1.10: Function, Virtue, and the Soul

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See 350d-354c. Notice in particular how Socrates uses the terms “function” and “virtue.” These terms (ergon and arete) were a perfectly standard way in Plato’s day to talk about the goodness of things. The function of a thing is the thing’s characteristic activity. The function of a knife, for instance, is to cut. The virtue or excellence of a thing is the quality that enables the thing to perform its function well. Some of the virtues of a knife are therefore being sharp, being hard, and having a handle that is easy to grasp firmly. Or consider an organ of the body such as the eye. Its function is to enable us to see. Its virtues are therefore those qualities that enable us to see well at various distances, under various lighting conditions, and so on. Now in this passage Socrates suggests that the human soul (psyche), the conscious, active aspect of a person, has a function: “taking care of things, ruling, deliberating, and all other such things,” or more generally, “living.” Human virtue is therefore whatever enables us to carry out our function well. Recalling that they had identified human virtue as justice (335c), Socrates concludes that it is justice that enables us to live well.

Do you agree that your soul has a function, an activity characteristic of the kind of thing you are? Are you, in this respect, like a knife or an eye?
If there is something you are for, then what is it? What kind of a thing are you? What would it be to do the human-being-thing well? Are there human virtues, in the classical Greek sense?
If we are the sort of thing that has a function, do we all have the same function? Do people with considerable brain damage, for instance, have the same function (and the same corresponding virtues) as people whose brains are healthy? Do men have the same function and virtues as women? Do people in our day have the same function and virtues as people thousands of years ago?
What about thieves? Do thieves have a function different from other people? Socrates suggests at 351c-d that justice is necessary even in a band of thieves if they are to be successful in achieving their ends. (There may be no honor among thieves, but there has to be a certain amount of “friendship and a sense of common purpose.”) Would Thrasymachus consider thief-justice a virtue?