““Although there is some controversy about whether Plato or Socrates held the position that if a person knows what the good life is, he/she will not act immorally, in what follows we shall speak as if this is Plato’s own view. According to this position, evil is due to lack of knowledge. If people can discover what is right, Plato believes, they will never act wickedly. But the problem is to discover what is right, or as Plato calls it, “the good.” How can this be done when people differ so greatly in their opinions about the good life? Plato’s answer is that finding the nature of the good life is an intellectual task very similar to the discovery of mathematical truths. Just as the latter cannot be discovered by untrained people, so the former cannot be either.””
