Socrates: The Many Faces of Virtue

The Source of Goodness is in Plain Sight

Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens. He was put on trial and condemned to execution by drinking hemlock poison. Despite being given the chance to escape, Socrates accepted the verdict of his jury and died without protest. Painting: The Death of Socrates by Jacques Louis-David, 1787. (Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain).

There’s a commonly-told ancient parable of a group of blind men who are introduced to an elephant for the first time.

One feels the tusks, one feels the tail, one feels the flank and one feels the trunk. Each blind man describes a different elephant as they feel about their respective parts. Their ideas of what an elephant looks like differ wildly because of their limited experience of the whole animal.

There are so many virtuous traits in people, fidelity, kindness and modesty to name only a few. Throughout history, many thinkers, cultures and creeds have emphasised some of those virtues above others. But all cultures agree that there is good, and all cultures generally agree on virtues even if they go by different names or hold different weight.

What if, like the blind men in the parable, we’re describing the same thing when we talk of different virtues? What if virtues are like the many facets of one beautifully cut diamond — equal and interdependent? And if virtues are really like this, what implications does it have for society?

The ancient Greeks had their own ideas about the virtues. Some would seem strange to us today. For example, the way you looked was a measure of character. Good-looking people were…