Socrates' discussion on the topic of virtue teachability is full of paradoxes, and the expression in different contexts is not uniform. Its essence is the difference in understanding of "morality" and "teaching". Socrates abandoned the traditional way of virtue teaching and adopted another kind of "teaching", that is, examining the moral concepts and moral concepts in his soul. However, due to the paranoid pursuit of the universal essence of the concept of virtue, Socrates' proposition of virtue was criticized for not properly distinguishing different categories of virtue, so that the tension between practice and reason could not be properly handled. Both direct moral education and indirect moral education have their limitations. Only by combining the advantages and disadvantages of the two teaching methods can we achieve the best results. Keywords: virtue; Moral education; Can the virtues of moral education be taught? This is a prerequisite for moral education. Since ancient Greece, this issue has been a topic of endless discussion among philosophers and educators. Protagoras, Socrates, Aristotle, Herbart, Schopenhauer, Dewey, Kohlberg and so on. Everyone has thought deeply about this problem. "Virtue teachable", as a classic proposition of Socrates' moral philosophy, probes into the existing forms and communication of virtue and tries to seek the unity of value and fact in the moral field. However, this proposition is often simply understood, so that the hierarchy and true connotation of virtue and teaching are ignored, and the original rational implication and value pursuit are obscured. Undoubtedly, "whether virtue can be taught" is the answer to China's traditional moral education view. Moral teachability is the basic assumption of ancient educators in China. But it is puzzling that a moral proposition that has been debated in the West for more than two thousand years is taken for granted in the cultural context of China. At present, the question of whether virtue can be taught is based on the evaluation of realistic moral education and the doubt of modernity of moral education. At present, the effectiveness of school moral education is low, and moral entertainment and formalism are rampant. Behind people's criticism of moral education is the reappearance of the question of whether virtue can be taught. The paradox of moral education in Socrates' philosophical proposition (1) As the universality and particularity of knowledge, moral education is the final conclusion of Socrates' philosophical proposition. Socrates' thinking about whether virtue can be taught is reflected in his proposition that virtue is knowledge. Logically speaking, the answer to whether virtue can be taught must be based on the answer to whether virtue is knowledge. This is very obvious in Plato's protagoras and MINO. Both of these dialogues started with the question of whether virtue can be taught, but the main question they discussed was how virtue can be used as knowledge. MINO, an aristocratic youth in Athens, asked Socrates whether virtue could be taught, but Socrates asked MINO to give a complete definition of virtue. MINO listed the virtues of men, women, children, free people and so on. Socrates' satire on MINO is like asking what a bee is, but you use a large nest of all kinds of bees as the answer. "The same is true of virtues. No matter how many kinds and differences they have, they all have a common nature, which makes them virtues; And those who want to answer the question of what virtue is, it is best to focus on this common nature. " [1] Socrates always asks about universal concepts in dialogues, because when the other party answers the question "What is virtue", they are almost always talking about external effects and attributes, not internal essence. Aristotle said that "Socrates' ethical method" is "looking for a universal definition", and this universal definition is "knowledge". "Virtue" and "knowledge" have inherent unity, which is the unity of standardization and truth, and the unity of logic and history. The characteristic of knowledge is its authenticity. Virtue is equal to knowledge, and the universality and certainty of morality are inferred through the objectivity, universality and certainty of knowledge, which expresses the essence of Socrates' virtue. But Socrates' philosophical proposition "Virtue is knowledge" is often regarded as a paradox. Because the natural extension of this proposition is "no one wants to do evil." "In fact, many people with knowledge of virtue are still unwilling to do good deeds. But it ignores the theoretical background or intention of Socrates' proposition. This proposition aims at opposing the virtue view of the ancient Greek wise men, trying to establish a rational moral philosophy, improving people's souls and reviving the polis. Socrates lived in Athens, which was an era when the ceremony collapsed and the music broke down. City-state slavery declined, and traditional ethical values faced collapse. Wise men explore the concept of virtue from natural desires and corrode the hearts of the younger generation. Protagoras said: "Man is the yardstick of all things", thinking that all feelings and impressions are true, while feelings are ever-changing, so truth is only relative. The wise men in ancient Greece held moral relativity. It is believed that morality depends on individuals