# Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Lectures on Greek Philosophy (1888)/The Sophists

Lectures on Greek Philosophy, Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier (1888 ed., Vol. 2). (E. L. Lushington, & A. Grant, Eds.) Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. pp. 185-209.
II. THE SOCRATIC PERIOD.
THE SOPHISTS.
1. The course of Greek speculation now brings me to speak of the Sophists, a class of teachers and thinkers who, in general, have occupied no very high place in the world's esteem, but in whose favour a reaction has of late years taken place. The Sophists came upon the scene when Athens was at the height of her glory. Greece was now the foremost nation in the world, and pre-eminent amid that nation stood forth the Athenian people, with Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, at their head. Around his name, so great in oratory and statesmanship, are clustered a constellation of names equally brilliant in poetry, in science, and in art; and from him this period of Greek history, so rich in every form of intellectual excellence, has derived its name; it is known as the age of Pericles.
2. At this time the Sophists made their appearance as the inaugurators of a new, or, at least, of an extended, system of education. Greece was now alive, to an extent unknown before, with every kind ​of mental activity and excitement. Material prosperity, if it ministered to sensual indulgences, inspired at the same time higher cravings, and afforded scope and leisure for the consideration of questions affecting man's moral and intellectual interests. It was felt that the old and simple modes of instruction were not adequate to the requirements of the time, and that the newly awakened spirit must work out its purposes by means of a more complex and artificial apparatus. What suited their forefathers did not suit the present Athenians, and still less the rising generation.
3. The Sophists took advantage of this movement; they arose out of it, they headed it, and proclaimed themselves ready and willing, for a handsome pecuniary consideration, to instruct the rising generation in all the accomplishments necessary to secure their advancement in the world. If they did not supersede the elementary discipline at that time in vogue, they undertook to engraft upon it a more complete and advanced system of instruction. Such was the proposed vocation of the Sophists. How they discharged it is a question on which much debate has been expended; probably not so well as they themselves imagined, and perhaps not so badly as their revilers are in the habit of asserting.
4. In considering the Sophists and their vocation, there are two characters in which they present ​themselves to our notice: first, as teachers generally; and, secondly, as philosophers. In his account and defence of the Sophists, which you will find in vol. viii. of his 'History of Greece,' Mr Grote has stated that the Sophists were not properly a sect, but were merely a class or profession. By a sect is meant a society which is held together by a unanimity of sentiment and opinion; by a class or profession is meant a body of men who exercise a particular vocation, but who do not all practise it in the same way, or necessarily agree in their doctrines. For example, it cannot be said of the professors in our universities that they are a sect. We can only say of them that they are a class. They all teach; but they do not all teach the same doctrines or in the same way. In like manner, says Mr Grote, the Sophists were not a sect they had no common groundwork of opinion, they were merely teachers; and each man taught what he pleased to the best of his ability and in his own way. It seems to me, however, more correct to say that, viewed merely as general teachers, the Sophists were a class or profession; but that, viewed as philosophers, they properly constituted a sect. For although they may have differed a good deal in their philosophical opinions, they all agreed, as we shall see, in assuming a common principle as the basis of their speculations. And accordingly I have laid down these two points of view under which I think they may be regarded: first, their character as general teachers, in which ​case they may be said to belong to a profession; and, secondly, their character as philosophers, in which case they may be said to constitute a sect. I shall make a few remarks on the Sophists, considered under each of these points of view.
5. The general character of the teaching of the Sophists may be summed up by saying that they adapted themselves to the wants of the times. They took their age as they found it, and they did not attempt to improve it; at least, this was not their professed aim. They undertook to teach their pupils how to get on in the world, how to play a successful part in life; and rhetorical power being one great means, being, indeed, the one great means towards success, they strove above all things to impart oratorical accomplishments to those whom they instructed. But in such a system of instruction there is a strong temptation to sacrifice substance to show. Where rhetorical skill is regarded as paramount, the higher ends of education are apt to be overlooked, for readiness and fluency of speech may proceed out of emptiness, no less than out of fulness of mind; hence the questionable or equivocal character of the method of instruction attributed to the Sophists. That they were useful in their day and generation is not to be doubted. That their pupils frequently derived from them substantial knowledge, along with the flimsier acquisition of rhetoric, may be readily admitted. But the main stress of their teaching being based rather ​on the attainment of the superficial than on the attainment of the solid, their character as instructors of youth has come down to us laden with an obloquy which may have been exaggerated by their opponents, but which was certainly not altogether undeserved.
