 The most fundamental difficulty with Callicles’ position is brought out by Socrates’ final refutation at 497d–499b. This is a simple and elegant argument which brings into collision Callicles’ hedonism and his account of the virtues, roughly as follows: (1) pleasure is the good; (2) good people are good by the presence of good things; (3) good people are the virtuous, i.e., the intelligent and courageous; (4) the foolish and cowardly sometimes experience as much pleasure as the intelligent and courageous, or even more; (5) therefore, bad people are sometimes as good as good ones, or even better. Here, premises (1) and (3) represent Callicles’ hedonism and his account of the virtues respectively; (2) and (4) seem undeniable; but (1), (2), and (4) together entail (5), which conflicts with (3) and is anyway a contradiction in terms.