GORGIAS, one of the most renowned of the dialogues in point of composition, is also ethical, but at variance with the Protagoras, and more in accordance with Plato’s predominating views.  The professed subject is Rhetoric, which, as an art, Sokrates professes to hold in contempt.  The dialogue begins with the position that men are prompted by the desire of good, but proceeds to the great Platonic paradox, that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong.  The criminal labours under a mental distemper, and the best thing that can happen to him, is to be punished that so he may be cured.  The unpunished wrong-doer is more miserable than if he were punished.  Sokrates in this dialogue maintains, in opposition to the thesis of Protagoras, that pleasure is not the same as good, that there are bad pleasures and good pains; and a skilful adviser, one versed in the science of good and evil, must discriminate between them.  He does not mean that those pleasures only are bad that bring an overplus of future pains, which would be in accordance with the previous dialogue.  The sentiment of the dialogue is ascetic and self-denying.[7] Order or Discipline is inculcated, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

The POLITIKUS is on the Art of Government, and gives the Platonic beau ideal of the One competent person, governing absolutely, by virtue of his scientific knowledge, and aiming at the good and improvement of the governed.  This is merely another illustration of the Sokratic ideal—­a despotism, anointed by supreme good intentions, and by an ideal skill.  The Republic is an enlargement of the lessons of the Politikus without the dialectic discussion.

The postulate of the One Wise man is repeated in KRATYLUS, on the unpromising subject of Language or the invention of Names.

The PHILEBUS has a decidedly ethical character.  It propounds for enquiry the Good, the Summum Bonum.  This is denied to be mere pleasure, and the denial is enforced by Sokrates challenging his opponent to choose the lot of an ecstatic oyster.  As usual, good must be related to Intelligence; and the Dialogue gives a long disquisition upon the One and the Many, the Theory of Ideas, the Determinate and the Indeterminate.  Good is a compound of Pleasure and Intelligence, the last predominating.  Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring the Determinate (Knowledge) to regulate it.  This is merely another expression for the doctrine of Measure, and for the common saying, that the Passions must be controlled by Reason.  There is, also, in the dialogue, a good deal on the Psychology of Pleasure and Pain.  Pleasure is the fundamental harmony of the system; Pain its disturbance.  Bodily Pleasure pre-supposes pain [true only of some pleasures].  Mental pleasures may be without previous pain, and are therefore pure pleasures.  A life of Intelligence is conceivable without either pain or pleasure; this is the choice of the Wise man, and is the nature of the gods.