Can virtue be taught, or is it merely a mask donned by those who are naturally inclined toward, or incentivized by, its appearance?

The question is not whether virtue can be taught, but whether teaching it makes it so. The court instructs in ritual and righteousness, yet corruption festers beneath the surface like rot in a painted beam. Regulus, the "rascal," as Pliny calls him, is merely the fruit of a system that values the appearance of virtue over the thing itself. Water does not lecture the thirsty on the merits of quenching. It simply flows. True virtue arises from the Tao, an unforced alignment with the way things are. The more we strive to instill it through rules and pronouncements, the further we stray from its source. Better to cultivate the soil than to scold the weeds.

Whether virtue can be taught! As if the question were not whether stupidity can be cured. Plutarch, bless his heart, imagines schoolrooms breeding honesty. I say, look to the courts, the churches, the palaces! See Regulus, that "rascal" Pliny describes, draped in the robes of righteousness while picking pockets! Virtue is not instilled by rote, but by example, and good examples are scarce as hen's teeth. One might as well attempt to teach a rock to sing. I have seen more virtue in a single act of kindness from a simple farmer than in a thousand sermons from a bishop. Perhaps, then, we should focus less on schooling virtue and more on cultivating a society where rascality is swiftly punished. Il faut cultiver notre jardin, beginning with the weeding.