GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

436
ETHICS
to be decided by whatever demagogue may happen to catch
the ear of the majority. There are, then, no experts in
virtue and virtue, it would seem, is not teachable. But, if
it is not, then presumably it must be innate, for, if we
do not learn a thing and yet know it, we must have
known it from the first. How, then, explain the evil
that men do, the variations in moral codes, the frequent
preference of expediency to right and the frequent confusion
of expediency with right?
Plato answers these questions by invoking the theory
of knowledge as an inborn possession of the soul, to which
I have already referred. Virtue, which is knowledge of the
Good, is, he argues, both innate and acquired. It is not
innate in the sense that it is a conscious possession of
every child at birth; there is not even an assurance that it
will necessarily appear, as the child develops. It is innate
in the sense that it is an inborn possession of the soul; it
is acquired in the sense that whether that inborn possession
is consciously realized, depends upon training and education.
Its realization depends, that is to say, upon good moral
instruction given in a right environment. Yet the virtue
that results is not the creation of the moral instruction
and the right environment, any more than the blossom
on the plant in the conservatory is the creation of the
conservatory. The blossom springs from the seed which
was there from the first; the conservatory provides the
environment in which alone the seed can blossom.
That the Capacity to Recognize
Value is Innate.
It is not necessary to accept JPlato's metaphysical teaching
with regard to the prior existence of the soul and the direct
knowledge of universal* or Forms, which it is conceived to
have in its discarnate state, in order to recognize the
strength of his position. The feeling of duty, the recognition
of right are not, it is obvious, acquirements that we pick
up from our environment as we grow and develop. Unless
therefore, we are prepared to grant that there is in the
human soul from the first a capacity to recognize and to