Plato’s Virtue Ethics
Plato (c. 428 - 348 B.C.) was a major Greek philosopher and mathematician who lived during the Socratic (or Classical) period.
• He is arguably the most well-known, studied, and influential philosopher of all time.
• He provided the main opposition to the Materialist view of the world represented by Democritus and Epicurus, along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, and he helped to lay the foundations of Western Philosophy.
• He combined Ethics, Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Moral Psychology into an interconnected and systematic philosophy in his works, particularly his many dialogues. Plato founded the famous Academy in Athens, the western world's first institution of higher learning.
• Platonism was the philosophical school that he developed at the Academy.
• Plato's cardinal virtues doctrine is based on his conception of virtue. Goodness, according to Plato, is the natural and proper functioning of human nature. Apart from that, because man is social by nature, society serves as a normative backdrop for human morality. Virtue, according to Socrates, is knowledge.
• It means that understanding the nature of moral virtues is necessary for virtuosity. Of course, simply knowing about virtues is insufficient; man must cultivate virtues by engaging in obligatory and morally good behaviours. Good life, according to Plato, is a life of virtues; in his Morality theory, Plato has described four important virtues:
1. Wisdom
2. Courage
3. Temperance
4. Justice
• According to him, cultivating these four virtues results in a morally good life. These virtues were later dubbed "Cardinal virtues." The word 'cardinal' comes from the Latin word Cardo.
• A hinge or a hook that supports and turns the door is referred to as a 'cardo.' Because they support man's moral life in society, the four virtues are cardinal. It is a set of fundamental virtues. Other virtues are subordinate to them because they are dependent on them.
• The proper integration of the three parts of the self, according to Plato, is the key to moral life. Human beings are made up of three elements or parts:
1. Element of Passion or Competition (Passions)
2. Executive Element & Spirited or Dynamic (Will)
3. Rational or Philosophical Element (Reason or Intellect)
• When the spirited element assists the reason in keeping the passions in check, this integration is possible.
• The four cardinal virtues, according to Plato, have both individual and social significance.
A. They can be found in both individuals and societies.
B. Humans are social and rational animals.
C. They have a natural proclivity to live in groups.
D. The morality of a society is the same as the morality of an individual.
Plato defined society as "the individual writ large." Individuals, after all, make up society.