When Gorgias and Socrates discuss rhetoric at the opening of Plato's Gorgias, Gorgias says that rhetoric is about speeches. What kind of speeches? Speeches about speeches. But not all speeches, because the speeches that discuss only the subject matter of another art belong to that other art and not to the art of rhetoric (449e-451d). What is left for rhetoric when speeches about all the arts are not rhetorical speeches after all?

Gorgias tells Socrates that the speeches used by rhetoric are about "the greatest (to megiston agathon) of human affairs ... and the best" (451d). Gorgias elaborates to say that this is because the speeches are "the cause both of freedom for human beings themselves and at the same time of rule over others in each man's own city" (452d). The shift here is from rhetoric as a productive art to rhetoric as a practical art. But this shift cannot satisfy Socrates. How can a practical art be about the greatest and the best of human affairs, when the theoretical arts are clearly superior? Socrates appears less interested in the outward practical effects of rhetoric than in what rhetoric accomplishes in the soul of the listeners (453a). If rhetoric is to be about the greatest and best human affairs, rhetoric would have to be considered a kind of theoretic art that produces, by means of speeches, the most positive change in the soul of the listener.

What kind of change, then, does rhetoric effect in the soul? Socrates infers from Gorgias that it is persuasion. What kind of persuasion? One kind of persuasion "provides belief without knowing," and another "provides knowledge." Clearly knowledge is better than true belief, which is better than false belief, and more knowledge is better than less knowledge. But rhetoric merely imparts belief, Gorgias admits, and experience shows that rhetoric produces both true belief and false belief (454e). By this reasoning rhetoric, to the extent that it is a theoretic art, is powerless to effect the best possible change (knowledge) in the soul of the hearer, but it has the power to effect the worst possible change (false belief) in the hearer's soul.

This may be the main reason that Socrates stops discussing the greatest of goods and begins to discuss the greatest of evils. It is important to protect one's soul against the worst effects of rhetoric. Socrates refers to the greatest of evils, in slightly different formulations, over a dozen times. The subject matter of the greatest evil takes many forms, most notably that of injustice. Can the state of soul called false belief be reconciled with the state of soul called injustice?

1. "It is a greater good to be released oneself from the greatest evil than to release another" (kakou tou megistou, 458a).
2. "Doing injustice happens to be the greatest of evils" (megiston tôn kakôn, 469b).
3. Polus and Socrates disagree, says Socrates, "whether it is the greatest of evils for the doer of injustice to pay the just penalty, as you thought, or whether not paying it is a greater evil, as I in turn thought" (megiston tôn kakôn, 476a).
4. If "he who pays the just penalty" is "therefore released from badness of soul," does it follow that he is "therefore released from the greatest evil" (tou megistou apallattetai kakou, 477a-b)? Is it true that "what surpasses in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil among the things that are" (megiston an kakon eiê tôn ontôn, 477e)? "Are injustice and intemperance and the other baseness of soul therefore the greatest evil among the things that are" (477e)?
5. Those who flee justice "do everything so as not to pay the just penalty or be released from the greatest evil [tou megistou kakou], preparing for themselves possessions and friends and that they themselves should be as persuasive as possible in speaking" (479b-c).
6. "Does it follow that injustice and doing injustice are the greatest evil" (megiston kakon hê adikia kai to adikein, 479c-d)? If so, "doing injustice is second among the evils in greatness; and for the doer of injustice not to pay the just penalty is naturally the greatest and first of all evils" (pantôn megiston te kai prôton kakôn pephuken, 479d).
7. The rhetor should expose the injustices of all people, "so that, their unjust deeds [adikêmatôn] having become manifest, they may be released from the greatest evil, injustice" (tou megistou kakou, adikias, 480d).
8. "Doing injustice and not paying the just penalty when one does injustice" are "the utmost of all evils" (hapantôn eschaton kakôn, 482b).
9. If "the greatest of evils [megiston tôn kakôn] is injustice for the doer of injustice and a still greater evil than this greatest one-if that's possible-is for the doer of injustice not to pay the just penalty," then the most shameful failure is the failure to protect against such greatest of evils (509b).
10. "The greatest evil will befall" the young man who imitates his tyrant master, because "he is degenerate and maimed in his soul through imitation of the master and through power" (to megiston autôi kakon, 511a).
11. "To arrive in Hades with one's soul full of many [injustices] is the ultimate of all evils" (pantôn eschaton kakôn, 522e).

