From the Beginning to Plato

306 FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO
service to the god. For I go around doing nothing but persuading both
young and old among you not to care for (epimeleisthai) your body or
your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of
your soul (hōs tēs psuchēs hopōs aristē estai).
(Apology 29d2–30b2; trans. Grube).
Here then we have the first moral philosophy or moral perspective against which
Socrates contrasts his own—the common or folk view. According to folk
morality, virtue is something everyone—or nearly everyone 31 —already
possesses. It is not an expertise—at least if by expertise one has in mind some
sort of special or unique ability. Consequently, it is fairly easy to come by 32 and
everyone is in a position to give advice concerning those affairs that require
virtue. For Socrates, however, things are otherwise. Virtue is an expertise, like
physical training, temple-building, and the rest. It is not easy to come by 33 and few
—if any—people possess it or are in a position to give advice on matters that
require it. But it is valuable, and we should all make it our business to obtain it.
SOPHISTIC MORALITY
For Socrates virtue appears to be an expertise. But how, then, does Socratic
morality differ from the moral perspective of the sophists? Don’t the sophists—
in so far as we can characterize their view generally —believe that virtue is an
expertise possessed by relatively few individuals? Indeed, don’t they profess to
be able to teach this expertise to anyone willing to pay for it? And aren’t many
apparently willing to do so34 because of the sophists’ claim that those who
possess this expertise will become eminently more successful in public affairs—
that is, at being virtuous—than those who do not possess it? Whether or not this
accurately characterizes the sophistic position, 35 it is clear that this is how
Socrates would characterize it. Moreover, it is equally clear that he rejects it.
Recall that in the Protagoras Socrates characterizes Protagoras’ position as the
claim to teach ‘political expertise’ (ten politikēn technēn) and to make men better
citizens (politas) 36 which he later characterizes as the claim to teach virtue
(aretē). 37 Moreover, Protagoras does not deny it. Rather he only denies—
somewhat unsatisfactorily—that every member of the political community fails
to already possess what he teaches. 38 Again in the Hippias Major, Socrates
describes Hippias’ wisdom (sophia)—the expertise of the sophists (ten tōn
sophistōn technēn) 39 —as ‘the sort that makes those who study and learn it stronger
in virtue (aretēn)’ (Hippias Major 283c3–4; Woodruff trans.). In the Gorgias,
Socrates sums up Gorgias’ position on rhetoric—Gorgias’ expertise—as the view
that the rhetor will not give advice in the Assembly on matters relating to health,
ship-building, wall-building or the military. On these matters, the rhetor will
accede to the advice of the relevant expert. Rather, it will only be on matters
concerning the just and the unjust that the rhetors will give expert advice. 40
When Gorgias objects that the rhetor will be best able to persuade concerning all