Involuntary Evil

A Response to"Is Socrates' Idea that Every Evil Act is Involuntary True?" 

In the post, the point is made that one of the first things you learn is right from wrong.  But what about in cases where that isn't true? For many years, people were taught that slavery was a good thing- or if not a good thing, that it wasn't a bad one.  If you're raised in that society, with not one to tell you that there's something wrong with it, you wouldn't know.  And that doesn't make the act of slavery all right.  And although the action is intentional, it isn't intentionally an evil act because you can't intentionally do evil if you don't know it's evil.  Intent still has to figure into the voluntary, I'm just not sure how much of an effect it has.

Post at: http://wehavealwaysthoughso.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-socrates-idea-that-every-evil-act-is.html

Knowledge

One of Socrates' main theses was that virtue is knowledge.  Knowledge, specifically self-knowledge, is how a person goes about living a good life.  Being knowledgeable, a person would always choose good, as ignorance is the only evil.  But how do you learn to be knowledgeable? How is that taught?

The two main ways of learning are probably school and just life itself.  However, during that time the Sophists had sort of corrupted education, twisting it into a profession where they instilled virtue while holding that virtue was relative and teaching how to win at arguments (or 'win' at life) through tricky, circular logic.  Socrates, though, stayed a good teacher, keeping and sharing his beliefs all the way up to his execution.  So in the right way, maybe you can be taught to be knowledgeable (and by extension, good).  However, Socrates is famous for his 'Socratic Method' where conclusions are drawn from being asked question after question, which is, essentially learning the answer from within yourself and your own life experiences.