6. The second point to be considered in our estimate of the Sophists is the character of their philosophy. Our limits will not permit me at present to go deeply into the details of this subject; but there may be the less occasion for doing so, inasmuch as we are able to present in one celebrated maxim the sum and substance of their philosophy. This dogma is the saying, that "man is the measure of the universe;" a maxim attributed to Protagoras, but which may be accepted as the watchword and common principle of all the Sophists.
7. The meaning of this saying is, that truth, morality, and beauty are altogether relative, that there is nothing absolute or unchangeable in their nature. The maxim is, indeed, under one point of view, a condensed expression for the whole philosophy of the relative. Whatever a man holds to be true is true for him; whatever he holds to be right and good is right and good for him; whatever he holds to be beautiful is beautiful for him: and thus there is no absolute or universal standard either of truth or of morality or of beauty. It is obvious that where this doctrine is carried out in detail it must have the ​have the effect of exploding truth, virtue, and beauty, considered as realities. It destroys them as objective and essential qualities. It obliterates their absolute and immutable character. It represents them as hinging on the precarious constitution of mankind, and as shifting with their shifting sensibilities.
8. It would be an interesting inquiry to trace in detail the causes which gave rise to the philosophy of the Sophists. I must at present be satisfied with remarking that the two main sources from which it emanated seem to have been Anaxagoras's doctrine of the νοῦς, or mind, as the supreme principle in nature, and the doctrine of the Atomic school in regard to sensation and perception. I shall say a word or two on each of these points.
9. First; Before the time of Anaxagoras, nature, in her external and objective character, had been held to be greater than man. Lofty as the aims and aspirations of the preceding philosophers had been, they had scarcely risen to the conception of an intelligent power superior to nature. Anaxagoras rose to this conception, he rose to the conception of spirit as above nature, of mind as greater than matter. Heretofore men, philosophers as well as others, had bowed down before nature. Now there was a principle found greater than nature, and before that principle nature herself must bow down. This principle is mind, and wherever else mind may have a place, it ​dwells certainly in man: so that man is now set up as superior to nature. It is rather for nature to pay homage to him, than for him to pay homage to nature. In a word, instead of the universe being the measure of man, that is to say, instead of the universe imposing its forms and modes upon man, man is the measure of the universe, and imposes his forms and modes upon it. Such is the deduction of the Sophistical dogma in so far as it may be traced to Anaxagoras. His doctrine, that mind was the supreme principle, that there was nothing higher, was converted by an easy transition into the maxim that man, the mind of man, is the measure of all things; that is, the mind of man shapes and determines the truth.
10. Secondly; The new doctrine in regard to perception, either advanced by Leucippus and Democritus, or deducible from their speculations, afforded strong support to the fundamental principle of the Sophists. Heretofore it had been thought that the secondary qualities of matter, such as heat, cold, bitter, sweet, sound, and colour, possessed an objective existence in things, that they had a reality in themselves; now, it was declared and argued, on strong grounds of reason, that these qualities had no objective and independent existence, but that they depended entirely on the sentient mind of man. There was, in short, no such thing as heat or cold out of relation to feeling, no such thing as bitter or sweet out of relation to the sense of taste, no such thing as colour out of ​relation to the sense of sight, no such thing as sound out of relation to the sense of hearing. In fact, take away man and his senses and you take from the universe all these qualities. Hence, in so far at least as these are concerned, it may be said emphatically that man is the measure of the universe; his constitution determines its constitution. It is his nature which gives to things their colour, their sound, their taste, their touch, and their smell.
11. These observations regarding sensation supplied to the Sophists a very strong ground, as they thought, on which to build their assertion that man is the measure of all things. They generalised this maxim. They laid it down in utmost latitude of signification, and their consequent conclusion was, as I have said, that there was nothing true in itself, or right in itself, or beautiful in itself; just as a thing was not sweet in itself, and not red in itself, but took that taste and that colour from the sentient nature of man, so nothing was true in itself or good in itself, but everything derived these qualities from the mind of the person contemplating them.