and there is no absolute standard. Therefore, to teach people virtue is not to teach people to believe in an eternal thing, but to convince others and believe in their own ideas. The school of wise men, represented by protagoras and gorgias, preached relativism and emotionalism based on personal feelings and desires, polluted citizens' souls, and spread the wrong purpose of life in the polis. Socrates sharply criticized the wise men and defended hedonism and hegemonism, which was the theoretical root of Athens' moral decline and social unrest. However, it is worth noting that virtue, as knowledge, has its particularity. This understanding comes from rational reflection rather than external or subjective feelings. Only by transcending the specific sensory experience, reflecting on one's life as a whole and gaining insight into the natural nature in one's soul can virtue be observed. Socrates asked all citizens to reform their moral life and find a truly valuable life. Socrates' philosophical mission is to pursue the universal definition of virtue. The knowledge of virtue is the knowledge of people's ideas, self-knowledge and "self-knowledge". By pursuing knowledge, practicing virtue and establishing firm moral values, we can realize goodness. This is the true meaning and value of life. (2) The misunderstanding between "virtue can be taught" and "virtue cannot be taught" comes from the proposition that virtue is knowledge. Socrates declared, "If virtue is knowledge, then it is teachable, and vice versa. If virtue is teachable, then it is knowledge". Obviously, for Socrates, there is an inherent logical relationship between "virtue is knowledge" and "virtue can be taught". The knowledge of virtue must first be the premise and foundation of its teachability. However, in Plato's Dialogues, when the dialogue between Socrates and MINO comes to an end, we are hesitating whether virtue can be taught-since there is no virtue teacher, how can we say that virtue can be taught? Common sense is taught by teachers. Why are there no teachers who teach people virtue? Socrates' moral thought embodies two opposing views: "Virtue can be taught" and "Virtue cannot be taught". In argumentation, the two viewpoints are often intertwined. To understand this paradox accurately, we must distinguish the meaning of "knowledge" from that of "teaching". Socrates' "knowledge" virtue is different from the "skill" virtue understood by the wise. In the debate with protagoras, Socrates denied the kind of "skills" and "knowledge" that the wise master and impart by questioning the virtues that the wise can impart-he thought that it was not the real "knowledge" about people's life and behavior at all, but only "opinions" in essence. The educational activities of "imparting virtue" boasted by the wise are not really "virtue education". Socrates said that "virtue cannot be taught" was criticizing the educational activities of the wise. A wise man or a wise teacher who teaches various wisdom skills, such as speaking, debating and earning money, publicly claims that he knows the knowledge of virtue, is competent in teaching virtue, and shows self-confidence and arrogance in what he does. Ouxude Hume and his brother Dionyso Dolo claim that we believe we can teach virtue-no one in the world can do it so well and so fast! Wise men preach that virtue can be taught, attracting a large number of young people who advocate virtue. One by one, they took money out of their pockets, hoping that the wise could teach them virtue. However, in Socrates' and Plato's view, the popularity of intellectual skills, which aims at politics, earning money and other practical objects, has just corrupted people's virtue, and the wise man is the chief culprit. Socrates stood against the wise men teaching morality by instilling subjective assumptions, and came to the conclusion that "virtue cannot be taught". Socrates' denial of the existence of virtue teachers is actually a denial of the "moral preaching" of the wise. Virtue can not be obtained by virtue-oriented preaching and learning, but can be fully understood by the "ignorance consciousness" of the moral subject. (3) Resolving the "Paradox"-The Art of Su Moral Education in the chapter ""said: "It is impossible for a person to explore what he knows, because he already knows; It is impossible to seek what he doesn't know, because he doesn't know what he should seek. MINO's query is obviously a challenge to the possibility of virtue "teaching" and "learning". In response to this problem, Socrates believes that knowledge is given by God in people's hearts. " "Teaching" is actually to help people clear the cover of the real world and complete the memory of past virtues, instead of directly giving or "teaching" this knowledge to others like teaching other kinds of knowledge or skills. "I am a midwife who does not impart knowledge to others, but produces knowledge by herself. "Only with the help of a philosophical midwife can we awaken the virtue in our hearts through dialogue and let the truth appear. Socrates asked people to shift their attention from the outside world to their own hearts. Virtue exists in everyone's mind, and people can only study their own souls to find the inherent knowledge and wisdom in their hearts. In Socrates' view, virtue education is to remind and guide the soul's self-education and guide itself to