From the Beginning to Plato

SOCRATES AND THE BEGINNINGS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 313
sufficient for happiness; 67 others maintain that Socrates takes other goods in
addition to be necessary for happiness. 68 But most would agree that wisdom or
knowledge is sufficient for ‘getting things right’. It is in this sense that good luck
is not necessary for the wise individual. Just as the wise ship pilot does not need
to rely on lucky guesses in getting to the port safely (although she may need to
rely on luck in obtaining calm seas, which may or may not be necessary for
arriving at the port safely), so the wise individual need not rely on lucky guesses
in attaining happiness (although she may need to rely on luck in obtaining other
goods which may or may not be necessary for attaining happiness). 69
Again, in so far as Socrates is inclined to identify wisdom or expertise with
definitional knowledge, 70 Socrates’ request at Euthyphro 6e3–6 to be taught
what piety is ‘so that looking to it and using it as a paradigm, I can say that that
which is such as it, whether done by you or anyone else, is pious and that which
is not such as it, is impious’ is making a similar point: the individual with
definitional knowledge of piety will not make mistakes concerning which things
are pious and which are not. She will always ‘get things right’. Wisdom,
expertise, or definitional knowledge regarding piety somehow guarantees correct
judgements regarding piety. 71
In fact, in the Gorgias Socrates apparently distinguishes between expertise and
knack with this very point in mind. At 464e2–465a7 and 500e3–501b1 this
distinction is drawn almost entirely on the basis of the fact that the former
possesses a logos of its object, while the latter does not. 72 It is in virtue of the
possession of this logos 73 that an expertise can reach correct judgements
concerning which things are good, for example, and so can say why each of the
good things are good. A knack on the other hand, lacking this logos must merely
guess at which things are pleasant, for example, and why they are. It is the
definitional knowledge of the object of the expertise that accounts for the
expertise’s infallibility with respect to its object.
While I have only just brushed up against the many issues surrounding these
passages, they all point in the same general direction: the cognitive aspect of an
expertise can be found in its infallibility for reaching correct judgements
concerning its object. An expert temple-builder always makes correct
judgements concerning temple-building. 74 It is, indeed, for this reason that her
advice is heeded when considering temple-building. Thus, the characteristic
Socratic view that virtue is an expertise 75 amounts to the view that virtue is a
power associated with a specific activity and a specific object. As a cognitive
power, virtue also infallibly produces correct judgements regarding its object.
We have seen some reason to suppose that for Socrates the object of the
expertise that is virtue is the good. Thus, virtue is an expertise that enables its
possessor infallibly to reach correct judgements regarding the good—whether, for
example, escaping from prison or setting out to defeat the Sicilians is good. To
learn more about the specific activities associated with virtue so understood, we
must turn to Socrates’ account of the good.