12. There is only one way in which these Sophistical arguments can be met and rebutted, and that is by drawing a distinction between the essential and true nature, and the unessential and contingent nature of man; in other words, between his universal nature, the nature he has in common with all ​intelligence, actual or possible, and his particular nature, the nature which is peculiar to him as a human being. If that distinction be made out, truth, virtue, and beauty stand secure and unshaken; for no one would claim for truth a more absolute character than this, that whatever is accepted as true and right by all intelligence, that is absolute and immutable truth and right. To fix, then, a standard of truth, of morals, and of beauty, we must first fix a standard of intelligence; in other words, we must show, or at least hold, that there is a nature common to all intelligence, and that man participates in this universal nature. If that can be shown, truth and morals are established as immutable; if, on the contrary, it be held that there is no standard in intelligence, no common nature in all reason, it must at the same time be conceded that there is no standard in truth or in morality.
13. From these remarks, it is obvious that there is a sense in which the principle of the Sophists may be accepted as sound and valid. Man is the measure of the universe, in so far as he participates in the nature of all intellect. In so far as, he has a faculty of the universal, a universal faculty, he is cognisant of truth absolutely; but in so far as his particular faculty, his senses and understanding, is concerned, he is not the measure of the universe, not the recipient of truth as it is for all, but only of truth as it is for him; that is to say, the recipient of mere ​apparent truth, or of that which, strictly speaking, is not truth at all.
14. It was, however, in the latter sense that the Sophists gave out that man was the measure of the universe. They did not draw the distinction, but we may say that virtually they acknowledged no universal faculty in man. They regarded his particular or sensational nature as his essential constitution, and this sensational nature they set up as the measure of all things. In short, their dogma, viewed theoretically, led to this conclusion,—whatever appears to any individual to be true, that for him is true; and viewed practically, it led to this conclusion,—whatever appears to any individual to be advantageous, that for him is right.
15. Socrates, as you are aware, stood forward as the opponent of the Sophists. And he did so on the ground which I have indicated. The Sophists had set up man as supreme. They had represented truth and virtue as contingent on his constitution. But then they had regarded his constitution as precarious, variable, and particular. Here was where the error lay. Socrates accepted their position; he conceded that truth and virtue depended on the constitution of man; not, however, on the variable and particular part of his nature, but on the invariable and universal part of his nature, on that faculty which he has in common with all intelligence. And, arguing in ​this way, Socrates revindicated for truth and morals the absolute and immutable and real nature of which they had been deprived by the argumentation of the Sophists.
16. In these remarks I have given you merely a very general sketch of the doctrines of the Sophists. I have indeed done little more than announce the leading principle of their philosophy, showing you very briefly how this principle—the maxim, namely, that man is the measure of all things—how this principle, if carried out as the Sophists interpreted it, must have the effect of unsettling both truth and morality. I have also indicated very briefly the counter-principle which Socrates opposed to theirs, and by means of which he reasserted the claims of absolute truth and absolute morality, this principle being the position that man is indeed the measure of the universe, but that he is this, not in his contingent and individual, but in his essential and universal character. I shall have occasion to go more fully into the details of this subject when I come to speak of Socrates and Plato. Meanwhile, the following may be accepted as a short summary of their position. The Sophists hold that man can know things only as they are related to his faculties of knowledge; an undeniable truth, which, however, they conjoined, virtually, if not expressly, with this more questionable position, that man has no faculty of the universal, that is, no faculty for the truth as it ​exists for all reason; that there is no common nature in all intelligence; that man's reason is a particular kind of reason. These two positions, first, that man can know things only in relation to his own faculties—and, secondly, that there is no common nature, no essential agreement in all intelligence; these two positions afforded a ground for the conclusion that truth must vary according to the variations of the mind contemplating it; that it was fluctuating and unstable, indeed, that in the strict sense of the word there was no truth at all; while, at the same time, they afforded a ground for the conclusion that morality was altogether arbitrary and conventional, depending on the changing humours of society, and even on the wayward caprice of individuals.
17. I may conclude by mentioning the names of three of the most celebrated Sophists. These were Protagoras, Gorgias, and Prodicus; of these Protagoras was the most distinguished. He was a native of Abdera in Thrace, was born 480 B.C., died about 410 B.C. Gorgias was born in Sicily; he was a contemporary of Protagoras, and was born about 480 B.C. He is said to have lived more than a hundred years. Prodicus was a native of the Island Ceos; he was a good deal younger than the other two, but the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. To this philosopher, Sophist though he was, one of the finest moral fables of antiquity is ascribed, commonly known by ​the title 'The Choice of Hercules.' It is related in Xenophon's 'Memorabilia,' B. ii.
18. To understand the position, and the conduct, and the character, and the philosophy of Socrates, it is necessary that we get all the light we possibly can, in regard to the tenets of the Sophists. I therefore go on with the consideration of their opinions.
