Does Virtue Require Wisdom?
I. It did for Socrates.:
a. From Karl Popper: “ One of the fundamental tenets of Socrates was, I believe, his moral intellectualism. By this I understand (a) his identification of goodness and wisdom, his theory that no one acts against his better knowledge, and that lack of knowledge is responsible for all moral mistakes; (b) his theory that moral excellence can be taught, and that it does not require any particular moral faculties, apart from the universal human intelligence.”
b. From Leo Strauss: “In the person of Socrates the belief in the comprehensibility of nature and in the universal healing power of knowledge has first come to light.”
II. There are five virtues for Socrates: courage, moderation, justice, piety and wisdom. Wisdom is what is common to all the virtues- one who possesses this virtue will possess them all- will recognize what he should do in all morally relevant circumstances. One can’t be virtuous without wisdom, but if one is wise, one can use one’s wisdom to produce all the other virtues.
III. Was Socrates “wise” in this sense? Not by his lights. He knows at least that he lacks real wisdom- real knowledge of virtue. He knows that he never will have complete knowledge of virtue- instead, his search- his dialogues- will yield a constant summation of individual examinations that slowly approach a complete picture.
IV. Although Socrates lacks wisdom, he is aware of a significant number of propositions that a full theory of virtue would explain. Socrates knows a few particular propositions, but his definition of wisdom requires the ability to judge in all such situations- requires the knowledge of definitions of virtue and ability to apply those definitions in all situations. Despite the advantages he has gained from an examined life, he perceives his moral knowledge as worth little or nothing.
V. This failure to arrive at wisdom is a product of the limitations of his method. His “elencthus”- his interrogations of those who claim wisdom- seeks not just to destroy the interlocutor’s conceit of knowledge, but to worm it out of them- show them that it doesn’t follow from their own premises. He asks them to “say what you believe”, and then proceeds from those beliefs. He expects to turn up true, more fundamental beliefs that entail the negation of what his interlocutor first stated. Such a truth-seeking device cannot yield certainty, for one can’t be certain that the interlocutor does have a more fundamental and true moral belief. The moral truth was believed by Socrates to be always in his interlocutors- just needed the elencthus to allow both Socrates and his interlocutor to arrive at it. Socrates can claim he is good , but can not claim to be wise. He has a variety of true beliefs of what is good BUT he doesn’t have enough justification for their truth and, therefore, no ‘knowledge’.
VI. This ‘moral intellectualism’ can, and has, created problems. Intellectualism dwells solely on the intellectual conditions of human conduct, and omits attention to the emotional and volitional (contrast Aristotle on the value of habit and training).
VII. Further, to live the good life, we must first learn what virtue is. To act virtuously, we must know the definition of virtue. However, this creates two problems:
A. Ethically, knowing what is virtuous may not be sufficient to make us do it;
B. Logically, the impossibility of acquiring the definition of virtue without first looking at concrete cases or examples, and then deriving a definition from it. But, how do we choose the examples?
VIII. Let’s turn to Nietzsche for a 19th-century reaction to Socrates’ claims. From A. Nehamas:
a. “Socrates considers self-knowledge at least the beginning if not the very content of the good life, while Nietzsche denies that there is either a self that can be known or a knowledge that can capture it. Socrates thinks that action must be grounded in objective value, while Nietzsche urges that values are created through actions.”
b. “Nietzsche is so suspicious of Plato and Socrates because that their approach is essentially dogmatic. He attributes to them the view that their view is not simply a view but an accurate description of the real world which forces its own acceptance and makes an unconditional claim on everyone’s assent.”