---
title: "Socrates: Virtue Is Knowledge Explained | Model Diplomat"
description: "Socrates: Virtue is Knowledge asserts that moral excellence is wisdom, influencing ethics in Model UN and UPSC exams by linking virtue to knowledge."
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/socrates-virtue-is-knowledge"
---

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Model Diplomat Research Team · Last reviewed June 22, 2026

TL;DR

- Socrates' doctrine that virtue is knowledge holds that all moral excellence reduces to wisdom, and that no person knowingly does wrong, making vice a form of ignorance.
- What is the Socratic paradox associated with the doctrine that virtue is knowledge?
- How does Aristotle's view of virtue differ from the Socratic doctrine?
- Why is this doctrine relevant to civil-services ethics (GS4) preparation?
- Does the doctrine claim virtue can be taught?

[Civil Service & Diplomatic Exams](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/civil-services/glossary)Updated June 22, 2026

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Socrates, at his trial in 399 BCE as recorded in Plato's Apology, maintained that injuring others always harms the wrongdoer's own soul, so that those who condemned him acted from ignorance of the good rather than deliberate malice.

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