Virtue as Mental Health: A Platonic Defence of the Medical Model in Ethics

Abstract

I argue that Plato holds a medical model of virtue as health which does not have themorally unacceptable implications which have led some to describe it as authoritarian.This model, which draws on the educational virtues of the elenchos, lacks anyimplication that all criminals are mad or all mad people criminals – this implication beingat the source of many criticisms of Plato’s analogy of virtue and health. After setting upthe analogy and the model, I defend my argument against two objections. The firstclaims that Plato's picture of virtue as health is unacceptable because it entails that vice isa defect and therefore that criminals are all mad. The second resists Kenny'sinterpretation but does so by attacking its first premise, i.e. that Plato believes virtue issome kind of health. I reply that both objections are misguided.