Virtue

Can virtue be taught?

I am afraid that:

• you and I are not good for much
• Gorgias has been as poor an educator of you as Prodicus has been of me

We shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find some one who will help in some way or other to improve us.

In the previous discussion, none of us remarked that right and good action is possible to man under other guidance than that of knowledge (episteme).

If this be denied, there is no seeing how there can be any good men at all.

I mean that good men are necessarily useful or profitable.

And in supposing that they will be useful only if they are true guides to us of action—there we were also right?

But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he have knowledge (phrhonesis), this we were wrong.

If a man knew the way to Larisa, or anywhere else, and went to the place and led others there, he would be a right and good guide.

A person who had a right opinion about the way, but had never been and did not know, might be a good guide also.

While he has true opinion about that which the other knows, he will be just as good a guide if he thinks the truth, as he who knows the truth.

Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the guide of right action; whereas there is also right opinion.

Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge?

What do you mean? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so long as he has right opinion?

I shall explain this wonder to you.

You would not wonder if you had ever observed the images of Daedalus (Compare Euthyphro); but perhaps you have not got them in your country?

Because they require to be fastened in order to keep them, and if they are not fastened they will play truant and run away.

I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves.

But when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true opinions: while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie of the cause; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection, as you and I have agreed to call it.

But when they are bound, in the first place, they have the nature of knowledge; and, in the second place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain.

I too speak rather in ignorance; I only conjecture. And yet that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most certainly one of them.

And am I not also right in saying that true opinion leading the way perfects action quite as well as knowledge?

Then right opinion is not a whit inferior to knowledge, or less useful in action; nor is the man who has right opinion inferior to him who has knowledge?

And surely the good man has been acknowledged by us to be useful?

Seeing then that men become good and useful to states, not only because they have knowledge, but because they have right opinion, and that neither knowledge nor right opinion is given to man by nature or acquired by him—(do you imagine either of them to be given by nature?

Then if they are not given by nature, neither are the good by nature good?

Nature being excluded, then came the question whether virtue is acquired by teaching.

If virtue was wisdom (or knowledge), then it was taught.

if it was taught then it was wisdom.

if there were teachers, it might be taught; and if there were no teachers, not.

But we acknowledged that:

• there were no teachers of virtue
• it was not taught, and was not wisdom. Yet we admitted that it was a good.

The right guide is useful and good.

The only right guides are knowledge and true opinion—these are the guides of man; for things which happen by chance are not under the guidance of man: but the guides of man are true opinion and knowledge.

But if virtue is not taught, neither is virtue knowledge.

Then of two good and useful things, one, which is knowledge, has been set aside, and cannot be supposed to be our guide in political life.

And therefore not by any wisdom, and not because they were wise, did Themistocles and those others of whom Anytus spoke govern states. This was the reason why they were unable to make others like themselves—because their virtue was not grounded on knowledge.

But if not by knowledge, the only alternative which remains is that statesmen must have guided states by right opinion, which is in politics what divination is in religion; for diviners and also prophets say many things truly, but they know not what they say.

We can truly call those men who have no understanding yet succeed in many a grand deed and word, as ‘divine’.

Then we shall also be right in calling divine those whom we were just now speaking of as diviners and prophets, including the whole tribe of poets. Yes, and statesmen above all may be said to be divine and illumined, being inspired and possessed of God, in which condition they say many grand things, not knowing what they say.

The women too, Meno, call good men divine—do they not? and the Spartans, when they praise a good man, say ’that he is a divine man.'

I do not care; as for Anytus, there will be another opportunity of talking with him. To sum up our enquiry—the result seems to be, if we are at all right in our view, that virtue is neither natural nor acquired, but an instinct given by God to the virtuous. Nor is the instinct accompanied by reason, unless there may be supposed to be among statesmen some one who is capable of educating statesmen. And if there be such an one, he may be said to be among the living what Homer says that Tiresias was among the dead, ‘he alone has understanding; but the rest are flitting shades’; and he and his virtue in like manner will be a reality among shadows.

Then, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the virtuous by the gift of God.

But we shall never know the certain truth until, before asking how virtue is given, we enquire into the actual nature of virtue.

I fear that I must go away, but do you, now that you are persuaded yourself, persuade our friend Anytus.

Do not let him be so exasperated; if you can conciliate him, you will have done good service to the Athenian people.