Virtue and Vice
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Virtue and Vice
Both types of principle favor proportionality, or dividing one's concern among objects in proportion to their degrees of value; the chapter represents both visually, using graphs. Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter. Please, subscribe or login to access full text content. To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use for details see www. University Press Scholarship Online. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Search my Subject Specializations: Classical, Early, and Medieval Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval Poetry and Poets: Thus, in considering all consequences, a prudent person would act in the same way as a virtuous person.
It is the lack of wisdom that results in the making of a bad choice instead of a prudent one. In this way, wisdom is the central part of virtue. Plato realized that because virtue was synonymous with wisdom 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". The term "virtue" itself is derived from the Latin "virtus" the personification of which was the deity Virtus , and had connotations of "manliness" , "honour" , worthiness of deferential respect, and civic duty as both citizen and soldier. This virtue was but one of many virtues which Romans of good character were expected to exemplify and pass on through the generations, as part of the Mos Maiorum ; ancestral traditions which defined "Roman-ness".
Romans distinguished between the spheres of private and public life, and thus, virtues were also divided between those considered to be in the realm of private family life as lived and taught by the paterfamilias , and those expected of an upstanding Roman citizen. Most Roman concepts of virtue were also personified as a numinous deity.
The primary Roman virtues, both public and private, were:. In CE, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens listed seven "heavenly virtues" in his book Psychomachia Battle of Souls which is an allegorical story of conflict between vices and virtues. The virtues depicted were:. In the 8th Century, upon the occasion of his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne published a list of knightly virtues:.
Love God Love your neighbour Give alms to the poor Entertain strangers Visit the sick Be merciful to prisoners Do ill to no man, nor consent unto such Forgive as ye hope to be forgiven Redeem the captive Help the oppressed Defend the cause of the widow and orphan Render righteous judgement Do not consent to any wrong Persevere not in wrath Shun excess in eating and drinking Be humble and kind Serve your liege lord faithfully Do not steal Do not perjure yourself, nor let others do so Envy, hatred and violence separate men from the Kingdom of God Defend the Church and promote her cause.
Loving God and obeying his laws, in particular the Ten Commandments , are central to Jewish conceptions of virtue. Wisdom is personified in the first eight chapters of the Book of Proverbs and is not only the source of virtue but is depicted as the first and best creation of God Proverbs 8: Wisdom is also celebrated in the Book of Wisdom. Renowned in the Jewish tradition as a sage and a scholar, he is associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud and, as such, one of the most important figures in Jewish history.
Asked for a summary of the Jewish religion in the most concise terms, Hillel replied reputedly while standing on one leg: That is the whole Torah.
The rest is commentary; go and learn. In Christianity , the three theological virtues are faith , hope and love , a list which comes from 1 Corinthians The same chapter describes love as the greatest of the three, and further defines love as "patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. Christian scholars frequently add the four Greek cardinal virtues prudence, justice, temperance, and courage to the theological virtues to give the seven virtues ; for example, these seven are the ones described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church , sections — The Bible mentions additional virtues, such as in the " Fruit of the Holy Spirit ," found in Galatians 5: There is absolutely no law against such a thing.
The medieval and renaissance periods saw a number of models of sin listing the seven deadly sins and the virtues opposed to each. In Islam, the Qur'an is believed to be the literal word of God, and the definitive description of virtue. Muhammad is considered an ideal example of virtue in human form. The hadiths , his reported sayings, are central to the Islamic understanding of virtue. Virtue is defined in hadith. It is reported by An-Nawwas bin Sam'an:. For Muslims fulfilling the human rights are valued as an important building block of Islam, According to Muslim beliefs Allah will forgive individual sins but the bad treatment of humans and injustice with others will only be pardoned by the humans and not by Allah.
In Jainism , attainment of enlightenment is possible only if the seeker possesses certain virtues.
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All Jains are supposed to take up the five vows of ahimsa non violence , satya truthfulness , asteya non stealing , aparigraha non attachment and brahmacharya celibacy before becoming a monk. These vows are laid down by the Tirthankaras. Other virtues which are supposed to be followed by both monks as well as laypersons include forgiveness, humility, self-restraint and straightforwardness.
These vows assists the seeker to escape from the karmic bondages thereby escaping the cycle of birth and death to attain liberation. Virtue is a much debated [17] and an evolving concept in ancient scriptures of Hinduism. For example, Apastamba explained it thus: Virtues lead to punya Sanskrit: Sometimes, the word punya is used interchangeably with virtue. The virtues that constitute a dharmic life - that is a moral, ethical, virtuous life - evolve in vedas and upanishads.
Over time, new virtues were conceptualized and added by ancient Hindu scholars, some replaced, others merged. For example, Manusamhita initially listed ten virtues necessary for a human being to live a dharmic life: The shorter list of virtues became: The Bhagavad Gita - considered one of the epitomes of historic Hindu discussion of virtues and an allegorical debate on what is right and what is wrong - argues some virtues are not necessarily always absolute, but sometimes relational; for example, it explains a virtue such as Ahimsa must be re-examined when one is faced with war or violence from the aggressiveness, immaturity or ignorance of others.
