73d-75a Meno: virtue is the capacity to rule. Socrates: that can’t be right. Meno: justice is virtue. Socrates: is justice virtue or is it one kind of virtue? Analogy to shape and color to explain the genus-species problem here.

73d

M: What else but to be able to rule over men, if you are seeking one formula to fit them all.

S: You are right. That’s what I’m looking for. But Meno, is virtue the same for a child or a slave – namely, to be able to rule over a master? Do you think he who rules is still a slave?

M: I do not think so at all, Socrates.

S: It doesn’t seem likely, my good man. Consider this further point: you say virtue is the capacity to rule. Don’t you think we should add: justly and not unjustly?

M: I think so, Socrates, for justice is virtue.

S: Is it virtue, Meno, or is it a virtue? - What do you mean?

S: As with anything else; if you like, take roundness, for example, about which I would say that it is a shape, not that it is shape pure and simple. I would not say it is shape, because there are other shapes.

M: That’s quite right. So I too say that not only justice is a virtue but that there are many other virtues as well.

74

S: What are they? In just the way that I could name different shapes, if you asked me to, please fill me in concerning all these other virtues.

M: I think courage is a virtue, and moderation, wisdom, and nobility, and very many others.

S: We are running into the same problem again, Meno, but from a slightly different angle; we have found many virtues while looking for one, but we cannot find the one that covers all the others.

M: I can’t yet find what you’re looking for, Socrates: one virtue that covers all the others, as in the other cases.

S: It seems so, but I really want to try to make progress here, for you do understand that it’s going to be like this with everything. If someone asked you about what we were just talking about: ‘what is shape, Meno?’ and you told him that it was roundness, and then he asked you what I just asked – namely, ‘is roundness shape or a shape?’ – you would surely tell him it is a shape?

M: I certainly would.

S: That would be because there are other shapes?

M: Yes.

S: And if he went on to ask what they were, you would tell him?

M: I would.

S: The same would go for color, if he asked you what it is, and you said it is white, and he interrupted by asking, ‘is white color or a color?’ You would say it is a color, because there are other colors?

M: I would.

S: Likewise, if you were asked for a list of other colors, you would list others, all of which are colors just as much as white is?

M: Yes.

S: Then if he pursued the argument, as I did, and said: ‘we always end up back at the many. Don’t keep answering me like this. Instead, since you call all these many things by one name, and since you say none of them is not a shape – even though none is the same shape as the others – tell me what one thing applies just as much to roundness as to straightness. Say what it is you call ‘shape’ – for example, when you say, ‘roundness is just as much shape as straightness is.’ You do say that, don’t you?

M: I do.

S: And when you say that, do you say roundness is no more round than straight is, or that straightness is no more straight than round is?

M: Certainly not, Socrates.

S: All the same, you don’t say roundness is more of a shape than straightness is – or vice versa?

M: That’s true.

75

S: So what is this one thing to which the term shape generally applies? Try to tell me. For think what it would be like if you responded, like so, to the man who asked you all these questions about color and shape: ‘I don’t understand what you want, or what you mean.’ He would probably find this incredible and reply: ‘you don’t understand that I want to know what these cases have in common?’ Even hearing that, is it true you would still have nothing to say, Meno, if someone asked: ‘what is the one thing that applies to roundness and straightness and all the other things you call shapes, and which is the same in all of them?’ Try answering this question, by way of working up to the one about virtue.

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