The Benefits of Being Virtuous – Selections from “Morals” by Plutarch (vegetarian), Part 1 of 2

In today’s episode, we are delighted to present excerpts of the essay ‘That Virtue May Be Taught’ from “Morals” by Plutarch (vegetarian), translated by Arthur Richard Shilleto in the book “Plutarch’s Morals.”

“O sirs, by asserting that virtue is not a thing to be taught, why are we making it unreal? For if teaching produces it, the deprivation of teaching prevents it.”

“On one occasion, when a boy was eating rather greedily, Diogenes […] ascribing the fault not to the boy, who had not learnt how to eat properly, but to the tutor who had not taught him. And can one not properly handle a dish or a cup unless one has learnt from a boy, as Aristophanes bids us, ‘not to giggle, nor eat too fast, nor cross our legs,’ and yet be perfectly fit to manage a family and city, […] and live well, and hold office, when one has not learnt how one should behave in the conduct of life?”

“He that says that the doctor’s skill is wanted in the case of a slight skin eruption or whitlow but is not needed in the case of pleurisy, fever, or lunacy; in what respect does he differ from the man who says that schools and teaching and precepts are only for small and boyish duties, while great and important matters are to be left to mere routine and accident? For, as the man is ridiculous who says we ought to learn to row but not to steer, so he who allows all other arts to be learnt, but not virtue, seems to act altogether contrary to the Scythians. […] Still more ridiculous is he who asserts that good sense alone need not be taught, without which all other arts are useless and profitless, seeing that she is the mistress and orderer and arranger of all of them, and puts each of them to their proper use. For example, what grace would there be in a banquet, though the servants had been well-trained and had learnt how to dress and cook […], unless there was good order and method among the waiters?”