Conclusion
In Section IV above we start with texts whose prima facie import speaks so strongly for the Identity Thesis that any interpretation which stops short of it looks like a shabby, timorous, thesis-saving move. What else could Socrates mean when he declares with such conviction that ‘no evil’ can come to a good man (T19), that his prosecutors ‘could not harm’ him (T16(a)), that if a man has not been made more unjust he has not been harmed (T20), that ‘all of happiness is in culture and justice’ (T16(a)), that living well is ‘the same’ as living justly (T15)? But then doubts begin to creep in. Recalling that inflation of the quantifier is normal and innocuous in common speech (“that job means everything to him, he'll do anything to get it, will stick at nothing”) we ask if there is really no chance at all that ‘no evil’ in T19, ‘not harmed’ in T20 might be meant in the same way? The shift from ‘no harm’ at T16(a) to ‘no great harm’ at T16(b), once noticed, strengthens the doubt. It gets further impetus in T21(b) when to explain how ‘all of happiness is in culture and justice’ he depicts a relation (that recurs more elaborately in T22) which, though still enormously strong, is not quite as strong as would be required by identity. The doubt seeps into T15 when we note that current usage did allow just that relation as a respectable use of ‘the same’.
At that point we begin to wonder if resort to the Identity Thesis might not be just a first approximation to a subtler, more finely nuanced, doctrine which would give Socrates as sound a foundation for what we know he wants to maintain at all costs - the Sovereignty of Virtue - without obliterating the eudaemonic value of everything else in his world. We cast about for a credible model of such a relation of virtue to happiness and hit on that multicomponent pattern sketched on p. 9 above. We ascertain that this will afford a comprehensively coherent eudaemonist theory of rational action, while its rival would not, and will fit perfectly a flock of texts in Section V which the latter will not fit at all. Are we not entitled to conclude that this is our best guide to the true relation of virtue to happiness in Socrates' thought - the one for which he would have declared if he had formulated explicitly those two alternative theses and made a reasoned choice between them?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ackrill, J.: Aristotle's Ethics, Oxford, 1973.
Ackrill, J.: Aristotle on Eudaimonia, Oxford 1974.
Arnim, Io. v.: Platos Jugenddialogen, Leipzig, 1914.
Baynes, N. B.: Byzantine Studies, London, 1955.
Blundell, Mary Whitlock: Ethical Problems in Greek Tragedy: Sophocles' PHILOCTETES (unpublished, 1983).
Burnet, J.: Plato's PHAEDO, Oxford, 1911.
Burnet, J.: Plato's EUTHYPHRO, APOLOGY OF SOCRATES, and CRITO, Oxford, 1924.
Cooper, J.: ‘The Magna Moralia and Aristotle's moral philosophy’, AJP (1973), 327–49.
Cooper, J.: Aristotle on Human Good, Cambridge, Mass., 1975.
Dodds, E. R.: Plato's GORGIAS, Oxford, 1959.
Dover, K. J.: ‘The portrayal of moral evaluation in Greek poetry’, JHS (1983), 35–48.
Dybikowski, J.: ‘Is Aristotelian Eudaimonia happiness?’, Dialogue (1981), 185–200.
Frankena, W.: Ethics, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963.
Gosling, J., and C. C. W. Taylor: The Greeks on Pleasure, Oxford, 1982.
Greenwood, L. H. G.: Aristotle's NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Cambridge, 1909.
Grote, G.: Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates, Ed. 1, London, 1865.
Gulley, N.: The Philosophy of Socrates, London, 1968.
Hume, D.: Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, London, 1977.
Irwin, T.: Plato's Moral Theory, Ed. 1, Oxford, 1974.
Irwin, T.: Plato's GORGIAS, Oxford, 1979.
Guthrie, W. K. C.: History of Greek Philosophy III, Cambridge, 1969.
Kraut, R.: ‘Two conceptions of happiness’, Philos. Review (1979), 167–97.
Maier, H.: Sokrates, Tübingen, 1913.
Méridier, L.: transl. of the Euthydemus in Platon: Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. 5, Part I, Paris, 1956.
Nussbaum, Martha: ‘Consequences and character in Sophocles' Philoctetes’, Philos. and Literature (1976–77), 25–53.
Prichard, H. A.: Duty and Interest, Oxford, 1928.
Prichard, H. A.: Moral Obligation, Oxford, 1949.
Riddell, J.: The APOLOGY of Plato, with Digest of Platonic Idioms, Oxford, 1867.
Robin, L.: Platon: Oeuvres Complètes I, Paris, 1956.
Ross, W. D.: Aristotle, ed. 1, London, 1923.
Ross, W. D.: ‘Aristotle's NICOMACHEAN ETHICS’ (trans.), in W. D. Ross and J. A. Smith (eds.), The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, Oxford, 1910–52.
Santas, G.: Socrates, London, 1979.
Sidgwick, H.: Methods of Ethics, Ed. 7, London, 1907.
Stewart, J. A.: Notes on the NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Oxford, 1892.
Taylor, A. E.: Plato, the Man and his Work, Ed. 6, London, 1949.
Vlastos, G.: ‘Socrates on acrasia’, Phoenix (1969), 71–88.
Vlastos, G.: Review of T. Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory, in Times Literary Supplement (1978), 230–31.
Vlastos, G.: ‘Socrates' contribution to the Greek sense of justice’, Archaiognosia 1 (1980), 301–24.
Vlastos, G.: Platonic Studies, Ed. 2, Princeton, 1981.
Zeller, E.: Sokrates und die Sokratiker, Ed. 5, Leipzig, 1922.
Zeyl, D.: ‘Socrates and Hedonism - Pr. 351B-358D’, Phronesis (1980), 250–69.
Zeyl, D.: ‘Socratic virtue and happiness’, Arch. für Gesch. der Philos. 64 (1982), 225–38.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The ‘Socrates’ of this paper is the protagonist of Plato's earlier dialogues. I list these (by self-explanatory abbreviations), borrowed from T. Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory [1974] (hereafter ‘PMT’): Ap., Ch., Cr., Eud., Eu., G., HMa., HMi, Ion, La., Ly., Pr., R., I. I assume, but shall not argue here, that in this segment of his corpus, Plato aims to recreate the doctrines and arguments of his teacher in dramatic scenes, all of which (except for the Ap.) may be, and most of which undoubtedly are, fictional; I shall be referring these works, under this proviso, as Plato's ‘Socratic dialogues’. (I did not include the Menexenus in the above list, since the parody of a funeral oration in this dialogue is implicitly dissociated from Socrates.)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vlastos, G. Happiness and virtue in Socrates' moral theory. Topoi 4, 3–22 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138646
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138646