Unity of the Virtues
Socrates made a startling claim: the virtues — courage, justice, temperance, piety, wisdom — aren't separate traits but one and the same thing, so that to truly have one is to have them all.
The Unity of the Virtues is the Socratic thesis that the individual virtues are deeply interlinked — ultimately a single knowledge of good and bad — rather than independent qualities you might pick up one at a time. Socrates argues it in Plato's dialogues (above all the Protagoras, with Laches and Meno, late 5th–early 4th c. BCE), and it follows from his view that virtue is knowledge: if all virtue is wisdom, you cannot be genuinely courageous yet unjust. Aristotle later softened it into the "reciprocity of the virtues," bound together by practical wisdom (phronēsis), and the Stoics revived a strong unity thesis of their own.
How it traveled
- ProtagorasAthens · -385explains
- MenoAthens · -385explains
- ParmenidesAthens · -370explains
- LawsAthens · -348explains
- MetaphysicsChalcis · -322explains
- Eudemian EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Nicomachean EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Paradoxa StoicorumFormiae · -46explains
- de Finibus Bonorum et MalorumFormiae · -43explains
- De Stoicorum repugnantiisChaeronea · 120explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- Duties of the HeartZaragoza (Saragossa) · 1080
- Sefer HaIkkarimSoria · 1425
- Akeidat YitzchakTarragona · 1490
- Avodat HaKodesh (Ibn Gabbai)Cairo · 1523
- Reshit ChokhmahTzfat · 1575
- Ohr HaChammah on ZoharTzfat · 1620
- TanyaLiadi · 1797
- Maor VaShemeshKrakow (Cracow) · 1817
- Likutei HalakhotBreslov (Ukraine) · 1840
- Sulam on ZoharJerusalem · 1945
- Fragmenta MoraliaAthensexplains
- Epistulae—explains
- De anima libri mantissaAthensexplains
- Ἠθικὰ προβλήματα [Sp.]Athensexplains
- Testimonia et FragmentaAthensexplains
- De Vita Mosis (Lib. I-II)—explains
- In Platonis Rem Publicam CommentariiAthensexplains
- Stromata—explains
- Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum)—explains
Key passages(20)
Ἠθικὰ προβλήματα [Sp.] · Alexander of Aphrodisias
Testimonia et Fragmenta · Ariston of Chios
Paradoxa Stoicorum · Cicero
Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius
Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius
De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis · Galen
De Stoicorum repugnantiis · Plutarch
In Platonis Rem Publicam Commentarii · Proclus
Ἠθικὰ προβλήματα [Sp.] · Alexander of Aphrodisias
Testimonia et Fragmenta · Ariston of Chios
Testimonia et Fragmenta · Ariston of Chios