In the Protagoras, Socrates attempts to demonstrate to Protagoras that the traditional account of moral weakness is incoherent. He argues that akrasia, moral weakness, is simply ignorance. In line 353a10, Socrates goes on a journey with Protagoras in which he asks the "common people" to be overcome with pleasure and do something bad even though they knew it was bad. Socrates uses the examples of the use of food and drink and sexual intercourse to illustrate that people will partake in hedonistic pleasures despite knowing that they might end badly. He demonstrates that the immediate pleasure of an act, which can cause “illness and poverty,” is not what makes the act bad, but that the resulting illness or poverty, which becomes painful, makes the act bad (353d3). Socrates then uses the example of medical practices to demonstrate that things that might be immediately painful are good. He infers that experiences are not good because of the immediate pain they cause, but rather the subsequent pleasure. These procedures free a person or at least relieve his pain. Ultimately, safeguarding both the people and the society that benefits from them is what makes the unpleasant experience positive. The statement that symbolizes akrasia is that a person who knows that evil is bad, does it because he is overwhelmed by pleasure and a person who knows that good is good, refuses to do it because of immediate pleasure. Socrates argues that this argument uses too many names; he suggests reducing it to a question of “good” and “bad” and then of “pleasure” and “pain” (355c1). In the new statement, the words pleasure and good will be interchangeable as will pain and evil. This is the argument that follows:A......middle of paper......which are closer; the inability to discern which of these is actually the greatest is ignorance. Education and knowledge are the cure for this because if a person knows that there is a more advantageous choice then he will receive salvation or improvement. He argues that if pleasant is also good, then no one who knows there is a better choice will switch to a bad thing. Socrates continues his argument by saying that no one willingly chooses to indulge in evil knowing that there is an option to choose good, and similarly, one will not choose greater pain over lesser pain. As a law of human nature, people will choose what is most beneficial to them, as in the case of medical care. For example, a person might choose to have a decayed tooth removed, because it is painful, because it will relieve more pain in the distant future. Quote Plato, Protagoras, 351b-358d