Plato 4

Morality

Can virtue be taught?

'If virtue is some sort of knowledge, clearly it could be taught'(Meno 86c)

Socrates:

All good things are advantageous, are they not?

Meno: Yes

Socrates:

So virtue itself must be something advantageous?

Meno: That follows also.

Socrates seems to be saying that doing the virtuous thing is advantageous to you, is beneficial to you.

Socrates:

Now suppose we consider what are the sorts of things that profit us. Take them in a list. Health we may say, and strength and good looks, and wealth - these and their like we call advantageous, you agree?

Meno: Yes.

Socrates:

Yet we also speak of these things as sometimes doing harm. Would you object to that statement?

Meno: No, it is so.

Socrates:

Now look here. What is the controlling factor which determines whether each of these is advantageous or harmful? Isn't it right use that makes them advantageous, or lack of it, harmful?

Meno: Certainly.

Socrates:

We must also take spiritual qualities into consideration. You recognize such things as temperance, justice, courage, quickness of mind, memory, nobility of character, and others?

Meno: Yes, of course I do.

Socrates:

Then take any such qualities which in your view are not knowledge but something different. Don't you think they may be harmful as well as advantageous? Courage for instance, if it is something thoughtless, just a sort of confidence. Isn't it true that to be confident without reason does a man harm, whereas a reasoned confidence profits him?

Meno: Yes.

...

Socrates:

In short, everything that the human spirit undertakes or suffers will lead to happiness when it is guided by wisdom, but to the opposite when guided by folly. If we accept this argument, then virtue, to be something advantageous, must be a sort of wisdom.

Meno: I agree.

Socrates seems to be saying not just that knowledge is required by virtuous behaviour but that virtuous behaviour simply is action informed by knowledge.

Is there a way of understanding 'Virtue is knowledge' that makes it interesting?

Hedonism

Your immediate inclinations can sometimes lead maximising personal pleasure..

- But many times it doesn't

The hedonist therefore needs knowledge

If the principle is: act so as to secure for yourself maximum pleasure a sub-principle will be entailed: get as much knowledge as you can about the pleasure potential of anything you may think of doing.

- Knowledge of the likely consequences of actions

- Ignorance about possible sources of pleasure

There may be some sources of pleasure I don't know about.

- Ignorance about what will give you, in particular, pleasure

What yields pleasure to others, may not do the same for me because of a different physical or mental make-up.

So if you sort of take it for granted that virtuous behaviour is behaviour that will give you the most pleasure you will want to agree that virtuous behaviour is wise or knowledgeable behaviour. It is knowledge which will tell you what to do if what you are going to do is pursue your own pleasure.

Knowledge v. right opinion

To know x you need to have experience of it yourself.

In other dialogues Plato writes about knowledge of the good, and it's a sort of special experience you get after a programme of arduous intellectual effort - sustained and focused philosophising.

You can be told that philosophising yields in the end the best pleasure, but you will only know this by having direct experience of it yourself...

On this way of looking at Plato, the Good is the best pleasure.

Could understanding be the best pleasure?