I take Socrates as more serious than ironic in each instance. In weaving together these various formulations of the "greatest" or "ultimate" evil, I intend that a clearer articulation of Socrates' circumspection about the uses of rhetoric will emerge at the end.

(1) "It is a greater good to be released oneself from the greatest evil than to release another" (458a-b). Socrates is the kind of person who enjoys refuting almost as much as being refuted. In both cases the refutation removes a false belief from the soul. What is more, the worst kind of false opinion, the greatest evil for a human being, is a false opinion about "the things that our argument (logos) now happens to be about." What is the scope of the "now" in this sentence? It is unlikely that a false opinion about what rhetoric is, or a false opinion about rhetoric's power and uses, is so bad as to be a greatest evil. The immediate context, however, is this very sentence. Perhaps the worst kind of false opinion to have is that which fails to distinguish among knowledge, true opinion, and false opinion. Or perhaps Socrates is referring to that false opinion which fails to recognize the pleasure and goodness in refutation. In either case, the greatest evil is a kind of false opinion that prevents the process of refutation from proceeding. The badness of soul that ensures the soul's inability to be cured is a good candidate for the greatest of evils.

(2) "Doing injustice happens to be the greatest of evils" (469b). On the face of it, Socrates here seems to be explaining to Polus why doing injustice is worse than suffering injustice. He who suffers injustice does not have the badness of soul for which his sufferings would be the right penalty, while he who does injustice has a badness of soul that causes him to perform the injustice. But why is injustice not only an evil, but the greatest of evils? Doing injustice also has to do with holding a false opinion. For example, he who "kills someone or expels him from the city or confiscates possessions, whether he is a tyrant or a rhetor, thinking this to be better for himself, but it happens to be worse," shows that he has little power and cannot do what he wishes (468d-e). He who thinks he has great power, but because of his wrong opinions about his own good has little power and cannot serve his own true interests, has profoundly bad opinions indeed. Doing injustice is the surest sign of a "wretched and pitiable" man, to someone like Socrates (469a), but the doer of injustice believes he is serving his own true interests. The doer of injustice therefore has no interest in abandoning what Socrates would say is his error. Just like the person who cannot distinguish among knowledge, true opinion, and false opinion, the doer of injustice has no interest in refutation and cannot be cured.

But Polus is not convinced. Is it (3) "the greatest of evils for the doer of injustice to pay the just penalty," as Socrates restates Polus' position, or is "not paying it ... a greater evil," as Socrates himself thinks (476a)? From the foregoing it is clear that Socrates' position is more sound. Socrates brings Polus to agree that he who is justly punished becomes "better in respect to his soul" in that he is "released from badness of soul." If that is the case, paying the just penalty is not an evil at all. In fact, he who is justly punished is (4) "released from the greatest evil" (477a-b), and he who does not pay it is never so released.

But why does Socrates insist that this evil is the "greatest evil"? Here he is distinguishing more generally among badness of soul, badness of body, and badness in a person's possessions. What makes badness of soul the worst of the three? Since badness of soul does not seem to be associated with pain, its badness must come from the harm it expresses. If harm is worse than pain, as Polus admits, then "what surpasses in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil among the things that are." Socrates has described the badness of soul first as "injustice, lack of learning, cowardice, and such things," and later as "being unjust, intemperate, cowardly, and unlearned"; in sum he describes it all as "baseness" (ponêria). So when Socrates says that "injustice and intemperance and the other baseness of soul" also comprise "the greatest evil among the things that are," the question becomes, what is the great harm expressed by these parts of baseness? (477b-478e)

Socrates does not at first show what is so harmful about the soul's baseness. In his argument with Polus over whether it is worse to pay or not pay the penalty for injustice, it is enough that Socrates secures agreement that baseness of soul is worst because it is most harmful while badness of body is merely painful. Similarly, Socrates and Polus simply agree that just as not being "medically treated and released from the evil" of the body is worse than being so treated and released, it is more profoundly worse not to be treated and released "from the greatest evil, baseness" of soul (478d).

