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This site is devoted to the philosophical issue of virtue as presented by Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Locke.

What do I consider virtue to be?

It is something that I normally do not stop to think about, but through the readings have come to a better and possibly deeper understanding of the term. It is interesting looking back at the Socrates and Meno discussion; Meno described virtue as a swarm of possibilities, with each person having their own virtue. In a sense, this is true. Each person may perceive virtue to be slightly different from another and may act slightly differently from other people, while still following the underlying guidelines of what virtue is. Socrates believed though, that virtue had one common underlying principle that ran through everybody, or at least through anybody who had virtue. Socrates believed that it should be possible to define a term without having conditions that make the definition different under varying circumstances.

Does virtue come from knowledge?

In Meno, Socrates reasoned that virtue could not be taught, and therefore was not learned. Before reading Protagoras, I saw this idea as being fundamentally flawed. For virtue to simply be bestowed upon certain individuals, as though divinely given, and for only those people to be able to act in a good, virtuous way was beyond comprehension. I felt that it was well within the ability of anybody, well, anybody of sound mind, to act in a virtuous way. The ability to be good, right, and just, and use those in a given situation is something that I feel people learn as they go through life. While it may be taught to some degree in the classroom, I think virtue is more often taught outside the classroom, through the things you see your parents, relatives, and others around you doing as you are growing up. I would argue that yes, virtue is based on knowledge. Through what a person has learned in life, they have formed an opinion of what it takes to have virtue and act in a virtuous way. The knowledge that is gained through life experiences contributes to the way a person behaves. Protagoras argued just that. Protagoras believed that virtue was learned and could be taught. While each person may be inherently gifted with some sense of virtue, through natural love of one’s parents, or the natural actions of a baby, as they progress through life, they learn right from wrong, and are constantly guided in the direction of right. Protagoras noted especially that through punishment, people are led to the behavior that others would consider virtuous.

What do I think virtue is?

I think virtue is, simply put, doing good. One of the earliest lessons I was taught was to “do unto others as you wish done unto you,” often called the golden rule. The meaning of the saying is easy enough to grasp; it tells us that if we want good things to happen to us or to be done for us, that we should act in a good way towards others or do good things for others. Through exercising these moral standards, others will see the good will and some of those will be touched by it and follow in those footsteps.


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Locke on Virtue

Locke has some insightful philosophy concerning moral education and virtue. The most important principle that stuck out to me was developing character as opposed to focusing solely on intellect. This is the heart of moral education, to instill a sense of character in a child that becomes admirable.

When correcting a student, Locke stated that they should be corrected gently so that the student/child does not become opposed to learning what you desire for them to learn. In correcting them gently, you once again instill that sense of character, that through repeated practice, the child will (hopefully) eventually teach others in the same manner. To coincide with this, children should be praised when they do something desirable.

I would relate this back to Aristotle's writings on ethics. Aristotle wrote about happiness and achieving it. A person who does things for the highest good, rather than for the sake of simply doing, will achieve happiness. When a person does things for the highest good, they are praised for doing so. It stems to reason that virtue is formed and reinforced by good habits. Continually performing good habits, or performing good deeds, or doing things for the highest good, will reinforce the virtue within that person (p. 79). This is very similar to Locke's statements of reinforcing through praise and practice.

As Locke believed, I too believe that children should be handled with calmness and with encouraging words. Children have so much to learn. There are so many things that, as a parent, I try to shield them from, because at two and four, they just don’t need to know about all the badness in the world – they’ve got the rest of their lives for that. 


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Aristotle on Virtue

Happiness is seen as a final end, “final in an unqualified sense” as Cahn states (p. 77). Happiness seems to be one of the defining ends that everybody seeks through other means, but happiness is never used as a means to some other end (p. 77). In order to achieve true happiness, a person performs activities “of the soul, in conformity with excellence or virtue” (p. 77). In other words, a person who does things for the highest good, rather than for the sake of simply doing, will achieve happiness. When a person does things for the highest good, they are praised for doing so, and those things for which they are praised are generally considered to be virtues (p. 78).


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Socrates on Virtue

Socrates was bothered by Meno’s description of virtue because he offered many different definitions, almost as though Meno did not know and was grasping for a definition. Granted, he was recalling what Gorgias had defined virtue as rather than defining it himself. The idea that virtue could have so many different meanings depending on who it was applied to bothered Socrates. Socrates was looking for a common definition, one that could be applied to anybody in any given situation. Socrates believed that it should be possible to define a term without having conditions that make the definition different under varying circumstances. Socrates then set out to systematically and logically address how virtue comes to be, and how it does not come to be. In the end, Socrates rationalizes that "virtue comes to be present by divine apportionment in those to whom it comes." It is the will of somebody to do things that are true, right, and just. 

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Plato's view of Virtue

In Plato’s Republic, virtue is the ideal that people would have a soul that is true and just. A virtuous person is one that has continually proven himself/herself to be a good person, who steers clear of wrongdoing, who makes the correct moral and ethical decisions.