Plato the Pragmatist or Utlilitarian?

In  The Apology, Socrates cross examines Meletus, who claims Socrates has been corrupting the youth. Socrates catches Meletus in logical irony if not fallacy, and states that irony this way: “if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him.” Syllogistically, his argument goes something like this—if I cause someone to become an evil person, and if I live in proximity to that person, he is as likely to do harm to me as anyone else. This sounds on the surface like a James’s “cash value” metaphor, that for us to identify something as true we must get something out of it. Here’s James’s longer version of that simple idea:

"The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other’s being right" (James Pragmatism 26). 

One of the reasons we tend to identify such logic as Socrates is showing here as pragmatism hinges on the single term “practical,” a term rife with meaning--and ambiguity. At question, however, is the type of consequences--in this case, material or moral consequences. That's an important distinction, for on it depends not only the question of whether Socrates was being pragmatic, but whether pragmatism is worth our attention at all. If all we get out of pragmatism is a clear reason to choose the easier route, then it is nothing but self-serving rationalization—which is how Russell saw it.

I would argue, however, that what Socrates is arguing here isn’t pragmatism, but utilitarianism. In utilitarianism, the consequence is assumed to be entirely material, the greatest good for the greatest number, an assumption that allows for all sorts of consequences that most of us would see an morally bankrupt: euthanasia for those with handicaps that use too many resources that could be used elsewhere. This is only one example of the all too simple solutions of utilitarianism.

Later in his apology, Socrates will wander onto firmer pragmatic footing when he asks, “O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?”

Over and over again, we see that the improvement of the soul is the “cash value” Socrates seeks. What is true and wise is what improves the soul. That is why he is not a willing to actually defend himself in The Apology. He thinks that it is more important that he keep his soul intact than that he go free. Had he been a true utilitarian, he would have known that the greatest good for the most people would have been for him to go free and continue being Athen’s “gadfly.” He chose not to take that route because he realized, as I think any pragmatist would, that the effect of his actions on his own character, his soul if you will, is more important than any other result, no mater how practical.