What is virtue? What does it mean to be wise?

To answer this question, here is a similar question: What is intelligence? What does it mean to have intelligence versus not having it?

We associate intelligence with many things: the ability to recognize patterns, grasp concepts, process information, memorize and recall, to solve puzzles, solve problems, invent things, to be creative, to think outside the box, to avoid making mistakes, and so on. We also associate intelligence with knowledge—an awareness of a collection of important or complex truths, which leads to an understanding of how things work in life. Intelligence is associated with success, and stupidity with failure.

Intelligence then is something like: your mental capacity, or mental powers. The more mental powers you have, the smarter you are, and the fewer mental powers you have, the less smart you are.

Wisdom could be just a synonym for intelligence: To be wise is to be smart. Or we could say wisdom is something more specific than intelligence—wisdom is a subcategory of mental powers. On this view, to be wise is to be smart (that is, to have a specific mental capacity is to have mental capacity in general), but to be smart is not necessarily to be wise. (Compare: Having a strong imagination is smart, but being smart does not entail having a strong imagination.)

One way to think of wisdom on this view is that wisdom is the specific mental power of figuring out the golden mean for any given virtue. This ‘figuring out’ means 1) the ability to identify and understand the golden mean between two vices, and 2) being able to choose the golden mean, to have an understanding strong enough that it instills within you a confidence such that you cannot help but will yourself to live out the golden mean. So (1) and (2) are two parts of one category: the category of understanding.

Virtue then is the disposition to choose the golden mean. Bravery is the disposition to be brave, to choose the golden mean between cowardice and recklessness. Patience is the disposition to be patient, to choose the golden mean between impatience and indecision.

Wisdom and virtue are nearly the same thing. Wisdom is a mental power—the power to figure out and/or comprehend the golden mean. Virtue is the disposition to choose the golden mean, which comes from having wisdom.

If someone is wise (if they have the understanding), then they will be virtuous (possessing a disposition to choose the golden mean), and if someone is virtuous, then they will be wise, as one cannot have a disposition to choose the golden mean without having an ability to recognize and understand the golden mean. For some people, this is not an overly conscious effort; some people understand what the golden mean is for a given virtue on instinct or intuition. Mental activity occurs subconsciously, like when a mathematician figures out the solution to a problem suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, because the brain does work that the mind doesn’t see. So the understanding of wisdom needn't be explicitly conscious or reflective.

Just as wisdom is a specific kind of mental capacity, and is thus an instance of intelligence, a virtue, such as bravery, is a specific kind of virtue, and is thus an instance of wisdom (and is thus an instance of intelligence).

This view is compatible with Socrates’ view that virtue is a kind of knowledge (Protagoras 345 - 360). Many people might think that virtue is doing what’s right even when it’s difficult to do so. But I think Socrates would say that everyone is always choosing what’s least difficult. For the brave person, it would actually be more difficult for them to choose to be cowardly. It is exactly the difficulty of one choice outweighing another that explains why that person made that choice. The virtue does not lie in the ability to do what’s hard, but rather the virtue lies in what comes easy for the person. The fact that being cowardly is so difficult for a person that they’d rather face pain or death, that tells us something about the bravery of this person.

Socrates argues that virtue cannot be taught, and yet paradoxically argues that it’s a kind of knowledge, and knowledge can be taught. Here’s one suggestion to resolve the paradox: Virtue can be taught to a degree, but because virtue is grounded in wisdom, and wisdom in intelligence, at some point virtue is simply a matter of capacity, and capacities cannot be taught. Compare a student in a math class. We certainly need math teachers to teach us math. But at some point you either can do it or you can’t, and teachers cannot teach talent or a passion for math. They can inspire some students, and encourage them to pursue math, but ultimately those things fall on the student.