Can Virtue Be Taught?

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Can Virtue be taught?
Virtues play an important role in society because they improve the quality of life, both at an individual and societal level. Various philosophers have written and extended their thoughts on virtue, and there has been contention on whether virtue can be taught. One such philosopher is Socrates, who has contradicting views on whether virtues can be taught. While this paper explains both sides of his argument as I understand it, it will also take a stance on the issue. First, virtue is universal but individuals have to discover it. Second, virtue requires mindfulness, which can be taught. Third, in most cases, people only embrace a part or parts of virtue, based on what they have been exposed to. Therefore, the stance that virtue can be taught stems from this reasoning based on my understanding of the text.
Before explaining my stance on why virtue can be taught, I will first give an account of my understanding of Socrates’ contradicting arguments on the issue. Socrates first argument is that virtue can be taught. He supports this argument with the idea that virtue is knowledge and like any other knowledge, it can be transferred from one person to another. While trying to define virtue, Socrates and Meno agree that virtue cannot be evil and as such, men who do evil do not know what virtue is. This is to imply that in the absence of virtue, there is evil, and evil is the product of ignorance. To eliminate ignorance, knowledge must be passed to an individual. This is one way in which virtue can be taught; by providing knowledge to men so that they differentiate between good and evil. When Socrates states that he does not know what virtue is, he is implying that it can be taught. This is because he would need someone to explain it to him.
Socrates second argument is that virtue cannot be taught. The basis of his premise is still on knowledge, but in this stance, he states that individuals have immortal souls and as such, there is nothing that the soul has not learned. As such, the knowledge already exists in the soul and what is required is a recollection rather than a learning process. In this regard, if being a man of virtue requires knowledge, then virtue cannot be taught because it already exists in the immortal soul. Further, Socrates argues that virtue cannot be taught because there are no teachers, unlike in other disciplines. He points out that there have been virtuous men who were unable to teach their sons virtue and as such, it is impossible to teach virtue. By questioning whether there are teachers of virtue, Socrates is trying to prove that even the good men that exist cannot be termed as teachers of virtue because others have failed in the past.
Back to my stance, my first proposition is that virtue exists universally and each individual must be placed in a path of discovery. I derive this from Socrates conclusion that knowledge exists in people and can be brought to the surface through questioning (Holbo and Waring 21). This path requires guidance from parents and society in general. As is with other disciplines, the knowledge on virtue is already out there but for individuals to actually access it and learn from it, there have to be people willing to dissect the knowledge for them. The only way to understand virtue, as the common good in society, is to learn about it. As it is revealed in The Good Place, the path to being good, in the virtue sense, is full of missteps where people end up in t...