callicles is one of the most interesting characters in plato’s dialogues because he basically argues that morality is a tool the weak created to control the strong.
in the gorgias, he says that people naturally want power, wealth, and pleasure, and that laws telling us to be fair and restrained are mostly society’s way of keeping ambitious people in line.
plato obviously disagrees. but callicles raises a question that still feels pretty modern: are our ideas about right and wrong based on some universal truth, or did societies create them because they make civilization possible?
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