Living Toward Virtue – Paul Woodruff (1)

In the Socratic tradition, aiming to live virtuously means at least this: trying to avoid moral injury.39 But it must mean much more: exercising good judgment and following through on one’s judgments. Perhaps we would be better off if we knew how to define each virtue with such sharp strokes that we could tell precisely when that virtue is expressed, and when it is compromised. That is the knowledge Socrates asks from Euthyphro, without success, and it seems also to be the sort of knowledge Socrates so often says he does not have.

According to Plato, however, Socrates performed his commitment to living virtuously— apparently without having the sort of knowledge he seemed to think is necessary. If Socrates can live toward virtue without that sort of knowledge, I suppose we all can, using resources available to all human beings. We need not have a degree in philosophy, or belong to an educated elite, or even spend our lives in the pursuit of knowledge, in order to pursue the ideal of living well.

I cannot define the virtues with sharp strokes. But I am now in a position to take a first stab at saying what sort of things the virtues are. Acting virtuously is contagious and self-reinforcing, like the flu.40 The more you do it, the easier it is to do it.

And other people, who are affected by what you do, are likely to live more closer to virtue as a result of your virtuous activities. The same goes for vice. Virtue is beneficial by its nature, because it breeds more virtue, and vice is harmful because it breeds more vice. I admit that these points are circular; they do nothing to ground judgments about virtue or vice, or even to help us diagnose cases of virtue and vice.

But such circles are not fatal to the theory. That flu causes flu is an important fact about it, although this fact alone does not ground a diagnosis. Still, we can be sure that if a condition is not contagious it is not the flu. And the same goes for virtue.

An essential feature of virtue, then, is that it maintains itself in those who exercise it and begets more virtue in others who are touched by it.

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Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Woodruff, Paul, 1943– author. Title: Living toward virtue : practical ethics in the spirit of Socrates / Paul Woodruff.

Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022026936 (print) | LCCN 2022026937 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197672129 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197672143 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Socrates. | Ethics. | Virtue. Classification: LCC B318.E8 W66 2023 (print) | LCC B318.E8 (ebook) | DDC 170—dc23/eng/20220824 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026936 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026937 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197672129.001.0001 OceanofPDF.com To the Living Memory of Gregory Vlastos 1907–1991 This Book is Dedicated Gregory Vlastos made possible the life that I am living.

He was much more than a consummate scholar: he was drawn to philosophy by his deep love for social justice, and to Socrates by his belief that Socrates was the greatest moral thinker of our tradition, after Jesus. I was drawn to Vlastos, and to the study of Socrates, by the transparent joy Vlastos showed when he spoke of his subject during the first course I had with him in the spring of 1963.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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