"The Sanskrit term Rita (or Rta) , found in the Vedas, might be translated rightness, and it has the same root as the Persian Arta and the Greek Arete. The equivalent among the Hebrews was the word Torah, though in later Judaism the word was confined to the written laws of Moses."
"Autarky or self-sufficiency was the human ideal. It is useful to compare it to the Greek ideal of arete or all-around excellence. Odysseus, for example, exhibited arete: he could build a ship, sail it, command men, flay and roast an ox, shoot a bow, wield a spear, throw a discus, and be moved to tears by a song. He was not a specialist, but a complete man who was equal to any occasion: that is the essence of arete."
From what I can glean from various lexica and commentaries, "virtue" is the Latin translation for the Greek word "arete". The later may derive from the verb "arariskein" = "to fit", from which we get both "art" and "arithmetic". Both words originally had a hint of the "manly arts of war" in them, as echoed in L: "vir" = "man" and Gk: "Ares", God of War.
So, it seems that arete can mean anything from moral maturity to technical virtuosity, much like Taoists use the word "Tao".
The initial question in the Plato's 'Meno' was as above, "whether virtue can be taught", and what developed next was the tentative suggestion that if it was just a form of knowledge (I think "episteme" was the word), then it could be taught, since that much was already assumed as being given, at least, for the sake of the argument and as long as the moment in question might last.
This style of "factorization" of a difficult problem, that is to say, a Fact in question, into a no-brainer Rule plus a most likely easier Case to which the hard nut "cracks" or "reduces" follows the pattern that Aristotle later dubbed as "apagoge" or what we call "abduction". ...
As it happens, this tactic of strategic reduction is formally analogous to the "divide and conquer" strategy that is used throughout computer science to deal with complex and difficult problems."
" (Some believe that) Only God, in His grace, can rescue humans from this state (of inherent sinfulness) . ... other biblical passages, such as Psalm 119, clearly indicate the value of teaching ethics.
Secular thinkers such as Hobbes and Machiavelli echo the belief that humans are basically egoistic, power-hungry, even violent creatures. Nietzsche raised slightly different concerns, worrying that the teaching of ethics can encourage a both a subservient, life-denying obedience and a hypocritical dynamic in which humans disguise their ways of gaining power of others. As Plato expressed it in the Republic, all of us want to be seen as good, but not all of us want to be good."
"A people deficient in moral restraint or civic virtue, (James) Madison understood, could not long govern itself; unbounded human passions would finally tear the republic to pieces. Utterly undisciplined peoples are not fit for self-government, he insisted, but require 'nothing less than the chains of despotism [to] restrain them from destroying or devouring one another.'
But how are American citizens to acquire the moral self-mastery required for self-government? To be sure, the Founders did not suppose that their new government would seek directly to inculcate those virtues in its citizens. Rather, as Federalist No. 55 suggests, American self-government 'presupposes" moral self-mastery'. "
"I have just finished a modest home-improvement project of my own, that has occupied me for many months. ...
My son, a lively and intelligent boy, with all the energy and imagination a ten-year-old should have, displays no interest in my handiwork. He and his sister will grow up expecting to have someone do that kind of thing for them. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about this. ...
I remember being a ten-year-old myself, spending hours watching my next-door neighbor, a butcher by trade but an amateur cabinet-maker by inclination, manipulating his saws, planes, chisels and spokeshaves. My kids won’t even know what a spokeshave is, and won’t care. My neighbor was a keen gardener, too, and also a war veteran. There was nothing much unusual in 1955 about an ordinary working man of little education knowing the arts of soldiering, gardening, butchering, and cabinet-making. I suppose this man’s grandchildren occupy themselves with watching TV, day trading on their computers, and working out their income taxes. I suppose my kids will do likewise."