From Reason to Common Sense. Towards a Critique of Universalism

It is a well-known passage. The first-person narrator, Socrates, reports on a conversation about justice that he has had with some men at a party. With great
indignation, a certain Thrasymachos from Chalcedon soon cuts in on the conversation and reproaches Socrates, saying it is yet another typical example of pointless
chatter, nothing but foolish talk. After some banter, the Chalcedonian man finally sums it all up: "I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the
stronger.�1 Undisturbed by this definition, Socrates pursues his famously notorious midwifery skills "to help the truth to be born�. The rest is philosophical
history – the report bore the title Politeia and its author"s name was Plato.

Is Thrasymachos indulging in cynical opportunism? Or does he intend, as Nietzsche later does, to elevate strength to an ethical constant, where – according to how
it is unanimously received at any rate – it is understood not only as a structuring principle, but also as an intrinsically moral value? I think not. He is
referring, rather, to the relationship that exists between morality – indeed that goes beyond it: ethics as discourse – and the power relationships in society,
power or might. It concerns a relationship that ethical speech very effectively conceals, since ethics supposedly seeks ways to resolve retributively the conflicts
that arise from the power relationships. "Moral values are what those in power consider to be good because they have good use for them; this they then laud as being
good for everyone�: this is what the sophist from Chalcedon means, albeit using a different wording.