Meno

At one point in the dialogue, Socrates suggests to Meno that two things can lead a human being on the correct path: “true opinion and knowledge” (99a). A person can accidently end up in the correct destination if he follows a random path or he can have knowledge of the way and end up in the same place. In the same way, just because I shoot a 3-pointer in basketball and make it doesn’t mean I’m a basketball player. It was a lucky shot. For that moment, it appears that I am but when I actually practice and devote all my time and efforts into the game, then I can consistently make good shots. Similarly, virtuous-looking actions may not stem from virtue itself. But doesn’t there have to be some way to distinguish between the two?

Everyone is born with the sense of right and wrong, good and bad, this is in our nature. But what if virtue was the ability to choose between the two? Yes, some may say that what seems good to some is not the same to another person, that morality, ethics, and truths are all relative, but if humans are born with this sense, it must have come from somewhere.

Isn’t virtue (whatever it may be) the same way? We have this sense of morals instilled in us just like I had the potential to be good at basketball but one needs to constantly seek out the good as a way of life. Then one becomes so trained in this way of life. If it can’t be taught and its not in our nature than what if what Socrates is suggesting is that we are born with this sense of morality, or given this gift by the gods, this ability to follow the correct path, and virtue, or to be virtuous, is to seek out this moral life for the right reasons?