This study will evaluate and defend the Sophist view that virtually nothing is good or bad by nature, but that good and bad are matters of custom and preference. The Sophists believed that nothing universal or absolute can be known about good or bad, simply because to them everything is relative and subjective, and depends on individual and cultural perception. With the endless contradictions among men regarding definitions of good and bad, the Sophists concluded that nothing could be known absolutely in terms of ethics or in any other significant category of inquiry.
Like Socrates, the Sophists turned to the study of man and human behavior, turning away from the material world of nature which the earlier Greek philosophers had studied. The study of the material world would seem more likely to yield definite conclusions than the study of human behavior, but even the material philosophers disagreed with one another about the very substance of which things were made. Therefore, to the Sophists, it was absurd to argue that such intangibles as good and bad could ever be clearly defined. Not only do individuals disagree with one another about good and bad, but entire societies and cultures disagree as to what constitutes moral or immoral, ethical or unethical behavior. One society condones cannibalism, another celebrates polygamy, another (such as that of the great Greeks) champions slavery as a natural state for some. Custom, preference and prejudice among both individuals and cultures determine what is good or bad. The Sophists are more than justified in concluding that no philosopher or team of philosophers could ever possibly solve the contradictions among those individuals and societies.
Socrates went one way--trying to come to dependable definitions of absolute good and bad. The Sophists went the other way--arguing that either side of every question could be effectively argued by using the tools and techniques of rhetoric. T...