Shortly after this general agreement, however, Socrates explains the harm that is expressed by the persistently unjust person, the person who has no interest in refutation either because he sees no distinction between true and false or because he does not understand that refutation is in his own interest. In order that the earlier arguments be consistent with Socrates' characterization of the persistently unjust person, Socrates shows that persistent baseness of soul expresses a stubborn refusal to accept restoration on the unreasonable ground that there is nothing base that must be restored. In this way Socrates unites the intellectual aspect of a soul's badness-a failure in knowledge-with what seems like more of an ethical failure in a soul's badness, an obstinate celebration of one's freely chosen ignobility. Just as the medically ill person might refuse treatment because he ignores "what sort of thing health and virtue of body are," the base person refuses treatment because he ignores what health and virtue of soul are (479b). Such a person prevents himself from being cured. Just like the doer of unjust deeds who erroneously believes he is acting in his own best interest, the person with injustice and intemperance and the rest of baseness in his soul who on the same grounds refuses treatment is likewise unwilling-therefore unable-to be (5) "released from the greatest evil" (479c). He who is intemperate and proud of his freewheeling lifestyle is a long way from having a healthy soul.

This is what Socrates means when he sums up the argument to this point. In the course of doing so, he recasts one of his basic terms. When Socrates asks again whether (6) "injustice and doing injustice are the greatest evil," he conflates unjust deeds with the injustice of a soul as though all together were a single greatest evil. "Greatest evil" no longer means what it did in the earlier formulations. From here on, "greatest evil" will refer to the general or occasional baseness of the soul, and Socrates will use even stronger terms to describe the persistent injustice of a thoroughly base soul. The unjust, intemperate, base man suffers the "greatest evil" due to his baseness, but also, awkwardly speaking, he suffers an even greater "greatest evil," because to persist in baseness is to evince that one's baseness has deep roots: "doing injustice is second among the evils in greatness; and for the doer of injustice not to pay the just penalty is naturally the greatest and first of all evils" (479c-d).

When Socrates broaches the subject with Callicles, he maintains the distinction between a second-worst baseness of soul that may be cured and a first-worst baseness of soul that has no grounds on which to accept the need for a cure, and he introduces an even stronger term. "Doing injustice and not paying the just penalty when one does injustice" are, in the singular, (8) "the utmost [eschaton] of all evils" (482b). To make the distinction even more clear at a later point, Socrates says, if it is true that (9) "the greatest of evils is injustice for the doer of injustice and a still greater evil than this greatest one-if that's possible-is for the doer of injustice not to pay the just penalty," then the most shameful failure is the failure to protect against such very greatest of evils (509b). Finally, in the concluding tale, Socrates remarks, (11) "To arrive in Hades with one's soul full of many [injustices] is the ultimate [eschaton]of all evils" (522e).

The evidence that a base person is persisting in baseness and is suffering from the "greatest and first of all evils" is that he refuses to pay the just penalty and, what is more, that he tries to avoid paying the just penalty by deceiving the very judges who are trying to dispense justice and cure him (479c). Hence rhetoric, the art of persuasion that imparts belief but not knowledge, becomes a practical tool of the unjust man. What makes this use of rhetoric so unjust toward others, beyond the injustice caused to himself, is that the unjust rhetor is actively trying to change the souls of the judges for the worse; the rhetor is scheming to put in the souls of the judges false opinions about the actual state of his soul. The unjust rhetor believes he is serving his own interest by doing so (he therefore is using rhetoric as a practical rather than theoretic art). He may lie at trial, realizing that his judges may have different opinions about justice than he does, but at bottom he believes he is acting justly because he thinks he is acting in his own best interest. At the end of his defense speech, he can say 'I have done nothing wrong' and mean every word of it on his own terms, even when he knows he is deceiving the judges, because he values the preservation of his own (unjust) lifestyle over the souls of the judges.

At the other extreme, the completely just man, neither performing nor planning to perform injustice, has no need or desire to use rhetoric as a practical art on his own behalf (481b). The completely just man, one might infer, uses philosophy as a theoretic art to seek knowledge for its own sake. In addition he has no use for the mere opinions and beliefs that rhetoric could impart as a theoretic art.

Between these extremes, Socrates says, the mostly just person will sometimes commit injustices and make mistakes. The just rhetor (or the mostly just person who uses the rhetor's art) should use rhetoric as a practical art to generate true opinions in one's judges. The just rhetor should expose the injustices of all people, including himself and his friends and family, (7) "so that, their unjust deeds having become manifest, they may be released from the greatest evil, injustice," by paying the just penalty (480d). The proof that a partly just, partly unjust person is not persisting in baseness is that he recognizes his injustice and seeks to be cured of it. Such a person is free from the "first and greatest" of evils, because he believes or knows there are differences between knowledge, true belief, and false belief. In other words, such a person shows that he has the power to do what he wishes when he not only recognizes his error but also seeks a judge who can remedy it.