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For other uses, see Virtue (disambiguation).
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This article or section may present a limited, or distorted, point of view, by covering certain aspects to the exclusion of others. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page. |
Personification of virtue (Greek ἀρετή) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey
Virtue (Latin virtus; Greek ἀρετή) is moral excellence of a person. A virtue is a trait valued as being good. The conceptual opposite of virtue is vice.
According to its etymology the word virtue (Latin virtus) signifies manliness or courage. Taken in its widest sense virtue refers to excellence, just as vice, its contrary, denotes the absence of such. In its strictest meaning, however, as used by moral philosophers and theologians, virtue is an operative habit essentially good, as distinguished from vice, an operative habit essentially evil. The four cardinal (hinge) virtues are Justice, Courage, Wisdom, and Moderation. These were enumerated by the Greek philosophers. The three supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope and (unselfish) Love are part of the tradition of Pauline Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Virtue can also be meant in another way. Virtue can either have normative or moral value; i.e. the virtue of a knife is to cut, the virtue of an excellent knife is to cut well (this is its normative value) vs. the virtues of reason, prudence, chastity, etc. (which have moral value).
In the Greek it is more properly called ἠθικὴ ἀρετή (ēthikē aretē). It is "habitual excellence". It is something practiced at all times. The virtue of perseverance is needed for all and any virtue since it is a habit of character and must be used continuously in order for any person to maintain oneself in virtue. However, Friedrich Nietzsche stated that \'when virtue has slept, it will arise all the more vigorous\'.
The four classic Western cardinal virtues are:
This enumeration is traced to Greek philosophy, and was listed at least by Plato, if not also by Socrates, from whom no attributable written works exist. Plato also mentions "Holiness".
It is likely that Plato believed that virtue was, in fact, a single thing, and that this enumeration was created by others in order to better define virtue. In Protagoras and Meno, he states that the separate virtues cannot exist independently, and offers as evidence the contradictions of acting with wisdom (prudence), yet in an unjust way, or acting with bravery (fortitude), yet without wisdom (prudence).
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes every virtue as a balance point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait. The point of greatest virtue lies not in the exact middle, but at a "golden mean" closer to one of the extremes than the other. E.g.:
Seneca, the Roman Stoic, said that perfect prudence is indistinguishable from perfect virtue. Thus, in considering all consequences, a prudent person would act in the same way as a virtuous person.
The same rationale was followed by Plato in Meno, when he wrote that people only act for what they perceive will maximize the good. It is the lack of wisdom which results in the making of a bad choice, rather than a good one. In this way, wisdom is the central part of virtue. However, he realized that if virtue was synonymous with wisdom, then it could be taught, a possibility he had earlier discounted. He then added "correct belief" as an alternative to knowledge, proposing that knowledge is merely correct belief that has been thought through and "tethered".
In Christianity, the theological virtues are faith, hope and charity or love/agape, a list which comes from 1 Corinthians 13:13 (νυνι δε μενει πιστις ελπις αγαπη τα τρια ταυτα μειζων δε τουτων η αγαπη pistis, elpis, agape). These are said to perfect one\'s love of God and Man and therefore (since God is super-rational) to harmonize and partake of prudence.
There are many listings of virtue additional to the traditional Christian virtures (faith, hope and love) in the Christian Bible. One is the so-called "Fruit of the Spirit," found in Galatians 5:22-23:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989).
22 Ὁ δὲ καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἀγάπη χαρὰ εἰρήνη, μακροθυμία χρηστότης ἀγαθωσύνη, πίστις 23 πραΰτης ἐγκράτεια· κατὰ τῶν τοιούτων οὐκ ἔστιν νόμος. Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger and Allen Wikgren, The Greek New Testament, 4th ed. (Federal Republic of Germany: United Bible Societies, 1993, c1979).
Buddhist practice as outlined in the Noble Eightfold Path can be regarded as a progressive list of virtues.
Buddhism\'s four brahmavihara ("Divine States") can be more properly regarded as virtues in the European sense. The are:
There are also the Paramitas ("perfections").
In Theravada Buddhism\'s canonical BuddhavamsaBuddhavamsa, chapter 2. For an on-line reference to the Buddhavamsa\'s seminality in the Theravada notion of parami, see Bodhi (2005).
In terms of other examples in the Pali literature, Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 454, entry for "Pāramī," (retrieved 2007-06-24) cites Jataka i.73 and Dhammapada Atthakatha i.84. Bodhi (2005) also mentions Acariya Dhammapala\'s treatise in the Cariyapitaka-Atthakatha and the Brahmajala Sutta subcommentary (tika). the Ten Perfections (dasa pāramiyo) are (original terms in Pali):
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika), lists the Six Perfections as (original terms in Sanskrit):
In the Ten Stages (Dasabhumika) Sutra, four more Paramitas are listed:
In Hagakure, the quintessential book of the samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo encapsulates his views on \'virtue\' in the four vows he makes daily:
Tsunetomo goes on to say:
If one dedicates these four vows to the gods and Buddhas every morning, he will have the strength of two men and never slip backward. One must edge forward like the inchworm, bit by bit. The gods and Buddhas, too, first started with a vow.
