Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/262

Rh adequate solution to the question as to the grounds of the moral obligation which society imposes on its members, nor did they profess to furnish any, their object being rather to induce perplexity and provoke discussion. But some solution they certainly did attempt, and some of their views were not unlike those propounded by the Utilitarians of the present day. I shall merely touch upon these answers. Some of the Sophists contended that might was the ground of moral obligation; that the strong, who were able to enforce conformity, determined what was right, determined this either by positive enactments or by the force of public opinion, and that hence the weaker were constrained to obedience through fear. Another party, according to Plato, contended that although injustice was right by nature, inasmuch as nature prompted a man to grasp at everything he could reach without giving heed to the claims of others, still it was wrong by convention, for this reason, that the man who committed injustice would be sure at one time or other to suffer from injustice; and therefore, in order to avoid this suffering, which to him would be wrong and grievous, he would refrain from committing injustice, however right and agreeable he may think it. According to this doctrine, it is good for each man to commit acts of injustice on others, it is bad to have acts of injustice committed on one's self; and hence, as it is impossible to avoid the latter without also giving up the former, men agree to abstain from