Abstract

Scholarly discussion of the Socratic thesis of the unity of virtue has been dominated by two opposing interpretations: all the virtues are identical to knowledge of the good, hence to each other; the virtues are distinct psychological states, and a person has any one of them if, and only if, s/he has them all. denies that Socrates espouses a plurality of virtues ; denies he holds that virtue is a single psychological state. But Socrates quite likely holds both views. ;I argue that Socrates holds together with the view that there is a plurality of virtues, conceived as manifestations of that knowledge in different contexts. ;Socrates argues in the Laches that courage, defined as knowledge of the fearful and the confidence-sustaining, reduces to knowledge of good and bad in general. He holds that piety and justice are the exercise of that knowledge in contexts involving gods and people, respectively; but he is unable to fit courage to this model, because he takes its definition to specify not courage's area of exercise but a species of virtue-knowledge. ;The Protagoras uses the same conception of the parts of virtue doctrine, and argues that each virtue, while qua psychological state is identical to knowledge of the good, differs from the others by association with a distinctive area of activity. The concluding arguments about courage and knowledge take 'the fearful and its opposite' as the context of exercise proper to courage, thus solving the dilemma left open in the Laches. ;The Meno defends the same conception of the unity thesis. But Plato now shows an interest in states other than knowledge relevant to virtuous action. Knowledge of the good makes an action virtuous; both contexts of exercise and extra-epistemic psychological states make it a manifestation of one specific virtue. ;The Republic defends, surprisingly, the very same Socratic unity thesis. Plato does not there hold only the weaker unity thesis above. Republic IV fits the strong Socratic thesis into the functional conception of virtue and the framework of the new tripartite psychology