Note 94 — Chapter XXIV · GORGIAS.

The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have admitted a twofold distinction of aims, but would have stated the distinction otherwise. Two things (he would say) may be looked at in regard to any course of conduct: first, the immediate pleasure or pain which it yields; secondly, this item, not alone, but combined with all the other pleasures and pains which can be foreseen as its conditions, consequences, or concomitants. To obey the desire of immediate pleasure, or the fear of immediate pain, requires no science; to foresee, estimate, and compare the consequences, requires a scientific calculation often very difficult and complicated — a τέχνη or ἐπιστήμη μετρητική.

Thus we are told not only in what cases the calculation is required, but what are the elements to be taken into the calculation. In the Gorgias, we are not told on what elements the calculation of good and evil is to be based: we are told that there must be science, but we learn nothing more.