Virtue?

This past week we discussed virtue as knowledge. Socrates said that when committing virtuous acts one must be able to define why these acts are good. Good actions are not virtuous actions until the he who has committed them can explain why they are good. We also spoke about how one person's definition of good may be different than someone else's. This concept can be applied to Fyodor Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment when the main character convinces himself for a short time period that killing the pawn broker lady would be a virtuous act. He explains many reasons why the world would be better off without her and how she was an evil woman. He justifies stealing her money saying that it could be put to good use rather than donated to a church to ensure her place in heaven, which is simply a self righteous thing to do. He believes that he is doing good and can define the virtue in his actions to a certain degree, therefore his actions... at the time at which he was committing them, must have been virtuous.

Happiness= winning the Superbowl?

Winning the Superbowl seems like it would the happiest time in a person's life. With all of the confetti, attention, pictures, and hugs from strangers, what else could you want? Surely you're living the good life if you're the champions! When the Saints won last year- I know I felt happy, as did many of my friends and family. But were we actually experiencing happiness? Socrates would disagree.

According to Socrates, the happy life is the virtuous life. While it is a great accomplishment, a football team is not doing a good deed by winning the championship game- at least in my opinion. However someone else could see this as a very good deed, like the Saints boosting the morale of the city!

My question for class discussion is a simple one. Do you think Socrates was happy?

Can virtue be taught?

During Monday’s class, Dr. Layne covered both Plato’s and Socrates’ views on virtue. Our discussions led to several interesting questions that I believe shed light on the potential subjectivity of the topic. So what exactly is virtue? Can there be contrasting opinions as to what one considers to be virtuous? Is virtue an innate knowledge within every man? Or is virtue just a habit of right conduct? If it is, then I believe it’s certainly teachable; parents do it to every day as they raise their children. Parent’s constantly reinforce good behavior and punish bad behavior. The act of teaching moral conduct encourages some behaviors and inhibits others, which exemplifies that virtue has been taught and ultimately learned. Just coming to think of it, I also believe religion plays a significant role in “labeling” virtue. Those who believe in God can simply label any quality that their belief system lists as a virtuous quality as, well, virtuous. However, those who don't have a belief system may have their own criteria for deciding this or perhaps the term may even be meaningless to some. How do you define virtue?