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche often took a more cynical view on virtue. A few of his key thoughts:
Virtues can be placed into a broader context of values. Each individual has a core of underlying values that contribute to our system of beliefs, ideas and/or opinions (see value in semiotics). Integrity in the application of a value ensures its continuity and this continuity separates a value from beliefs, opinion and ideas. In this context a value (e.g., Truth or Equality or Greed) is the core from which we operate or react. Societies have values that are shared among many of the participants in that culture. An individual\'s values typically are largely, but not entirely, in agreement with their culture\'s values.
Individual virtues can be grouped into one of four categories of values:
A value system is the ordered and prioritized set of values (usually of the ethical and doctrinal categories described above) that an individual or society holds.
Some virtues (a virtue is a character trait valued as being good) recognized in various Western cultures of the world include:
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The opposite of a virtue is a vice. One way of organizing the vices is as the corruption of the virtues. Thus the cardinal vices would be folly, venality, cowardice and lust. The Christian theological vices would be blasphemy, despair, and hatred.
However, as Aristotle noted, the virtues can have several opposites. Virtues can be considered the mean between two extremes, as the Latin maxim dictates in medio stat virtus - in the centre lies virtue. For instance, both cowardice and rashness are opposites of courage; contrary to prudence are both over-caution and insufficient caution. A more "modern" virtue, tolerance, can be considered the mean between the two extremes of narrow-mindedness on the one hand and soft-headedness on the other. Vices can therefore be identified as the opposites of virtues, but with the caveat that each virtue could have many different opposites, all distinct from each other.
The seven capital vices or seven deadly sins suggest a classification of vices and were enumerated by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions them as "capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great."[1] "Capital" here means that these sins stand at the head (Latin caput) of the other sins which proceed from them, e.g., theft proceeding from avarice and adultery from lust.
These vices are pride, envy, avarice, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth. The opposite of these vices are the following virtues: meekness, humility, generosity, tolerance, chastity, moderation, and zeal (meaning enthusiastic devotion to a good cause or an ideal). These virtues are not exactly equivalent to the Seven Cardinal or Theological Virtues mentioned above. Instead these capital vices and virtues can be considered the "building blocks" that rule human behaviour. Both are acquired and reinforced by practice and the exercise of one induces or facilitates the others.
Ranked in order of severity as per Dante\'s Divine Comedy (in the Purgatorio), the seven deadly vices are:
Several of these vices interlink, and various attempts at causal hierarchy have been made. For example, pride (love of self out of proportion) is implied in gluttony (the over-consumption or waste of food), as well as sloth, envy, and most of the others. Each sin is a particular way of failing to love God with all one\'s resources and to love fellows as much as self. The Scholastic theologians developed schema of attribute and substance of will to explain these sins.
The 4th century Egyptian monk Evagrius Ponticus defined the sins as deadly "passions," and in Eastern Orthodoxy, still these impulses are characterized as being "Deadly Passions" rather than sins. Instead, the sins are considered to invite or entertain these passions. In the official Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 1992 by Pope John Paul II, these seven vices are considered moral transgression for Christians and the virtues should complement the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes as the basis for any true Morality.
"Virtue", translated from Chinese de (德), is also an important concept in Chinese philosophy, particularly Daoism. De (Chinese: 德; pinyin: dé; Wade-Giles: te) originally meant normative "virtue" in the sense of "personal character; inner strength; integrity", but semantically changed to moral "virtue; kindness; morality". Note the semantic parallel for English virtue, with an archaic meaning of "inner potency; divine power" (as in "by virtue of") and a modern one of "moral excellence; goodness".
Confucian moral manifestations of "virtue" include ren ("humanity"), xiao ("filial piety"), and zhong ("loyalty") In Confucianism the notion of ren according to Simon Leys means "humanity" and "goodness". Originally ren had the archaic meaning in the Confucian Book of Poems of "virility", then progressively took on shades of ethical meaning. (On the origins and transformations of this concept see Lin Yu-sheng: "The evolution of the pre-Confucian meaning of jen and the Confucian concept of moral autonomy," Monumenta Serica, vol31, 1974-75.)
The Daoist concept of De, however, is more subtle, pertaining to the "virtue" or ability that an individual realizes by following the Dao ("the Way"). One important normative value in much of Chinese thinking is that one\'s social status should result from the amount of virtue that one demonstrates rather than from one\'s birth. In the Analects, Confucius explains de: "He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it." (2/1, tr. James Legge)[1]
Martin Seligman, Christopher Peterson, and other researchers involved in the positive psychology movement, recognizing the deficiency inherent in psychology\'s tendency to focus on dysfunction rather than on what makes a healthy and stable personality, set out to develop a list of "Character Strengths and Virtues"Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford University Press. (ISBN 0195167015) applicable to the widest possible range of human cultures. Although few if any virtues are truly universally valued, Seligman and his team found that the ones on their list are all considered important by an overwhelming majority of cultures.Seligman, Martin E.P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press. pp. 132-133. (ISBN 0-7432-2297-0) Rare communities that do not admire kindness or courage may exist, but they are clearly exceptional.
The researchers discovered a total of twenty-four virtues that are ubiquitous, divided into six basic types.
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