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PhilosophersSocrate

Socrate

I know that I know nothing.

Socratic philosophyv. 470 – 399 av. J.-C. GreeceQuestionerMoral philosopherWrote nothingKnown through witnesses
Meno 77b-78b; Xenophon, Memorabilia III, 9, 4-5 (Socrates according to Plato and to Xenophon)

No one does wrong willingly

What it claims

No one does wrong knowing it is wrong: all evil comes from ignorance of the good, and virtue is knowledge. Diogenes Laertius, six centuries later, sums up the same doctrine: "only one good, knowledge; only one evil, ignorance".

Why

Nobody wants their own unhappiness or acts against what they judge best: wrongdoing comes only from ignorance of the good.

Valid with an implicit premise

Socrates wrote nothing: this thesis comes to us from two witnesses who agree. In the Meno, Plato has Socrates make Meno admit that nobody wants his own unhappiness. In Xenophon, Socrates says that all choose what they think most advantageous. Hence the idea that doing wrong is a mistake about the good, and that virtue is knowledge. The P1..P5 → C form is our reconstruction: neither witness wrote the argument in this form.

P1Nobody wants to be unhappy. (Plato, Meno)
P2If someone desired an evil while knowing it as an evil, he would want his own unhappiness. Whoever desires an evil therefore takes it for a good. (Plato, Meno)
P3 · implicit premiseDoing wrong while knowing it is wrong would mean either desiring that evil, or acting against what one judges best.
P4Nobody acts against what he judges best: all choose what they think most advantageous for themselves. (Xenophon, Memorabilia III, 9, 4)
P5If nobody does wrong knowingly, then acting well depends on knowing the good: justice and every other virtue is wisdom. (Xenophon, Memorabilia III, 9, 5)
Therefore no one does wrong knowing it is wrong: all evil comes from ignorance of the good, and virtue is knowledge. Diogenes Laertius, six centuries later, sums up the same doctrine: "only one good, knowledge; only one evil, ignorance".

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where one does wrong knowing it is wrong without desiring it or acting against one's judgement, for instance under compulsion: P1, P2 and P4 stay true, but the conclusion falls.
The argument is valid: P1 and P2 show that nobody desires an evil he knows as such; P4 rules out the other case in P3 (acting against one's judgement); what remains is that doing wrong knowingly is impossible, and P5 draws from this that virtue is knowledge. P3 is written nowhere: it is a premise added out of charity, saying there is no other way to do wrong knowingly. The most disputed point is P4: that is where Aristotle attacks.
Analogy. A driver who runs a red light believes he is saving time without risk, or has not really grasped the danger. For Socrates, no driver would run a red light while sure that it would kill him: if he does it, he is mistaken about what is good for him.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Aristotle (akrasia, weakness of will) 335 BC · attacks premise 4

This thesis contradicts the facts. A man can know that something is bad and do it anyway, swept away by pleasure or anger: before passion takes hold of him, he did not think he should act this way. Aristotle calls this akrasia. Socrates denies it exists.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in -335, after the author's death (-399).
The debate goes on (our summary) Aristotle does not reject everything. Further on (VII, 3, 1147b), he explains that the person who gives in to passion does not possess knowledge in the full sense at that moment: he merely "recites" it, as a drunk man recites verses. He writes that one is then led to "the conclusion which Socrates sought to establish". The debate remains open: did Socrates deny the obvious, or only say that true knowledge never gives way?
Plato (Republic, book IV) 375 BC · attacks premise 4

Later, Plato himself describes men whose desires drive them "against their reason". The example is Leontius, who desires to look at corpses and hates himself for it: he reproaches himself. To explain this conflict, Plato separates reason, spirit (thumos) and desire in the soul. This is often read as a disciple correcting his master.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in -375, after the author's death (-399).
The debate goes on (our summary) Specialists read this passage in two ways. For some, Plato here abandons the thesis of the historical Socrates, who made virtue pure knowledge. For others, Plato only wants to enrich it. It also shows the Socratic problem: the Socrates of the Republic is probably no longer the Socrates of the Apology.