morality and the
emergence of reflective standards of moral value is the Athenian
period of Greek philosophy. The Sophists pointed out
with merciless perspicuity the welter, the confusion, the
essential irrationality of current social and religious traditions
and beliefs. They went no further in moral analysis than
destructive criticism. They pointed out the want of authenticity
or reason in the traditional morality by which men lived.
Socrates went a step further. If current customs are not
authoritative, he said, let us find those that have and _ought_ to
have enduring authority over men. If the traditional standards
are proved to be futile and inefficacious, let us find the
unfaltering standards authenticated by reason. Let us substitute
relevant and adequate codes and creeds for those
which have by reason been shown to be unreasonable. Beneath
the multiplicity of contradictory and often vicious
customs, reason must be able to discover ways of life, which,
if followed, will lead men to eventual happiness.

There are thus two stages in the process of reflection upon
morals. In the first stage reflection does no more than to
point out the essential discrepancies and absurdities of the
current moral codes. Reflection upon morals begins by
being critical and querying. It starts when an individual,
a little more thoughtful and perspicacious than his fellows,
notes the discrepancies between the customs of different
men, and notes also the discrepancies between the threatened
results of the violation of traditional codes and the actual
results. He may then come to the cynic's conclusion that
morality is a myth and a delusion, and, in the words of the
Sophist in Plato's _Republic_, "justice is merely the right of
the stronger." Men in whom reflection or social sympathy
extends not very far may, as they frequently do, stop at this
point. These are the worldly wise; they are interested not
in goodness, truth, and justice, but in those effective
representations of those things publicly accounted good, true, and
just which will win them public approval and increase their
own wealth or power and position. Plato, in the _Republic_,
pictures the type with magnificent irony:

All those mercenary adventurers who, as we know, are called
sophist by the multitude, and regarded as rivals, really teach nothing
but the opinions of the majority to which expression is given when
large masses are collected, and dignify them with the tit