What does Plato say about virtue?

Like most other ancient philosophers, Plato maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics. That is to say, happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues (aretê: ‘excellence’) are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it.

What are the four virtues given by Plato?

They are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. They form a virtue theory of ethics. The term cardinal comes from the Latin cardo (hinge); virtues are so called because they are regarded as the basic virtues required for a virtuous life.

What are Plato’s three virtues?

In Plato’s Republic, the four cardinal virtues are wisdom, temperance, courage and justice. These reflect the nature of the soul.

What did Plato and Aristotle say about virtue?

Plato and Aristotle agree that excellent moral character involves more than a just a simple understanding of the good. They both believe that virtue requires a coexistance between cognitive and affective elements of an individual.

What does Plato base his theory of virtue on?

Plato’s theory of virtue is based on his metaphysical conception of a tripartite soul. Plato believed that human souls are determined by three basic dispositions. Those are reason, instinct and appetite. Each of these dispositions has certain kind of moral expressions.

What is Plato concept about ethics?

For Plato, ethics comes down to two basic things: eudaimonia and arete. Eudaimonia, or “well being,” is the virtue that Plato teaches we must all aim toward. The ideal person is the person who possesses eudaimonia, and the field of ethics is mostly just a description of what such an ideal person would truly be like.

Where does Plato talk about virtue in The Republic?

Plato (429?-347 BC) (through Socrates) in Book 4 of the Republic presents a theory, which states that the human soul has three main faculties: reason, spirit, and appetite (see also [1.2. 2], [1.2. 5]). Based on this, he works out the idea of the four cardinal virtues, namely wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.

What are Socrates four virtues?

For Socrates and Plato, there are four primary virtues: courage, moderation, wisdom and justice.

Where does Plato talk about virtue in the republic?

What is virtue Plato Meno?

Meno’s third definition: Virtue is the desire to have and the ability to acquire fine and beautiful things. Socrates’ response: Everyone desires what they think is good (an idea one encounters in many of Plato’s dialogues).

How is virtue described according to Socrates in Plato’s the Republic?

In books II and Iv of Plato’s Republic, Socrates introduces and describes the four chief virtues needed for justice to thrive in a polis He presents them as Courage, Moderation, Justice and Wisdom.

Who is the founder of virtue ethics?

In the West, virtue ethics’ founding fathers are Plato and Aristotle, and in the East it can be traced back to Mencius and Confucius.

Who is Plato in ethics and why is he important?

He was a student of Socrates and later taught Aristotle. He founded the Academy, an academic program which many consider to be the first Western university. Plato wrote many philosophical texts—at least 25. He dedicated his life to learning and teaching and is hailed as one of the founders of Western philosophy.

What does Meno say about virtue?

Now Meno gives an answer about what virtue is: “to desire beautiful things and have the power to acquire them” (77b). Socrates goes to work on the answer. He says that someone desiring beautiful things desires good things, thus shifting the focus.

What are the 4 Socratic virtues?

What is the origin of virtue ethics?

Virtue ethics is arguably the oldest ethical theory in the world, with origins in Ancient Greece. It defines good actions as ones that display embody virtuous character traits, like courage, loyalty, or wisdom. A virtue itself is a disposition to act, think and feel in certain ways.

What is the main theory of virtue ethics?

Virtue Ethics (or Virtue Theory) is an approach to Ethics that emphasizes an individual’s character as the key element of ethical thinking, rather than rules about the acts themselves (Deontology) or their consequences (Consequentialism).

Was Plato a virtue ethicist?

The Socrates of Plato’s dialogues devotes a great deal of time to asking his fellow Athenians to explain the nature of virtues like justice, courage, piety, and wisdom. So it is clear that Plato counts as a virtue theorist. But it is a matter of some debate whether he should be read as a virtue ethicist (White 2015).

What motivates Plato’s ethical thought?

The need for, and also the possibility of, constant self-completion and -repletion is a motive that will also reappear in the ethical thought of Plato’s late works, a motif he sometimes presents as the maxim that humans should aim at the ‘likening of oneself to god’, ( homoiôsis theôi Theaetetus 176b; Timaeus 90c).

What is Socrates’s view of virtue ethics?

As Socrates saw it, the ‘virtues’ – which is to say the social skills, attitudes, and character-traits possessed by most Athenian citizens of his time – were all too often geared towards their possessors’ wealth, power, and capacities for self-indulgence, to the detriment of public morality and the community’s well-being.

What are Plato’s moral ideals?

Instead, at least in some texts, Plato’s moral ideals appear both austere and self-abnegating: The soul is to remain aloof from the pleasures of the body in the pursuit of higher knowledge, while communal life demands the subordination of individual wishes and aims to the common good.