develop towards goodness. The way of education is to let the soul "recall" itself through "midwifery", and think that the beginning of question and answer is the beginning of virtue education. Spiritual midwifery is not a tool and method to achieve a certain goal, but the most basic and primitive way of human existence, which has become the realm of truth and human existence and manifestation. Socrates jumped out of the "Minos Paradox", abandoned the traditional way of virtue teaching, and adopted another kind of "teaching", that is, examining the moral concepts and concepts in his soul, and thought that life without this kind of examination was worthless. Second, the criticism and deepening of Socrates' proposition of virtue Socrates is limited to the paranoid pursuit of the universal nature of the concept of virtue, and does not properly distinguish the different categories of virtue, so that the tension between practice and reason cannot be properly handled. Because of this, Socrates' proposition of virtue met with many refutations. Aristotle criticized: "Socrates believes that knowledge of virtue is the purpose." Because he believes that all virtues are knowledge, understanding justice and justice appear at the same time; Because once we learn geometry and architecture, we are also architects and geometricians. Therefore, although he often discusses what virtue is, he does not pursue how virtue comes into being and where it comes from. Theoretically speaking, this is correct. However, the purpose of creating knowledge is different from knowledge and cognition. For example, health is different from medicine, and good order or other such phenomena are different from politics. [2] Socrates obliterated the contradiction between knowing and doing, emphasizing the role of "knowledge" in virtue acquisition, while ignoring the importance of "behavior", which led to the separation of knowing and doing. Socrates emphasized human rationality very much, and even equated human with rationality, thus ignoring the role of irrational parts (emotion, will, habits, etc.) in the mind. ) in the formation of morality. Plato and Aristotle later noticed this. Plato divided the human soul into three parts: reason, passion and desire in the Republic, and thought that the state in which the three parts perform their duties and live in harmony is the state of justice of the soul. As Aristotle analyzed, Socrates canceled the irrational part of the soul, thus canceling the passion and character. It is incorrect to treat virtue like this. In order to bridge the gap between moral value and practice, Aristotle further deepened the question of whether virtue can be taught on the basis of Socrates and Plato. Aristotle divided virtue into intellectual virtue and moral virtue. Intellectual virtue mainly occurs and develops through teaching, while moral virtue is cultivated through habit. Rational virtue can be taught, but moral virtue can't be taught if it is achieved through social customs and practice, but the cultivation and practice of moral virtue depends on the guidance of rational virtue. Without the guidance of rational virtue, moral virtue will be blind and even extreme. Aristotle's classification of virtue, to some extent, has found a way to solve the paradox of virtue teachability. "Virtue" is a complex concept including rationality and irrationality, cognition and emotion, belief and action. Different understandings of "morality" and "teaching" eventually lead to different understandings of "whether morality can be taught". In the history of modern western moral philosophy, Shapsbury took the lead in proposing that virtue originates from emotion rather than rationality. David hume and Adam Smith believe that emotion can be the basis of virtue because there is sympathy in human nature, while Schopenhauer and Nietzsche attribute virtue to will. Rousseau and Hall believe that natural nature is the essence of virtue. Bao Ersheng, an ethicist, inherited Aristotle's theory and thought that the teaching of virtue was a combination of practice and rational training, which must be practiced first. From the perspective of behavioral analysis of "teaching", the British philosopher Ryle thinks that virtue can be taught or not. If "teaching" is understood as consciously setting an example for children and instilling moral values, then virtue can be taught. If "teaching" is understood as the subtle influence on others in daily life, then virtue cannot be taught. McIntyre pointed out: "The most striking feature of contemporary moral discourse is that it is so often used to express differences; The most striking feature of various debates expressing these differences is their endless nature. " [3] The uncertainty of defining the concept of virtue leads people to inadvertently change the connotation or attribute of the concept of virtue when talking about whether virtue can be taught. Virtue cannot be taught, but the key is "what kind of virtue" and "what kind of teaching". These two key points are related. Different understandings of virtue will lead to different ways of virtue education. (See the table below) Understanding and teaching methods of virtue The essence of virtue is taught by instilling knowledge (rationality), dictating, inspiring, critically guiding emotion (will), training, practice and setting an example. Nature cannot be