draft of 10-06-04
PHIL 100: Socrates and Plato
Fall 2004; David O. Brink
Handout #3: Courage in the Laches

The Laches discusses the nature of courage, in response to Socrates's "What is F?" question (190e).  Though there are interesting differences between the Laches and the Charmides, they are parallel in important respects, with the Laches doing for courage much of what the Charmides does for temperance.  The Laches makes both substantive and methodological assumptions.

Socrates assumes that decent parents want what is best for their children.  They are interested in someone who could teach their children virtues, such as courage, because they assume that the virtues are admirable and beneficial to those who posses them (181e, 182c, 192cd; cf. Ch 159b8, 159d, 160b3-d3, 160e, 169b5, 172e, 174d-175a).  Call this the eudaimonist assumption.

Socrates also invokes the craft analogy to establish that there must be some end or goal at which virtue aims, which we can all recognize to be the object of virtue, and that this end is some state or condition of the agent's soul (185b-e).  In both of these claims, Socrates seems to predicate virtue of agents or their characters.  This contrasts with predicating virtue of actions.  For example, Euthyphro begins by predicating pitety of actions -- doing what he was doing, prosecuting the wrongdoer (5d).  Presumably, we can predicate virtue of both people and their actions.  But one kind of predication might be primary. It's not clear if Socrates's concern with character requires him to take character as primary, but it does suggest a focus on character.

In searching for a definition of courage Socrates makes some methodological assumptions about what is required to teach virtue.

  1. x can teach virtue only if x has knowledge of virtue (190b).
  2. (a) to know F, x must know the form of F; and (b) if x knows the form of F, x must be able to articulate it (190c; cf. Ch 159a).
Laches' first definition is at once behavioral and Homeric. But D1 is too narrow; it violates the unity assumption (191a-192b).  One might be brave in non-martial situations, for instance, in persevering in the face of medical or emotional trials.  Laches then produces a more general definition, but also one that construes virtue as a state of the agent's soul, and not a mere behavioral pattern. But, Socrates claims, the eudaimonist assumption that virtue is admirable and beneficial (to the agent) argues against D2 (192c-d; cf. 181e, 182c and Ch 159b8, 159d, 160b3-d3, 160e, 169b5, 172e, 174d-175a).
  1. Foolish endurance might prove hurtful.
  2. Nothing which is hurtful can be admirable.
  3. Virtues are admirable.
  4. Hence, courage cannot be (mere) endurance.
Here, Socrates argues that knowledge is necessary for virtue (KNV).  KNV suggests a natural restriction on D2. However, Socrates objects to D3 as over-inclusive, because endurance may be wise in some (e.g. technical or strategic) ways and yet fail to be courageous (192e-).  Perhaps my endurance is wise because I buy my ammo in bulk (e.g. at Walmart), saving thousands of dollars.  That won't ensure that my endurance is not foolish.

Laches becomes stumped and drops out in favor of Nicias.  Nicias appeals to the eudaimonist assumption to argue that courage must be a special kind of wisdom (194d).

But notice that D4 does not just correct the sort of wisdom required in D3.  We could do that by adopting D4 goes further and drops the noncognitive, affective components in D3 and D3a.  D4 not only preservesthe idea that knowledge is necessary for virtue; it claims that knowledge is sufficient for virtue (KSV).

Interestingly, Nicias claims that this purely cognitive account (D4) is Socratic (194c-).  D4 requires further revisions in our paradigms of courage (196e-197a).  The lion can no longer be a paradigm of courage, because he lacks the required evaluative knowledge (notice that this appeals only to KNV).  Socrates goes on to argue that this cognitive account of courage has some surprising implications (198a-199e), many of which will be pursued at greater length in the Protagoras.

  1. Courage is knowledge of what inspires fear and confidence (D4).
  2. Hence, courage is knowledge of future goods and evils (198b2 c3).
  3. The science of future goods and evils is the science of good and evil simpliciter (past, present, and future) (198d1 199a8).
  4. Hence, D4a: courage is knowledge of good and evil (199b9 d1; cf. Ch 174b8).
  5. If courage involves knowledge of good and evil, courage implies possession of any and all of the other virtues (199d3 4).
  6. Hence, knowledge is sufficient for virtue (199d3 4; cf. Ch. 172a).
  7. Hence, the virtues are inseparable; possession of any one virtue implies possession of any and all others (justice iff courage iff piety iff temperance iff wisdom) (cf. Ch 158b).
  8. Inseparability of the virtue implies the unity of the virtues; all the virtues terms (`justice`, `piety`, `temperance`, `courage`, and `wisdom`) refer to the same state of the agent's soul (199e3 4).
  9. Hence, unity of the virtues.
Socrates concludes that something has gone wrong, because (9) is inconsistent with their earlier assumption courage is a (proper) part of virtue (198a).

It's not clear what to make of this argument for several reasons.  For starters, we might wonder why courage requires knowledge of all goods and evils, and this is relevant to whether a cognitive account of the virtues itself supports the unity thesis.  However, Socrates might appeal to a strong version of the eudaimonist assumption.

Strong Eudaimonism implies that a virtuous action must not merely secure some special goods but must actually be best overall or all-things-considered.  But then it seems that to know what a particular virtue required one would have know all the goods involved in this and alternative actions.  If so, to know an action is courageous one must have knowledge of good and evil (simpliciter).

Also, the text invites us to distinguish between the inseparability of the virtues (you can't have one without having the others) and their unity (the virtue concepts all name the same state).  Inseparability is introduced first, and it is logically weaker than unity.  This may suggest that Socrates infers unity from inseparability, perhaps as part of an inference to the best explanation.  But I'm not sure that this is right.  It's unclear if inseparability is a premise in an argument for unity.  What would that argument look like?  Though inseparability and unity appear logically distinct, it's hard to see how you could have inseparability without unity.  If so, unity would be the only explanation of inseparability.  Perhaps inseparability is just one aspect of unity, which Socrates notices first.

What are we supposed to conclude from this argument?  One natural way to read the dialogue is as a reductio ad absurdum of the purely cognitive conception of courage.  The reductio depends not simply on the cognitive definition of courage (D4) but also on the assumption of separability that courage is only a proper part of virtue, introduced at the beginning of the dialogue.  But perhaps the argument is meant to draw this assumption of separability into question.  There are several considerations that lend some support to this interpretation.

With the cognitive definition of courage apparently refuted, the dialogue ends on a negative note.  Given Socrates's earlier methodological assumptions, this means that neither Socrates nor his interlocutors know the nature of courage, and this implies that none of them can teach others about courage.  Nonetheless, Nicias and Lysimachus clearly admire Socrates's intelligence and implore him to teach the young men in question.  Socrates replies that because none of them possesses the requisite knowledge none would make a better teacher than the others (200e-201a).  But we might wonder if this conclusion follows.  Even if we take Socratic professions of ignorance seriously, it seems both possible and plausible to suppose that Socrates is less ignorant than his interlocutors -- indeed, perhaps that he knows more, or, at least, that he is closer to knowledge, than them.  (Perhaps this is how to understand the claim of the Delphic Oracle.)  But if Socrates is less ignorant than others, it seems plausible that he would make a better teacher than them.  Someone might fail to be an ideal teacher and still be a better teacher than others.