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. There are also the Paramitas "perfections" , which are the culmination of having acquired certain virtues.
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". In early periods of Confucianism , moral manifestations of "virtue" include ren " humanity " , xiao " filial piety " , and li " proper behavior, performance of rituals ".
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The notion of ren - according to Simon Leys - means "humanity" and "goodness". Ren originally had the archaic meaning in the Confucian Book of Poems of "virility", but progressively took on shades of ethical meaning. The Daoist concept of De , compared to Confucianism, 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 as follows: In Hagakure , Yamamoto Tsunetomo encapsulates his views on 'virtue' in the four vows he makes daily: 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. While ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato , Aristotle , and their descendants opined that justice cannot be defined and that it was a divine mystery, Valluvar positively suggested that a divine origin is not required to define the concept of justice.
Degrees of Virtue and Vice
In the words of V. Nedunchezhiyan , justice according to Valluvar "dwells in the minds of those who have knowledge of the standard of right and wrong; so too deceit dwells in the minds which breed fraud. Men should seek the sovereign good that Descartes, following Zeno , identifies with virtue, as this produces a solid blessedness or pleasure.
There are also the Paramitas "perfections" , which are the culmination of having acquired certain virtues. We have focused on the following standards:. The exploration of this basic challenge to virtue theory promises to carry on the pioneering work of Owen Flanagan, who first brought philosophers' attention to the situationist challenge and who championed what he labeled the "Principle of Minimal Psychological Realism": In experiments no longer permitted by twenty-first-century ethical guidelines, subjects were duped into administering what they were led to believe were severe electric shocks to their "victims" or invited to "role-play" as prison guards to such an extent that the subsequent sadistic behavior caused the researchers to abort the exercise. Most Roman concepts of virtue were also personified as a numinous deity. Any version of virtue ethics gives primacy of place to moral character over action, to the aretaic over the deontic, and sees the individual's development of virtues and elimination of vices as the best assurance that good deeds right actions will be forthcoming.
For Epicurus the sovereign good was pleasure, and Descartes says that in fact this is not in contradiction with Zeno's teaching, because virtue produces a spiritual pleasure, that is better than bodily pleasure. Regarding Aristotle 's opinion that happiness depends on the goods of fortune, Descartes does not deny that these goods contribute to happiness, but remarks that they are in great proportion outside one's own control, whereas one's mind is under one's complete control. Immanuel Kant , in his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime , expresses true virtue as different from what commonly is known about this moral trait.
In Kant's view, to be goodhearted, benevolent and sympathetic is not regarded as true virtue. The only aspect that makes a human truly virtuous is to behave in accordance with moral principles.
VIRTUE AND VICE Assuming that human agents possess settled dispositions or character traits, some of which are especially deemed worthy of praise while. Virtue is the mean between two extremes. As Aristotle explained, Virtue is the logical action between two other extreme options. The vices tend to be bad either .
Kant presents an example for more clarification; suppose that you come across a needy person in the street; if your sympathy leads you to help that person, your response does not illustrate your virtue. In this example, since you do not afford helping all needy ones, you have behaved unjustly, and it is out of the domain of principles and true virtue.
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Kant applies the approach of four temperaments to distinguish truly virtuous people. According to Kant, among all people with diverse temperaments, a person with melancholy frame of mind is the most virtuous whose thoughts, words and deeds are one of principles. Friedrich Nietzsche 's view of virtue is based on the idea of an order of rank among people. For Nietzsche, the virtues of the strong are seen as vices by the weak and slavish, thus Nietzsche's virtue ethics is based on his distinction between master morality and slave morality.
Nietzsche promotes the virtues of those he calls "higher men", people like Goethe and Beethoven.
According to Nietzsche these higher types are solitary, pursue a "unifying project", revere themselves and are healthy and life-affirming. The 'Higher type' also "instinctively seeks heavy responsibilities" WP in the form of an "organizing idea" for their life, which drives them to artistic and creative work and gives them psychological health and strength. Finally, a Higher type affirms life because he is willing to accept the eternal return of his life and affirm this forever and unconditionally. In the last section of Beyond Good and Evil , Nietzsche outlines his thoughts on the noble virtues and places solitude as one of the highest virtues:.
And to keep control over your four virtues: These are the virtues [42] that Benjamin Franklin used to develop what he called 'moral perfection'. He had a checklist in a notebook to measure each day how he lived up to his virtues. They became known through Benjamin Franklin's autobiography.
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Marc Jackson in his book Emotion and Psyche puts forward a new development of the virtues. He identifies the virtues as what he calls the good emotions "The first group consisting of love , kindness , joy , faith , awe and pity is good" [43] These virtues differ from older accounts of the virtues because they are not character traits expressed by action, but emotions that are to be felt and developed by feeling not acting.
Ayn Rand held that her morality, the morality of reason , contained a single axiom: All values and virtues proceed from these.
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