Well, Thomas may think so but so-called ‘virtue theorists’ have taken Aristotle’s later discussion of it very seriously. On the other hand, if he read on, Thomas would see that Socrates actually disagrees with Meno. For a start (and again at odds with Aristotle’s later version), Socrates says that he is not interested in different virtues, he is looking for the common feature of all of them, the defining characteristic that makes them virtues in the first place. Some to-ing and fro-ing between Socrates and Meno leaves Meno bamboozled and admitting he does not know anything about ‘virtue’ after all. Socrates then takes the lead and offers the observation that if ‘virtue’ is a kind of special skill or knowledge, it should be possible to teach it. Since it appears no one can teach it, Socrates concludes, then no one seems to have it. But Socrates has some ideas, which he then offers in unusually direct form. First of all, he states that virtue involves knowledge of the mean. Indeed, Plato’s account has Socrates explaining that courage in excess is foolhardiness, a dangerous overconfidence, and that taken to excess, all virtues become vices. Instead they all need to be guided by wisdom. ‘In short, everything that the human spirit undertakes will lead to happiness when it is guided by wisdom, but to the opposite, when guided by folly. . . . In short, virtue, to be something advantageous, must be a kind of wisdom.’ So doing the right thing is, indeed, the highest form of wisdom. Socrates then concludes the discussion by claiming that although some people have enough knowledge to appear wise and to be successful in some respects, they are only like those who have learned a solution to a problem without truly understanding how it Discussions 215 was arrived at. They appear knowledgeable, and may often be successful, but they do not truly know what is the essence of goodness. Just like James, Samantha and even ‘Brains!