Today’s class was all about the Good Life and virtue, from the viewpoint of Socrates.
According to Socrates, happiness is not just a feeling, it’s a sign that we are living the Good Life. Knowledge is equal to virtue for Socrates. The example of Lysis and his parents was given by Plato to demonstrate one of the supporting ideas for knowledge being virtue: “You, yourselves, surely, know that wrong action done without knowledge is done because of ignorance.” That is to say that it is impossible to do good without knowing what good is.
The power of knowledge is such that if one knows what virtue is, it would be impossible for one to act against this knowledge(akrasia); it is impossible to do something bad unless it is done out of ignorance.
But what exactly is good? The three criteria we learned in class for goodness are: coherency with other beliefs, universally applicable, and practicality. The first is self explanatory, but the second is a bit tricky. In order to be universally applicable, a definition for something “good” would need to apply to all instances of goodness. For example, instead of saying what aspects make a few specific acts pious, what makes all pious acts “pious?” The third criteria is just that something has to actually help people in some way in order to be good.
Without virtue and knowledge, life would not be worth living; therefore, Socrates suggests that there ought to be a moral expert. This person would be temperate (a Greek virtue), just, and holy.
Socrates firmly believed (in contrast to Sophist beliefs) that virtues cannot be taught, and there is a bit of relativity in every situation. However, it is a universal desire to seek good. Even when bad actions are taken, the reason behind them is because the bad-doer finds some kind of good or pleasure in the actions. He takes the actions he does because he is looking for what he believes is good.
Even though people may ignorantly do bad things for “good” things, Socrates argues that virtue alone is sufficient to provide happiness. No amount of material goods can make a person happier than living the Good Life can. “Is the King of Persia happy?” Even if everything all the material possessions a person has are lost, his/her goodness is still intact, thus virtue “cannot be harmed either in life or death.” Unfortunately, Socrates never himself mentioned how all virtues are unified.
Socrates is, himself, problematic toward his philosophy. In all accounts of Socrates, he appears to be happy and virtuous, but he claims to be ignorant. If happy=virtuous=knowledgeable, and Socrates=ignorant, but ignorant≠knowledgable, how then can Socrates be so happy? According to Plato’s Republic, virtues are natural work done, and happiness is not a feeling but a fulfillment of what we truly are. As an ignorant being, Socrates’ work (virtue) is to seek knowledge. By living the examined life, Socrates fulfills his natural work and may therefore be happy.
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