/lit/ - Literature

Right, just want to preface this by saying that I'm a fucking idiot and that this whole issue likely stems from me being unable to comprehend the text I'm reading properly.

Anyways, I'm reading Plato's Gorgias dialogue and I've just got up to the point where Socrates and Polus are I think beginning to end their discussion on whether it's better to commit a crime or be wrongly convicted and whether its better to be convicted or avoid punishment altogether. Now Socrates from what I can tell is basically trying to summarise it all by saying that if you do 'an enemy' wrong, who instead has done wrong to someone else but not you, then you need to use 'all your verbal and practical resources to try to ensure that does not get punished and does not appear before a judge! And if an enemy of yours does appear there, you have to come up with a way for him to escape and so avoid punishment! If he's stolen a pile of money, you have to make sure he doesn't give it back, but keeps it and spends it in godless immorality on himself and his acquaintances. If death is the penalty for his crime, you have to keep him alive, preferably for ever, so that he never dies and his iniquity goes on and on; but if you can't manage that, you'd better ensure that he lives in his state of wickedness for as long as possible.

Right, so what I don't understand is why Socrates wants the enemy to escape judgement for their wrongdoings. From what I do understand it's so that, as they discussed earlier, the enemy suffers all the more from 'psychological iniquity' for not receiving his judgment, which then obviously means his state of mind would be far worse than if he was punished. Now the thing that I don't get is why Socrates is advocating for this to happen, especially since the dialogue gives so much importance to morality and doing that which is good, and since as they said before a person receiving their rightful punishment is a person healed, a person who has been given his medicine, and who can now get better. So why is Socrates who was before such a big proponent of morality, who largely criticised rhetoricians for their lack of morality, is now advocating for a person who has committed a crime to not get what is rightly theirs, their punishment, be that a fine, imprisonment, exile or death, so that they can be rid of their mental iniquity.

Yeh like I said I'm still a half a fuckin retard, and I suspect this largely comes from me misreading something; and I've only just barely started reading philosophy, so maybe I'm just not used to how they portray their thinking and arguments, but at least I'm asking questions right? And sorry if it's too rambly and not very well structured, I just wrote this all in one go, so fuckin yeh.

Bit ae Plato an tha

>>15554015
Cam on my son, you absolute beauty.

Haven't started pic related yet but will begin reading it today.

>Polis points to Arkalais, the king of Macedonia, who has “committed many grievous sins and yet is surely a happy man and at the very least surely not miserable.” Socrates though does not think that he could tell if a man was happy or miserable without knowing about the mans education and his views on justice. Polis is amazed by this, but Socrates says that “the admirable and good person, man or woman, is happy. But the one who is unjust and wicked is miserable.”

>“Doing what is unjust is the worst thing that there is. It is even worse than suffering injustice.”

>>13202381

>Polis points to Arkalais, the king of Macedonia, who has committed many grievous sins and yet is surely a happy man and at the very least surely not miserable. Socrates though does not think that he could tell if a man was happy or miserable without knowing about the mans education and his views on justice. Polis is amazed by this, but Socrates says that “the admirable and good person, man or woman, is happy. But the one who is unjust and wicked is miserable.”

>“Doing what is unjust is the worst thing that there is. It is even worse that suffering injustice.”