19. In order to reach still more definite results, let us consider what their psychology, that is to say, what their doctrine, was in regard to the nature of man, considered as an isolated individual, or viewed in his unsocial capacity. You will observe that man presents himself to our notice under two points of view; as a member of society, and as a man simply, and irrespective of all social relations; in other and shorter words, as a citizen and as an individual. Now, the question is, What are the attributes and constituents of man considered as an individual? What are they as distinguished from his attributes and constituents, considered as a member of society? Let us try to separate between that which man receives directly from nature, and that which he imbibes sensibly or insensibly from his companionship with his fellows. This, indeed, is the great problem which, although perhaps never very clearly enunciated, is, and has ever been, the business of moral philosophy to resolve. Probably the Sophists had as clear an apprehension of it as ​any subsequent philosophers; at any rate they were the first to broach it. In their language the question would be put thus, What is man by nature (φύσει), and what is he by convention and fashion (νόμῳ)? The exposition of what man is by nature would constitute the psychology of the Sophists; the exposition of what he is by convention would constitute their ethics. But it is not difficult to see that, arising out of their psychology and immediately connected with it, there would be what we may call a code of natural ethics, as distinguished from that code of conventional or social or artificial ethics to which the name of ethics is more properly applied. Indeed this word ethics is properly applied to man only when in society; still it may be allowable to apply it to man in a pure state of nature when we explain it as meaning those natural commands which prompt and impel every sentient creature to gratify its wants.
20. Before touching on any of these points, either on the psychology or the ethics of the Sophists, let me call your attention to an important consideration which throws, I think, much light on their mode of inquiry. The consideration is this, that whatever can be shown to be imposed upon man by Nature, must be more binding and authoritative than that which is imposed upon him merely by society. Nature's commands must be obeyed first, because Nature is primary and fundamental; society's commands must be obeyed only in the second instance, ​because society is less real, less cogent than Nature; and where the two commands are at variance, where Nature pulls one way and social morality another way, Nature must be yielded to, because nature is weightier, and in every way more venerable, than convention. That doctrine, you will observe (and it is a doctrine which carries with it a good deal of plausibility), opens a door to the inroads of every species of licentiousness. I do not believe that the Sophists themselves ever opened that door very wide; but they indicated its existence, and some of them certainly left it ajar, to the perplexity and alarm of all right-minded citizens. This consideration may serve to show that the estimate usually formed as to the dangerous and pernicious tendency of the Sophistical speculators, although exaggerated, is not altogether wrong. This remark is somewhat digressive. I return to the psychology of the Sophists, on which I shall say a very few words.
21. This prime question of moral philosophy, as I have called it, is no easy one to answer, for it is no easy matter to effect the discrimination out of which the answer must proceed. It is a question, perhaps, to which no complete, but only an approximate, answer can be returned. One common mistake is to ascribe more to the natural man than properly belongs to him, to ascribe to him attributes and endowments which belong only to the social and artificial man. Some writers—Hutcheson, for example, and he ​is followed by many others—are of opinion that man naturally has a conscience or moral sense which discriminates between right and wrong, just as he has naturally a sense of taste, which distinguishes between sweet and bitter, and a sense of sight, which discriminates between red and blue, or a sentient organism, which distinguishes between pleasure and pain. That man has by nature, and from the first, the possibility of attaining to a conscience is not to be denied. That he has within him by birthright something out of which conscience is developed, I firmly believe; and what this is I shall endeavour by-and-by to show, when I come to speak of Socrates and his philosophy as opposed to the doctrines of the Sophists. But that the man is furnished by nature with a conscience ready-made, just as he is furnished with a readymade sensational apparatus, this is a doctrine in which I have no faith, and which I regard as altogether erroneous. It arises out of the disposition to attribute more to the natural man than properly belongs to him. The other error into which inquirers are apt to fall in making a discrimination between what man is by nature, and what he is by convention, is the opposite of the one just mentioned. They sometimes attribute to the natural man less than properly belongs to him. And this, I think, was the error into which the Sophists were betrayed. They fell into it inadvertently, and not with any design of embracing or promulgating erroneous opinions. We shall see by-and-by how Socrates availed himself ​of this error in the psychology of the Sophists, and how he corrected it.
