Platonic Virtue

“You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught” (Protagoras 361b).
Socrates believes that virtue can be taught as a neutral objective science, opposite of what Socrates argued at the beginning of Protagoras. In which the opposite was true, Protagoras believed he could teach virtue while Socrates believed it could not be taught. In the breakdown of their argument, one position that was agreed upon was that everything had an opposite, temperance, wisdom, courage, each which is considered to be a virtue has an opposite.
“’So whatever is done in a certain way is done from a certain quality, and whatever is done in the opposite way is done from it’s opposite?’
‘I agree’” (Protagoras 332c).
Looking at the entirety of the Protagoras one can see the flip flop that Protagoras and Plato make. If reflected upon the entire subject matter, one could argue that Protagoras goes from being teacher to student, as well as Socrates going from philosopher to student. Who or what ends up in control is the argument itself, which places both men into a more humble state. Each man going from believing what can and cannot be taught until they argue the complete opposite of their original point and starting the argument anew. Taking the agreement from the text above, each man went to the opposite of the original, so which quality did the men exchange places in. The most humorous answer will be that both men started believing in the wisdom of their arguments so that both ended up in folly. Where then lies the answer to the dilemma, that of which is ‘can virtue be taught?’
Virtue is defined as the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong (wordnet.Princeton.edu). Can a quality be taught to an individual? Can a person be taught to be kind, wise, intelligent, cruel, ignorant, or courageous? These are things that conventional society sees as being taught and just in a persons nature. That the capacity for these qualities are encoded in a person and that our upbringing either brings out these qualities or it does not. In accordance to the question, whether a persons qualities can be taught, I would have to say nay, the qualities that distinguish us from one another can not be taught. A man cannot be taught to walk through fire, or taught to smile at every person he sees. If it is naturally in the person to do these things, they will do it but if it is not in a person to do these things, they will not do them. A prime example will be that of a person whom faints at the site of blood, you cannot teach this man to be a surgeon.
Since virtue is the quality of doing what is right as previously defined, then virtue is either doing what is morally right and/or doing what is right in accordance to the law. To seek out what virtue is, it will be better to split virtue into morally right and lawfully right, then try to combine the two into a more exact definition to virtue.
Morally right is conventionally seen as doing what is believed by the individual to be the right thing at the individual time. Whether or not what the result, if an individual believed it to be right, they were acting in accordance to moral virtue. A utilitarian viewpoint would agree to doing the greater good as being right. While a Machiavellian would believe it to be seemingly good for the greater cause while enacting one’s own ends. In both cases an individuals philosophy led cause to what is morally right for them. Therefore to be virtuous in a moral sense would be sticking with one’s own individual philosophy in all cases presented against them. Which means a completely ignorant person is morally virtuous if they stick to their ideals.
In terms of doing what is good in accordance to the law we have a different virtuous man. This person is the one who follows the law and reports on what they see as unlawful. This would be considered a citizen in ancient philosophy. Therefore a citizen is doing good in accordance to the law. Now following the law of a tyrant will still make you virtuous in the law-abiding sense because ignorance cannot be helped in such situations. “Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise” ~ Thomas Grey.
What about confliction between being morally good and law-abiding. The morally good man may decide to break the law in a case of need, such as a robin-hood. What of the law-abiding man who reports the thefts of a robin-hood? Two virtuous people are in conflict at this point, one being morally virtuous while the other law-abiding. Therefore virtue must have tiers. Which virtuous person is to be considered more virtuous?
The most virtuous a person can be is one who is knowledgeable and able to make decisions based on reason, loosely following John Stuart Mill. When a person makes decisions on their reason and knowledge they are not making a decision based on law but based on their own morals or personal philosophy. Therefore it could be said that the better virtuous person is one who does what is right based on what is morally right as opposed to a person who does what is right based on the law. So virtue is defined as doing what is morally right in accordance to one’s own philosophy. How does a person teach this?
Virtue cannot therefore be taught because each individual must develop their own philosophy, a person can be taught philosophy itself as a subject matter but this will only indirectly teach a person virtue. Does this make virtue objective as Socrates believes? No, virtue is now defined upon the individual and thus this will make every person virtuous as long as they listen to their reason and do what is right.
Virtue is therefore embedded within every reasonable person who sticks to and follows their own philosophy. Virtue cannot be taught and is subjective. there is no end means to virtue which makes it an objective science as Socrates believe, but it makes virtue an un-teachable science because a person cannot be taught their own qualities.