The Unity of the Virtues in Plato's Protagoras and Laches

Abstract

perhaps most striking of Socratic paradoxes is claim that being a good person is strictly a matter of intellect. As Aristotle remarks, Socrates seems to take no account of character in his conception of virtue. 1 In Plato's early dialogues, Socrates argues that a certain type of (knowledge of good and evil) is sufficient for being a just, courageous, and temperate person, and for behaving in way such a person would behave. But this claim does not capture what is most paradoxical about his view of relationship between virtue and knowledge. Even soberminded Aristotle held that a certain type of knowledge-phrone~sis or practical wisdom-is sufficient for virtue. But being a good person is not simply a matter of having a certain kind of for Aristotle, since he also believed that one could not be practically wise without having a good character. Socrates made further claim that all virtues are knowledge; that is, he held that each of virtues is definable simply in terms of either a single type of or several types corresponding to several virtues.2 It is this stronger view that people have in mind when they speak of Socrates' intellectualism; there is no need to tame unruly passions-knowledge of good ensures that one will have right aims and intentions, and will act accordingly. In Protagoras, Plato has Socrates argue not only that all virtues are knowledge, but also that they somehow form a unity. Exactly what sort of unity Socrates has in mind is a matter of controversy. According to one interpretation, Socrates regards different virtues as distinct parts of a whole-distinct in sense that each has its own separate definition.3 The thesis that the virtues are knowledge is understood as claim that each virtue