Review #1: Plato's Meno

My first review of the 26 reviews challenge will be on the Meno. While many things are addressed in the Meno--including the theory of recollection and the distinction between true belief and knowledge--in my review I will focus only on the central question of the dialogue: of whether virtue can be taught.

So, basically, this dude Meno wants to know if virtue can be taught, and Socrates is all: "Hold up, Meno, how am I supposed to talk about virtue when I don't know what virtue is? Let's see what virtue is first."

So they have a little Socratic back-and-forth.

First Meno is all: "Virtue depends on the subject: virtue is different for man, woman, child, slave..."
But Socrates isn't having that. Socrates is all: "Well, they've got to have something in common, if you're gonna call them virtues for each one. There's got to be some underlying form that links them all, as, for example, there is some underlying unity that allows you to identify different kinds of bees as bees."

At this point, Socrates illustrates his point by pointing out that for any action to be good, it must be done justly and moderately, be it by child, slave, man, or woman.

However, it isn't agreed amongst the two that virtue is therefore acting justly and moderately, and Socrates presses on to ask, "The virtue of all is the same; what is it?" I'm not certain why he doesn't take acting justly and moderately as their answer, the form that links the requirements of different kinds of people, but he doesn't. He presses Meno, and Meno responds: "To rule over people, if you are seeking one description to fit them all".

That's obviously dismissed because one can rule cruelly, which clearly isn't virtuous, and furthermore children and slaves don't rule (these are the examples of their discussion, not mine), but they can be virtuous, so it can't be just to rule over people.

At this point I'm still asking myself, "Why can't it be to act justly and moderately?" But we press on all the same.

An interesting point is made when Socrates points out that to rule virtuously one must rule justly, so ruling alone can't be what virtue is. Meno says, of course, justice is virtue; Socrates corrects him on the inaccuracy of his wording; Meno reiterates that what he means is that justice is one amongst many virtues (which he lists off as "moderation, wisdom, munificence, and many others").

This is an interesting approach to virtue ethics, the list approach. It's interesting not because it's particularly innovative, but simply because it seems the most likely way, to me anyway, that we would be able to construct a decent ethical system based on virtues -- if we have a list of what the virtues are, and how we can apply them to different situations. It's in this way that the question "can virtue be taught" is answered: yes -- in the same way that religions attempt to teach virtue, we can teach secular, reasoned virtue by considering what and why the virtues are, and revealing these reasons to other people.

This is as opposed to answers like "the virtuous thing to do is what the virtuous person would characteristically do" -- it allows us access to virtue without having to know what the virtuous person would do, and so we also avoid the circularity of what makes the virtuous act virtuous, the agent or the act. Locating virtues separately through some kind of deliberation is enough to show and teach and convince people to be virtuous. For example, I think a case can be made for at least three virtues: 1) moderation, 2) benevolence, and 3) wariness of expectations.

Virtues can be taught and accepted or discovered by oneself through personal development; though, naturally, it seems more helpful to be taught them, so one can go into the world braced, and focus their attentions on other things.

To return to the Meno, it's argued that because there are no teachers of virtue, it cannot be taught; and virtue is not naturally learnt, because we don't see it in the young. This is just wrong to me. For one, something doesn't need to have teachers to be teachable: one can imagine a world with no Maths teachers, and yet Maths, as we know, is still teachable. Secondly, virtue can be naturally learnt: I maintain that virtue is those internalisable rules, guides, and qualities that make life better for oneself and for others, and this is learnt very naturally along the way -- though it would be more useful to have these things taught to us actively (and indeed they sometimes are).

All in all, I think the Meno has an interesting focal point, but I think it argues it poorly and concludes uselessly. What's more, some other things I haven't mentioned in this review are just downright absurd, but I won't get into those. I'm studying the Meno this semester, so I'm bound to come to them anyway.