From the Beginning to Plato

314 FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO
THE GOOD
A complete account of Socrates’ moral perspective must address the question of
virtuous behaviour or activity. Thus far our examination of the characteristic
feature of Socrates’ moral philosophy has focused almost entirely on the nature
of a virtuous person. I have been concerned to exhibit the cognitive power that
such a person possesses. Such a focus, however, might be thought to obscure
another way in which Socrates’ moral perspective is to be contrasted with that of
the sophists. For it is often thought that Socrates is a defender in some sense of
traditional moral behaviour against the supposed immoralism of the sophists. 76 If
such a view is correct we should expect it to emerge out of Socrates’ account of
the expertise of virtue, since, as I indicated above, the activities associated with a
power or capacity are defined in virtue of the power associated with them and
not vice versa. To some extent our expectations will not be disappointed. But to
see this we must turn to Socrates’ account of the good.
In the Gorgias, Socrates indicates that the good is the rational end of all our
actions. It is for the sake of it that we do everything we do, and we do not do it
for the sake of anything else. 77 In the Euthydemus, we saw that Socrates
maintains that happiness or faring well is the object of everyone’s rational
desires. 78 It is reasonable to infer, then, that for Socrates the good is happiness or
faring well. 79 Let us call this eudaimonism. 80 Given eudaimonism, then, it would
appear that no one ever intentionally acts contrary to his or her own good. 81
Since everyone rationally desires his or her own good, it is only mistaken beliefs
about what contributes to one’s good that could explain one’s acting contrary to
one’s good. Knowledge of which activities benefit one is sufficient for
performing those activities. 82 This is not because Socrates fails to recognize the
necessity of desire for motivating action, but because for Socrates everyone
rationally desires his or her own good. Consequently, since for Socrates virtue is
the cognitive power whose object is the good and which infallibly produces
correct judgements about the good, the virtuous person will never act contrary to
his or her own good. Such a person will know which activities benefit him or
her, and given his or her rational desire, he or she will perform them. Such
actions will by definition be virtuous actions,—since actions are defined in virtue
of the power they result from. Thus, for Socrates, knowledge of the good is
sufficient for virtuous activity as well. No one ever acts viciously except out of
ignorance of the good. 83
Thus the characteristic feature of Socratic morality, the view that virtue is the
expertise of the good—what we might call Socratic intellectualism—does have
the consequence that virtuous activities benefit the agent who performs the
activities. But as a defence of traditional moral behaviour it appears to be a
failure. For nothing in the account of Socratic virtue as I have described it
indicates that the moral expert will recognize those activities associated with
traditional morality as good or beneficial. If Socratic morality is not to be the
primarily amoral thesis that virtue is simply the cognitive power whose object is