This Socratic position, which he argues for in several dialogues, is usually summed up in the phrase “no one does wrong willingly” (for instance, Gorgias 475e, Protagoras 358d). If I always want to do what is good, then my doing bad can only be the result of incomplete information. If I steal or kill, I must think stealing or killing is good, when really it is bad. This gets us closer to understanding Socrates’ strange way of conducting his search for the virtuous life. For him vice and wrongdoing are always the result of ignorance: not the benign Socratic ignorance of knowing one doesn’t
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