22. In answer to the question, What, and what alone, appertains to man by nature? the sophists replied in one word, sensation. It is certain that man has by nature certain senses, and that he is naturally sensitive to pleasure and to pain. He has also, as part of his constitution, certain appetites, passions, and desires. Some of these, however, exist only in society, and are probably created only by our contact with society. The other appetites and passions which man brings with him into the world are so intimately connected with organic pleasure or pain that they may be placed under the head of sensation, and thus sensation, or a susceptibility and experience of pleasure or of pain, is properly all that belongs to man by nature. That this attribute is natural to him is what cannot be for a moment doubted. He comes into the world feeling, that is, alive to enjoyment or suffering, at every pore. In regard to all his other attributes, we cannot be sure that they are not entirely due to the influences and operation of society.
23. To what extent the Sophists admitted thought to be an indigenous property of man seems somewhat uncertain. It is probable that they did not admit it as anything different from sensation. They either slurred it over without much notice, or they regarded it as the natural sequent or accompaniment of ​sensation, and as itself resolvable into sensation. This latter attribute, together with certain appetites and desires, these alone, in the psychology of the Sophists, were the original furnishings of human nature. Sensation was the foundation on which the whole superstructure of humanity and of society rested. The Sophists were thus the first inquirers who distinctly propounded a philosophy of pure sensationalism, that is to say, a doctrine which refers all the phenomena of thought, and all the operations of the mind, to sensation as their ultimate source and origin. This doctrine has had many advocates, both in ancient and in modern times. The English philosopher, Locke, lent it his countenance, although not without some reservations. The French philosophers of the eighteenth century put aside these reservations, and proclaimed a doctrine of sensationalism without any qualification; but the first who propounded the doctrine were the Sophists. Their psychology began and ended in sensationalism.
24. In a state of nature, then, and apart from society and all its relations, man, according to the Sophists, is a mere creature of sensation, including under that term certain appetites and desires, and the experience of pleasure and of pain. This is what man is in himself; he is, as he comes from the workshop of nature, a mere series or complement or congeries of sensations. That, say the Sophists, is what man; the individual or isolated ​man, is, as distinguished from the social or gregarious man. Out of this psychology a system of what we may call natural ethics would evolve itself. To a creature made up of sensations the law of self-preservation and of self-enjoyment must be the most authoritative of all commands. Such a being must necessarily pursue its own gratification; for pleasure is sweet and attractive, pain is hateful and repulsive, to all the organised creation. Hence, whatever confers pleasure on the individual will be passionately run after and approved of, whatever inflicts pain will be anxiously shunned and condemned. "Nature," says Jeremy Bentham, "has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do." Whether, and in what sense, pleasure and pain may be said to be the two sovereign masters of mankind in a state of society, I shall not at present stop to inquire: but it is certain that they must be the only two governing principles of man, viewed as a mere sensational being, and considered as he is in himself and out of all relation to his fellows. His ethics, in such a case, could scarcely be called selfish, for selfishness implies not only an exclusive regard to one's self, but a disregard to the claims of others. But there are no others at present in the case, and therefore their claims cannot be disregarded; but in so far as an exclusive regard to one's self is concerned, the natural ethics which arise out ​of the psychology of the Sophists must be pronounced to be virtually of a purely selfish character. The same law of nature which makes a man susceptible of pleasure and of pain, giving no other guides, imposes on him the duty of securing the one and of avoiding the other to the utmost degree in which they can be secured and avoided.
25. Thus furnished by nature, man is turned adrift into the world. He comes upon the scene equipped with sensations which constitute his very existence, and with a natural code of ethics which oblige him to preserve himself and to enjoy himself as much as he possibly can. Thus the isolated man, man as he comes from nature, man with his individual interests, is the measure of the universe to himself. Whatever his sensations bring home to him as true and real is true and real for him, whatever it may be in itself His sensations are for him true and real, although all beyond should be illusion or nonentity, and these sensations are for him the universe. Then again, whatever promotes agreeable sensations is right for him, whatever it may be in itself; whatever promotes disagreeable sensations is wrong for him, whatever it may be in itself. Thus man is, as the Sophists say, the measure of the universe. His individual nature measures and determines its reality. His individual nature measures and determines what in the universe is right and what in the universe is wrong.
