inculcating virtue which is understood as consisting in the harmony of the

desires and appetites with right opinion. There are significant differences
among these dialogues but they share the view that the city as a whole has a
responsibility for training the characters of its citizens and that punishment
plays an essential role in this process.

University of Glasgow
43 Some interpreters would see this as evidence that Plato changed his mind between
writing the Protagoras and writing the Republic. I believe, rather, that Plato in writing
the Protagoras chose to stage a confrontation between two positions each of which he
saw as containing an element of truth. But to argue this in detail would require another
paper.

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