Socrates: The Innocence Of Virtue
Virtue, rather than being a teachable piece of knowledge, seems to be an innate understanding. Every person in the world, save perhaps psychopaths and sociopaths, naturally has a strong moral compass. An example that proves this idea is the innocence of children. I have never witnessed a child perform an action with solely malicious intent. Children always have some outside motivation for any hateful actions they perform, so they never do it only to hurt someone. At this point you might think that, yes, children do not do anything with only malicious purposes, but the fact remains that they continue to perform such actions. This is true, but honestly, how have children learned to do such hateful things? No child would consider cursing at anyone if they were angry, but since they observe others performing these actions, the children begin to develop the idea in their minds that doing so must relieve their suffering. It seems, then, that humans learn harmful
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This assertion implies that virtue cannot be innate because in order for something to be virtuous, it must be accompanied by wisdom, so it is a type of knowledge. However, in order to come to this conclusion, Socrates makes generalizations about all types of virtues, explaining that “all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither beneficial or harmful, but accompanied by wisdom or folly they become harmful or beneficial” (78). I can easily disprove this assertion by considering memory. Memory is used to inform future actions, and wisdom helps determine the extent of the impact of these future actions; however, wisdom can be used to employ memory for the works of evil, so, consequently, the future can be negatively impacted. This is why wisdom is not a prerequisite of
This assertion implies that virtue cannot be innate because in order for something to be virtuous, it must be accompanied by wisdom, so it is a type of knowledge. However, in order to come to this conclusion, Socrates makes generalizations about all types of virtues, explaining that “all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither beneficial or harmful, but accompanied by wisdom or folly they become harmful or beneficial” (78). I can easily disprove this assertion by considering memory. Memory is used to inform future actions, and wisdom helps determine the extent of the impact of these future actions; however, wisdom can be used to employ memory for the works of evil, so, consequently, the future can be negatively impacted. This is why wisdom is not a prerequisite of