​26. But although man comes into the world thus naturally equipped, he finds there much that is at variance with these natural provisions. He finds established in society a code of morality which is by no means in accordance with what we have called the ethics of nature. By the ethics of nature man is bound to regard his own interests as paramount, and to look after these alone; by the ethics of society he is called upon to respect the interests of others, as well as to abridge or sacrifice his own pleasures, and to lay a restraint on his self-indulgent appetites. These new regulations square but badly with the injunctions laid upon him by nature. And the purport of the Sophistical teaching was, I conceive, to point out the inconsistency, without offering any adequate solution. Their object was to stir up inquiry, and as a preliminary to this, it was necessary to induce perplexity of mind. Doubts and difficulties must present themselves before any clearness of thought can be attained. These doubts and difficulties and contradictions were evolved by the argumentative exercitations of the Sophists; and I conceive that their exhibition was absolutely essential to the progress of philosophy, and as a step to something better. Let us honour and not disparage the Sophists for having been at the pains to throw these embarrassments (what the Greeks called ἀπρίαι) in the way of thinking men. They argued that the morals of nature were opposed in much to the morals of convention, that the morals of nature were ​supremely authoritative, inasmuch as they were grounded on nature herself. Nature herself is here the ground of our obligation, and under her behests we are bound to pursue to the utmost our own pleasure and avoid our own pain. But on what are the morals of society grounded? On something much less authoritative, on mere convention or arbitrary agreement among men. But these conventional rules are, or at least appear to be, less obligatory than the injunctions laid upon us by our own appetites, passions, and desires. Why, then, should they be obeyed? what, in short, is the ground of the moral obligation imposed upon us by society? The ground on which man's obligation as an individual rests is, as I have said, obvious enough; it rests upon nature herself. But man's obligations as a citizen do not rest on nature, for they stand opposed to much which nature dictates. On what, then, do they rest? what is the ground of social moral obligation? For the raising of this question we are mainly indebted to the Sophists, to the spirit, if not to the letter, of their inquiries; and the question seems to have been brought to light in some such manner as I have described, namely, by playing off the natural or isolated man against the social and artificial man—the individual, taken simply and as he is in himself against the individual taken socially, and as he is in company with his fellow-men.
27. I have said that the Sophists furnished no ​adequate solution to the question as to the grounds of the moral obligation which society imposes on its members, nor did they profess to furnish any, their object being rather to induce perplexity and provoke discussion. But some solution they certainly did attempt, and some of their views were not unlike those propounded by the Utilitarians of the present day. I shall merely touch upon these answers. Some of the Sophists contended that might was the ground of moral obligation; that the strong, who were able to enforce conformity, determined what was right, determined this either by positive enactments or by the force of public opinion, and that hence the weaker were constrained to obedience through fear. Another party, according to Plato, contended that although injustice was right by nature, inasmuch as nature prompted a man to grasp at everything he could reach without giving heed to the claims of others, still it was wrong by convention, for this reason, that the man who committed injustice would be sure at one time or other to suffer from injustice; and therefore, in order to avoid this suffering, which to him would be wrong and grievous, he would refrain from committing injustice, however right and agreeable he may think it. According to this doctrine, it is good for each man to commit acts of injustice on others, it is bad to have acts of injustice committed on one's self; and hence, as it is impossible to avoid the latter without also giving up the former, men agree to abstain from ​acts of injustice, doing so, not because they conceive injustice to be bad when they actively inflict it, but because they conceive it to be bad when they passively endure it. The pain which they feel when they suffer from injustice outweighs, for the most part, the pleasure which they feel when they commit it; and hence injustice comes to be stamped with general reprobation, and its opposite with general applause. Such an explanation represents self-interest in its most undisguised form as the ground of moral obligation. Others, again, would argue that the advantage and wellbeing of the community, of which each man was a member, was promoted by the observance of these moral rules; and hence the promotion of this welfare was a sufficient reason why these rules should be observed. The promotion and maintenance of the wellbeing of society was thus set forth as the ground of moral obligation. This is no other than the modern doctrine of Utilitarianism.
28. These solutions, however, were felt to be inadequate and unsatisfactory. It was felt, in particular, that no true conciliation was effected by such explanations between what we have called the natural ethics of the individual and the conventional ethics of the citizen. The question still remained unanswered, Why, when a man could commit injustice with the certainty of impunity both in the present and in the future, he should not commit it? On what ground, and for what reason, it might still be ​asked, should he, in such circumstances, not commit injustice? No Sophistical theory was able to answer that question; or if they answered it at all, their answer was, that a man in the position indicated should just follow the bent of his natural inclinations and commit injustice, doing what seemed to him good in his own eyes, and not whit was reckoned good in the estimation of society. The commands of nature carry more authority than the laws and regulations of society; therefore, when they can be obeyed with impunity, they ought to be, and they will be, obeyed. Such was the spirit and tendency of much of the Sophistical mode of argumentation.