Socrates Knowledge Of Virtue

According to Plato’s “Protagoras”, throughout Socrates’ philosophical career, the concepts of the virtues and ignorance were two of great importance. It was Socrates’ belief that if virtue in itself is knowledge; if one is virtuous, then they have the knowledge to carry out any of the virtues. In other words, no matter what type of situation that a virtuous person might find themselves in, they will always choose the virtuous path. My thesis is that this argument/belief that Socrates had was faulty, because even if an individual has knowledge of “good” and is therefore virtuous, it is not true to say that they will always choose to carry out said virtues.

Exposition

Within “Protagoras”, a dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras is captured.

I feel that there are many circumstances in which a person, despite knowing what would be the good and virtuous path, would find themselves influenced or affected by a particular alternative and choose to follow a non-virtuous or “evil” path. An example of a situation in which this could be a reality would be one where a person discovers that one of their close friends cheated on a test or exam. The person, being a virtuous person, acknowledges that cheating is wrong and that the virtuous course of action would be to tell their teacher in confidence. Despite these acknowledgements, the person could possibly recognize and understand that the test on which their friend cheated was one that was extremely vital to passing the class. Due to this fact, the person decides that it would be best to keep their discovery of the cheating to themselves, because they do not want to upset their friend. In this particular situation, the person would more than likely feel guilty for not being honest, but they were able to use their knowledge of the entire situation to make a judgment and decision that would cause less problems for all the people that were involved in the

A woman has spent many months finalizing a project that will help thousands of African children from Kenya have access to clean drinking water. She has spent long hours communicating with several high officials of Kenya, trying to solidify the deal between her business and the country. After the deal was finalized and everything turned out to be a success, the woman decided to take a week off of work, treat herself to a five-hundred-dollar shopping spree, while also spending a few days at a local resort that has a high-class spa. While these actions can be viewed as self-indulgent, something that goes against the virtue of temperance, the woman’s actions cannot technically deem her as an ignorant and non-virtuous person. She clearly demonstrated an aptitude of level-headedness and dedication during those long months of work. In this case, just as in the previous two cases, it is extremely narrowed-minded to think that people who are virtuous, and therefore “good”, can only carry out acts that are consistent with the virtues. In the same way, it is wrong to say that the people that carried out non-virtuous are automatically void of any