Autor: Plato

Buch: Gorgias

Titel: Gorgias

Stichwort: Seele: Gericht, Weltgericht

Kurzinhalt: Once the soul has been stripped of the body, all its features become obvious; ... that the promiscuity, sensuality, brutality, and self-indulgence of his behaviour has thoroughly distorted the harmony and beauty of his soul

Textausschnitt: Well, Callicles, I think the same goes for the soul too. Once the soul has been stripped of the body, all its features become obvious-its innate features and also the attributes the person has lodged in his soul through his behaviour in particular situations. So when people come before their judge, as Asians do before Rhadamanthys, for instance, then (524e) Rhadamanthys makes them stand there and examines their souls one by one. He doesn't know whose soul it is; in fact, he might well get hold of the soul of the king of Persia or some other king or potentate and notice that it's riddled with defects-scourged and covered in the scars which every dishonest and (525a) unjust action has imprinted on it, utterly crippled by lies and arrogance and warped by a truth-free diet- and he'd also see that the promiscuity, sensuality, brutality, and self-indulgence of his behaviour has thoroughly distorted the harmony and beauty of his soul. When he sees a soul in this state, he immediately dispatches it in disgrace to prison, where it will undergo the appropriate treatment. (525b) (Fs)

What is appropriate? As long as the person inflicting the punishment is justified in doing so, then every instance of punishment should either help its recipient by making him a better person or should act as an example for others, in the sense that the terrifying sight of the victim's sufferings helps them to improve.1 (525c) Those who are benefited by being punished (whether the agents of punishment are divine or human) are those whose faults are curable; nevertheless, it remains the case both here and in Hades that it takes pain and torment to produce the benefit, since that is the only way in which injustice can be removed. Those who act as examples, on the other hand, are those who have committed such awful crimes that they've become incurable. Although this means that they themselves are past help, others can be helped by watching them suffer for ever the worst, most agonizing, and most terrifying torments imaginable as a result of their sins. Their only purpose is to hang there in their prison in Hades as visible deterrents for every new criminal who arrives there. (Fs)

(525d) If what Polus says is true,2 then in my opinion Archelaus will become one of these deterrents, and he'll be joined by anyone else who's a dictator like him. In fact, I think most of those who act as examples are drawn from the ranks of dictators, kings, potentates, and politicians, because they're the ones who can and do commit the most terrible and immoral crimes. Homer testifies to this,3 since in his poems those who are condemned to be punished for ever in (132d) Hades are kings and potentates such as Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus. However, no poet portrays Thersites (or anyone else who may have been bad, but who wasn't involved in public life) as an incurable criminal in the grip of terrible punishment, and I imagine it's because he didn't have the same scope for wrongdoing that he's better off than those who did. No, Callicles, it's power that leads men to plumb the depths of depravity. (526a) (Fs; 132f)

All the same, there's nothing to stop good men gaining power too, and those who do deserve our wholehearted admiration, because it's not easy, Callicles, and therefore particularly commendable, to have so much opportunity for wrongdoing and yet to live a moral life. Few people manage it. I mean, there have been paragons like that both here in Athens and elsewhere, and I think more will appear in the future too, who practise the virtue of moral management of the affairs entrusted to them. In fact, one of them-Aristides the son of Lysimachus-became famous (526b) throughout Greece, not just locally. But power usually corrupts people, my friend. (Fs)

Anyway, to recapitulate, when Rhadamanthys gets hold of someone like that, he doesn't even know his name or his background; all he knows is that he's a bad man. Once he's seen this about him, he puts a token4 on him to indicate whether in his opinion the person is curable or incurable, and then has him led away to Tartarus, where he undergoes the appropriate treatment. Occasionally, however, he comes across a different kind of soul, one which has lived a life of (526c) moral integrity, and which belonged to a man who played no part in public life or-and this is the most likely possibility, in my opinion, Callicles5-to a philosopher who minded his own business and remained detached from things throughout his life. When this happens, Rhadamanthys is delighted and sends him away to the Isles of the Blessed. Aeacus goes through exactly the same procedure.6 Minos sits there overseeing the whole process, and while the other two each hold a staff, he alone has a golden sceptre. That's how Homer's Odysseus saw him, 'with (526d) sceptre of gold, dispensing right among the dead'.7