What do you do with a Meno?

Though for the past two weeks I have been with the young ladies and gentlemen whom I shall be teaching, I as yet have had no classroom experience. And so I cannot write about that. Yet.

I did, however, enjoy another lovely seminar on Plato. This time it was his Meno.

After we read the Meno, I don’t think we come away with the message: virtue cannot be taught. I think we come away with the message: virtue cannot be taught to Meno. And the reason virtue cannot be taught to Meno is because Meno isn’t interested in virtue.

The first question Meno asks is whether virtue can be acquired by teaching or acquired from experience or else something attributed naturally. Socrates does not answer this question but rather states that another question must be answered first. This question is “What is virtue?” Meno gives several answers to this question, none of which satisfy Socrates.

After the slave-boy demonstration, in which Socrates repeatedly pricks Meno’s ego, Meno nearly begs in exasperation that Socrates return to the first question and leave all this “what is” business. Socrates yields to Meno and takes up the original question about the teachability of virtue. The answer to which Socrates leads Meno is that one has a possibly decent guide in true opinion, but ultimately only the gods give virtue.

To me, the answer is unsatisfactory. But I think that’s because I’m not Meno, or a Meno, as it were. Socrates gives this canned and unsatisfying response to Meno because Meno is incapable (or at least unwilling) to pursue the more difficult route which goes by way of figuring out the nature of virtue before determining its qualities. Meno digs in his heels and refuses to trouble himself with that question, and so Socrates gives him the best answer—the best answer for Meno, that is. The answer is one that is least likely to tempt Meno to viciousness.

(N.B. I am not saying that Socrates made something up for Meno. I very much believe that Socrates’ final answer hold a great deal of truth, but the argument by which he got to that answer is hardly satisfying.)

I shall not spend the entirety of my post simply giving my argument for this reading of the Meno. In fact, I shall not give any more argument for it, but instead I want to think about what ramifications for educating this reading has.

Does Meno give up because he lacks the ability to understand or because he merely lacks the will? (This is simply a rhetorical question. There is evidence in the text to support both and determining a textual answer would be time-consuming). More importantly, how do you treat either case? That is, what do you do with a Meno?

What do you do if the student lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend a subject? What do you do if the student refuses to exercise his intellectual capacity?

Do I, as a teacher, ever have the right to give in as Socrates does? Do I ever have the right to withhold the whole story? the big picture?

If the question is not about rights, then am I ever prudentially sanctioned to do as Socrates did?