taught. The result of the discussion on whether virtue can be taught in western ethics can be summarized as: "What is morality?" "What is teaching?" Oral teaching can be divided into oral teaching and training teaching. The former focuses on imparting knowledge, rational training and rational cultivation, while the latter focuses on habit formation, skill training and practical guidance. Accordingly, on the question of whether morality can be taught, it is concluded that knowledge-derived morality can be taught orally, moral behavior can be taught by training, and emotion and will cannot be taught. But virtue as a whole, knowledge, emotion and behavior are interrelated and inseparable. It is not entirely accurate to decompose virtue into several elements and discuss whether it can be taught. Influenced by western moral relativism and philosophical liberalism, Trykhin Tafer-Rice, a western scholar, denied the traditional value of virtue on the basis of modern political philosophy and gave a negative answer to whether virtue can be taught. In his view, virtue is purely a personal matter, so it is dispensable, and virtue can be learned but not taught. He said: "Virtue is incredibly learnable, but it is not necessarily obvious that it can be taught. We can acquire virtue and even seem to learn virtue, but it is difficult to prove that we can teach virtue or teach virtue to each other. " [4] Contemporary social values are diversified, and people's pursuit of individualism and liberalism has greatly caused the weakness of virtue. However, we can't ignore the significance of Socrates' exploration of moral education. Socrates seeks the basis of how virtue is possible, regards the wisdom and reason hidden in himself as the solid foundation of virtue, and encourages people to purify their hearts for a lasting and beautiful life. Thirdly, the modernity of "whether virtue is teachable" inspired ancient Greek scholars in Socrates' era to explore the question of "whether virtue is teachable" from the perspectives of philosophy, ethics and political science. The meaning of "teaching" they adopted refers to daily semantics, which is obviously different from "teaching" in the context of pedagogy. "Virtue can be taught" put forward by ancient Greek scholars is a proposition in social life, not in school life. At that time, the educational entity, even if it was called "school", was very different from the modern institutionalized school. With the development of institutionalized school system, "morality" and "teaching" have lost the original connotation of classical moral philosophy. Since modern times, school education has become more and more popular, and people have begun to pay attention to school moral education. In many countries, moral teaching has long been an important form of classroom teaching. Herbart believes that the ultimate goal of teaching is to form five moral concepts and cultivate moral quality. Since 1882, France has stipulated that the moral course is a part of the curriculum, but unlike the teaching of other contents, it is not enough to teach morality as a subject. At the beginning of the 20th century, Dewey criticized the so-called "moral curriculum" and "citizen training" and other direct moral teaching. He believes that the significance of moral education in modern school education is limited, and it can only enable students to acquire the concept of morality and their views on honesty, purity or kindness. A person's moral structure includes four elements: knowledge, emotion, will and action. Knowledge can be taught, but people's emotions, will and behavior are closely related to life and cannot be separated. They can't have a unified answer or model, but morality can't be taught in class. It is precisely because teachers do not have a clear and profound understanding of this issue that they often deviate from the essence of moral education in practice, leading to many disadvantages such as poor moral education effect. Whether it is direct moral education or indirect moral education, people's dissatisfaction and criticism of direct moral education make people turn to indirect moral education, which runs through all courses and activities centered on social practice. Dewey is an active advocate of indirect moral teaching. He emphasized that resorting to school socialization, through all the media, means and links of school and social life, had a positive educational influence on students' character and personality, thus truly forming students' moral concepts. However, practice has proved that the effect of indirect moral education is not as good as people hope. After 1970s, the two moral education methods gradually approached from the debate. Wilson believes that in the current school moral education, direct methods and indirect methods coexist, but they are separate. As a result, what students learn from the direct teaching or academic environment cannot be translated into actual behaviors, and the "reasons" and "principles" of some behaviors cannot be understood from the non-academic environment or indirect methods. In fact, both direct moral education and indirect moral education have their limitations. Only by combining the advantages and disadvantages of the two teaching methods can we achieve the best results, and the combination of appearance and spirit or machinery will often make the problem worse.