The Foundations of Socratic Ethics

Gomez-Lobo argues that behind the facade of Socratic irony lies a strictly deductive system of ethics suspended from two axioms--one governing practical rationality and the other specifying the ingredients of the good life. In the Gorgias, the author contends, Plato tries to found Socratic ethics on a metaphysical principle about goodness in general, from which the axiom concerning the good life can be derived.