There are at least two visions of the best life presented in the Platonic world: the Calliclesian vision of hedonism represented by leaky jars and the Socratic vision of a life of moderation represented by jars that do not leak. Plato uses these competing schools of thought to indicate not only the type of life one ought to lead, but also the type of lovers one ought to choose.

Socrates is adamant that the best life one can lead is one of moderation and self-restraint. As he says in the Gorgias dialogue, "I want to persuade you [Callicles] ... to choose the orderly life, the life that is adequate to and satisfied with its circumstances at any given time instead of the insatiable, undisciplined life."¹ This life, he says, will be the most satisfying. Someone with small wants, like a humble citizen, will be satisfied easily, the same way that a jar that does not leak will be easy to fill. However, someone with insatiable lusts, like a tyrant, will never be satisfied, and so like a leaky jar must constantly be refilled, this unhappy person will always be striving for more and more.²

Socrates' advocacy of moderation and humility accords well with what he said in Alcibiades I, where he says that someone who worries about money loses touch with himself.³ The money-maker becomes more remote from himself, as he tends not to things that pertain directly to him, but to things that only pertain indirectly to him. Socrates shows us in Alcibiades I that the money-maker loses touch with his very being, and in Gorgias that if this thirst for money becomes too powerful this person would lead an unsatisfactory life, even a shameful one. Either way it is evident that he shows disdain for those with power and money, with tyrants and orators. Socrates most clearly states this position at Alcibiades I 134b: "It is not the man who has become rich ... who is relieved of misery but the man who has been moderate."

People should try to secure virtue for themselves by being moderate than to try to grab as much power as possible, Socrates notes, and if one does not have virtue, it is better to be humble and allow someone else to rule than to have the audacity to try to rule others.⁴ He speaks this idea to Alcibiades in an effort to convince him to train properly to become an orator, but it could also have been spoken to Callicles, the apologist for immoderate tyrants.

On the other hand, Callicles, as part of his argument that the life of a tyrant is a pleasant one, advocates a life of pure hedonism, a life in which one is constantly satisfying his own pleasures. He tells Socrates that, "[T]he man who'll live correctly ought to allow his own appetites to get as large as possible and not restrain them."⁵ He even goes so far as to say that Socrates' ideal person is enslaved to herself, and there is nothing less honorable than being enslaved. So in order to refute Socrates' vision of the best life, Callicles turns Socrates' jar analogy on its head by saying that it is not the holding of liquid that is the source of pleasure but the filling of the jars.

For Callicles, as it is for Socrates, the notion of the man ruled by his passions is tied to the notion of the ruler. Callicles says this expressly at Gorgias 492a: "[T]his [unrestrained appetites] isn't possible for the many." He notes that because the many cannot all satisfy their wants (and just ask an economist, we do live in a world of limited resources) they create silly rules that Socrates is continually harping on. The people create notions of virtue and shamefulness, but in reality if they could they would all throw care to the wind and lead lives of reckless debauchery. It is only in law and custom ("nomos") that it is better to be moderate, but those special individuals (presumably rich people and tyrants) who are able to transcend society can live out the ideal best life according to nature ("physis"). It must be pointed out here that Callicles vision here accords well with modern state-of-nature thinkers, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. People who were all gluttons and thought of themselves first could not easily live together in society, it would be hard for them to form relationships of equality with each other.

So we see that these two visions of the best life have a lot to do with human relationships and specifically with the relations between lovers. In his attempts to prove that the best life is the one marked by self-restraint and moderation, Socrates notes the incompatibility of having a lover with leading the life that Callicles advocates. He says that a life of pure hedonism leads the hedonist to alienate his friends and lovers. "Such a man could not be dear to another man or to a god, for he cannot be a partner, and where there's no partnership there's no friendship."⁶

Another problem with someone with unbounded desires is that he will tend to accumulate a lot of wealth, thought he will not be satisfied by it. With wealth comes unfortunate fact that lovers and friends will be after his wealth and not after him. And those people will not be true friends, and will likely depart as soon as his fortunes change. Socrates says that, "If ... someone has become a lover of Alcibiades' body, he has fallen in love not with Alcibiades but with something belonging to Alcibiades."⁷ This concept can be broadened out to include not just "body" but "material possessions" as well. So someone who loves our hedonist for the wealth he has accumulated, the lover is simply using the hedonist as a means to get his goods, and does not love the hedonist himself at all. But even worse than that is that the person who loves the hedonist's wealth is deluded and throws his love at a false image. Because, as Socrates says, "[I]t appears ... impossible to know that the things of Alcibiades belong to Alcibiades without knowing Alcibiades."⁸ Since this so-called "lover" only really wants the things of the hedonist and not the hedonist himself, he truly has no relationship at all with the person whom he claims to love.

Also, the quest for love can lead a hedonist, who will stop at nothing to entice and keep a lover, to go to great extremes to please his lover, saying anything at all, whether he means it or not, to please him. So it would be best for a lover to be one who is able to combat this bad tendency or at least doesn't particularly cause the hedonist to exaggerate it. Socrates notes that Callicles is one such person who is swayed by the desire to please his lover(s), whether it be the people of Athens or a man named Demos. Socrates, on the other hand, says that he himself is in love with something that never changes, philosophy, and it is therefore easier for him to abide with his lover (philosophy).⁹

So the two competing philosophies of life — hedonism and moderation — have major ramifications for society at large and for interpersonal relationships. Socrates' vision of a virtuous life of self-restraint works best for one who is to be a subject or who is to live in society, but Callicles' vision of a person with insatiable appetites could only work for the few who have the power to do this. It is much easier for the restrained person to find a lover since she will be easier to live with and will not necessarily treat her lovers with condescension or as a possession. But, if the hedonist is to have a lover, it must be someone who will bow to his will, otherwise the hedonist will be in the position of constantly lying to keep the lover around, which would create a relationship based on falsehood.

¹Plato, Gorgias, trans. Donald J. Zayl (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987) 493c-d (p. 66).

²Socrates makes this analogy at Gorgias 493e-494a.

³Plato, "Alcibiades I," trans. Carnes Lord, The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1987) 131b-c (p. 214).

⁴"Alcibiades I," 135b (p. 220).

⁵Gorgias, 491e-492a (p. 64).

⁶Gorgias, 507e (p. 88).

⁷"Alcibiades I," 131c (p. 214).

⁸"Alcibiades I," 133d (p. 217).

⁹Gorgias, 481d-482c (pp. 51-52).

Plato. "Alcibiades I." Trans. Carnes Lord. The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues. Ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1987. 175-221.

Plato. Gorgias. Trans. Donald J. Zeyl. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987.