Plato, Charmides

[163a] Those of others also.

And are they temperate in not making their own things only?

Yes: what reason is there against it? he said.

None for me, I replied; but there may be for him who, after assuming that temperance is doing one's own business, proceeds to say there is no reason against those also who do others' business being temperate.

And have I, pray, he said, admitted that those who do others' business are temperate? Or was my admission of those who make¹ things?

Tell me, I said, do you not call making and doing the same? [163b] No indeed, he replied, nor working and making the same either: this I learnt from Hesiod, who said,

“Work is no reproach.
”

Hes. WD 309

Now, do you suppose that if he had given the names of working and doing to such works as you were mentioning just now, he would have said there was no reproach in shoe-making or pickle-selling or serving the stews? It is not to be thought, Socrates; he rather held, [163c] I conceive, that making was different from doing and working, and that while a thing made might be a reproach if it had no connection with the honorable, work could never be a reproach. For things honorably and usefully made he called works, and such makings he called workings and doings; and we must suppose that it was only such things as these that he called our proper concerns, but all that was harmful, the concerns of others. So that we must conclude that Hesiod, and anyone else of good sense, calls him temperate who does his own business. [163d] Ah, Critias, I said, you had hardly begun, when I grasped the purport of your speech—that you called one's proper and one's own things good, and that the makings of the good you called doings; for in fact I have heard Prodicus drawing innumerable distinctions between names.² Well, I will allow you any application of a name that you please; only make clear to what thing it is that you attach such-and-such a name. So begin now over again, and define more plainly. [163e] Do you say that this doing or making, or whatever is the term you prefer, of good things, is temperance?

I do, he replied.

Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate?

And do not you, my excellent friend, he said, think so?

Leave that aside, I said; for we have not to consider yet what I think, but what you say now.

Well, all the same, I say, he replied, that he who does evil instead of good is not temperate, whereas he who does good instead of evil is temperate : for I give you “the doing of good things is temperance” as my plain definition.