“Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a thing which can be taught?”
Introduction
This week’s reading is about whether virtue can be taught. Now you may have noticed that there are some good people, or as Socrates would say, virtuous people, and there are some not so good people, or as I would say, arseholes. So we might ask: how did the good or virtuous people become virtuous? One possibility was that they were born that way; they’re just naturally good. Another possibility is that they were taught to be virtuous. But then who is it exactly that teaches virtue? Where do they learn it from? In this passage Socrates presents an argument that maybe virtue just cannot be taught.
Reading
The following passage is from section 93a – 94e of Plato’s Meno, translation by Benjamin Jowett.
SOCRATES: Now, do we mean to say that the good men of our own and of other times knew how to impart to others that virtue which they had themselves; or is virtue a thing incapable of being communicated or imparted by one man to another? That is the question which I and Meno have been arguing. Look at the matter in your own way: Would you not admit that Themistocles was a good man?
ANYTUS: Certainly; no man better.
SOCRATES: And must not he then have been a good teacher, if any man ever was a good teacher, of his own virtue?
ANYTUS: Yes certainly,—if he wanted to be so.
SOCRATES: But would he not have wanted? He would, at any rate, have desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not have been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from imparting to him his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son Cleophantus a famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on horseback and hurl a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things; and in anything which could be learned from a master he was well trained? Have you not heard from our elders of him?
ANYTUS: I have.
SOCRATES: Then no one could say that his son showed any want of capacity?
ANYTUS: Very likely not.
SOCRATES: But did any one, old or young, ever say in your hearing that Cleophantus, son of Themistocles, was a wise or good man, as his father was?
ANYTUS: I have certainly never heard any one say so.
SOCRATES: And if virtue could have been taught, would his father Themistocles have sought to train him in these minor accomplishments, and allowed him who, as you must remember, was his own son, to be no better than his neighbours in those qualities in which he himself excelled?
ANYTUS: Indeed, indeed, I think not.
SOCRATES: Here was a teacher of virtue whom you admit to be among the best men of the past. Let us take another,—Aristides, the son of Lysimachus: would you not acknowledge that he was a good man?
ANYTUS: To be sure I should.
SOCRATES: And did not he train his son Lysimachus better than any other Athenian in all that could be done for him by the help of masters? But what has been the result? Is he a bit better than any other mortal? He is an acquaintance of yours, and you see what he is like. There is Pericles, again, magnificent in his wisdom; and he, as you are aware, had two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus.
ANYTUS: I know.
SOCRATES: And you know, also, that he taught them to be unrivalled horsemen, and had them trained in music and gymnastics and all sorts of arts—in these respects they were on a level with the best—and had he no wish to make good men of them? Nay, he must have wished it. But virtue, as I suspect, could not be taught. And that you may not suppose the incompetent teachers to be only the meaner sort of Athenians and few in number, remember again that Thucydides had two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, whom, besides giving them a good education in other things, he trained in wrestling, and they were the best wrestlers in Athens: one of them he committed to the care of Xanthias, and the other of Eudorus, who had the reputation of being the most celebrated wrestlers of that day. Do you remember them?
ANYTUS: I have heard of them.
SOCRATES: Now, can there be a doubt that Thucydides, whose children were taught things for which he had to spend money, would have taught them to be good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have been taught? Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many friends among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great family, and a man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if virtue could have been taught, he would have found out some Athenian or foreigner who would have made good men of his sons, if he could not himself spare the time from cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a thing which can be taught?
Further Reading
This passage raises questions about the nature of virtue and the nature of education:
- Can virtue be taught? – Dr Gregory Sadler has an excellent overview and discussion of this section of the dialogue.
- What is virtue? – This episode from the In Our Time podcast has a good overview of the concept of virtue.
- How do we come to learn anything? – This is a question that is raised earlier in the dialogue and has come to be known as Meno’s Paradox. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an good overview of this puzzle.
To learn more about Plato and the Meno, please see the following links:
- Full e-text of the Meno from Project Gutenberg
- Modern translation of the Meno from Amazon
- Free audiobook from Librivox
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