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Single Idea 6016

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention ]

Full Idea

Protagoras and Hippias evidently believed that convention was an improvement on nature, whereas later sophists such as Antiphon, Thrasymachus and Callicles seemed to contend that conventional morality was undermined because it was 'against nature'.

Gist of Idea

Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it

Source

report of Protagoras (fragments/reports [c.441 BCE]) by Fred D. Miller jr - Classical Political Thought

Book Ref

'Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy', ed/tr. Zeyl,Donald J. [Fitzroy Dearborn 1997], p.441

A Reaction

This gets to the heart of a much more interesting aspect of the nomos-physis (convention-nature) debate, rather than just a slanging match between relativists and the rest. The debate still goes on, over issues about the free market and intervention.

The 17 ideas from Protagoras

3317 You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
247 God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras]
1549 Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras]
3313 If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
3305 There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
606 Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras]
612 Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras]
6016 Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD]
1580 For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik]
205 Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras]
1659 Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos]
1552 He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily]
1545 Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius]
1551 He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras]
1547 Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras]
1553 No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras]
532 Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras]