Superphysics
The Definition of Virtue
4 minutes • 745 words
I am seeking a definition of all virtue
I would define virtue as the power of governing mankind.
Does this definition of virtue include all virtue? Is virtue the same in a child and in a slave, Meno? Can the child govern his father, or the slave his master; and would he who governed be any longer a slave?
MENO: I think not, Socrates.
There would be small reason in that. Yet once more, fair friend; according to you, virtue is ’the power of governing;’ but do you not add ‘justly and not unjustly’?
MENO: Yes, Socrates; I agree there; for justice is virtue.
Would you say ‘virtue,’ Meno, or ‘a virtue’?
I mean as I might say about anything; that a round, for example, is ‘a figure’ and not simply ‘figure,’ and I should adopt this mode of speaking, because there are other figures.
MENO: Quite right; and that is just what I am saying about virtue—that there are other virtues as well as justice.
SOCRATES: What are they? tell me the names of them, as I would tell you the names of the other figures if you asked me.
MENO: Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues; and there are many others.
SOCRATES: Yes, Meno; and again we are in the same case: in searching after one virtue we have found many, though not in the same way as before; but we have been unable to find the common virtue which runs through them all.
MENO: Why, Socrates, even now I am not able to follow you in the attempt to get at one common notion of virtue as of other things.
No wonder; but I will try to get nearer if I can, for you know that all things have a common notion. Suppose now that some one asked you the question which I asked before: Meno, he would say, what is figure?
If you answered ‘roundness,’ he would reply to you, in my way of speaking, by asking whether you would say that roundness is ‘figure’ or ‘a figure;’ and you would answer ‘a figure.’
MENO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And for this reason—that there are other figures?
MENO: Yes.
If he proceeded to ask, What other figures are there? you would have told him.
MENO: I should.
If he similarly asked what colour is, and you answered whiteness, and the questioner rejoined, Would you say that whiteness is colour or a colour? you would reply, A colour, because there are other colours as well.
MENO: I should.
If he had said, Tell me what they are?—you would have told him of other colours which are colours just as much as whiteness.
MENO: Yes.
Suppose that he were to pursue the matter in my way, he would say: Ever and anon we are landed in particulars, but this is not what I want; tell me then, since you call them by a common name, and say that they are all figures, even when opposed to one another, what is that common nature which you designate as figure—which contains straight as well as round, and is no more one than the other—that would be your mode of speaking?
MENO: Yes.
In speaking thus, you do not mean to say that the round is round any more than straight, or the straight any more straight than round?
MENO: Certainly not.
You only assert that the round figure is not more a figure than the straight, or the straight than the round?
To what then do we give the name of figure?
Suppose that when a person asked you this question either about figure or colour, you were to reply, Man, I do not understand what you want, or know what you are saying; he would look rather astonished and say: Do you not understand that I am looking for the ‘simile in multis’?
And then he might put the question in another form: Meno, he might say, what is that ‘simile in multis’ which you call figure, and which includes not only round and straight figures, but all?
Could you not answer that question, Meno?
MENO: I would rather that you should answer, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Shall I indulge you?
MENO: By all means.
SOCRATES: And then you will tell me about virtue?
MENO: I will.
SOCRATES: Then I must do my best, for there is a prize to be won.
