The pre-Socratics were the first philosophers, raising questions about the cosmos and its origins. Socrates brought philosophy down from the skies. His predecessors' speculations about the origins of matter didn't preoccupy Socrates. He thought that philosophy ought to be concerned with practical questions about how to live and the nature of the good life. Because of these concerns about values, he essentially invented the field of philosophy known as “ethics.” He is deserving of a distinctive title in the history of thought: the first moralist.

The Objectivity of Values: Socrates Against the Sophists

One of Socrates' primary goals was to show that values can be known and are objective. People are born into different times, come from different places, and embrace different customs. So is it possible to arrive at a universal concept of goodness? This was the subject of the debate between the Sophists and Socrates.

The Sophists were traveling teachers. They hailed from places beyond Athens and were ready to help Athenians rise to influence in this open society with a new democracy. Their greatest skill was the ability to teach rhetoric, or persuasive speech, to the masses. But their skepticism about values and objective truth could lead them to argue any case, even in an attempt to make the “weaker argument appear stronger.” They developed reputations for taking young people from good upbringings and leading them to question and reject their own traditions in ethics and religion. Further, they weren't in keeping with the images of philosophers as disinterested seekers after truth. Rather, they charged fees for their teaching, and they sought out the rich who were able to pay these fees. Socrates couldn't afford to pay them because of his poverty and Plato disparaged them as “shopkeepers with spiritual wares.”

The Chief Sophist: Protagoras

Protagoras (c. 490-c. 420 B.C.) was the most influential sophist to arrive in Athens. Protagoras famously said, “Man is the measure of all things; of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not.” This makes each individual the standard of what is true and false. This would be true of ordinary perceptions of physical things — you may taste wine as sweet while someone else may find it bitter, so it must be both of these things — but also about ethical values.

Taken to the extreme in ethics, this would imply complete relativism, or the view that each person must decide the truth for his or her self. But in Protagoras's case, he also espoused that the laws of a land are to be obeyed. So people should uphold the customs, laws, and moral rules that their tradition has carefully nurtured. But this relativism would make it impossible to criticize the immoral practices of some societies or even one's own. Thus, if you favor relativism, there are no objective rights or wrongs. The ideology of Nazism and slavery aren't objectively bad, but were true for groups at different times of history. In ethics, as in other things, there are no absolutes.

Socrates held a very different view than the Sophists. Socrates thought that certain moral knowledge could be arrived at through the pursuit of truth, rather than persuasion. Unlike the Sophists, he engaged in philosophical debate not for the purpose of destroying notions of truth or of developing worldly skills in lawyers and politicians. He was trying to establish a solid basis for morality.