What is a virtue? How to Cultivate virtue. How Many Virtues are There?
The present critical reconstruction of Platonism emphasizes the function of Platonic virtue-Forms: to serve for individual Platonists as perfect models (paradeigmata) to model their character on. Although this assumes some long-term effort at personally administered character-formation, cultivating particular virtues in oneself, Plato does not explain in much detail either what a virtue is, or what it might mean to cultivate a virtue in oneself.
Plato tends just to pick a few particular qualities, or “excellences” that he assumes are generally admired by Athenians of his time, without developing any more general description of what a virtue is. As to cultivating virtue in oneself, Plato tends to assume an audience of ambitious young men (not the general public) who are already motivated to strive to develop in themselves what Athenians called arētē. Arētē is Plato’s word commonly translated “virtue” but it had the connotation of outstanding excellence. It was also broader in meaning, capable of referring to other kinds of excellence besides moral excellence. Plato wants to redefine true arētē in more strictly moral terms. But he still assimilates virtue to a “skill” such as carpentry that a person might develop. And in referring to attempts to cultivate virtue in ones character (or “soul”) he sometimes uses words that originally referred to physical workouts used by athletes or soldiers to develop athletic abilities useful in athletic contests or on the battlefield.
But for present purposes it will be important to clarify some issues regarding virtue and cultivating virtue, before going on to explain Socratic/Platonic reasoning about virtues, since this reasoning needs to serve the ultimate pragmatic purpose of providing an idealistic individual with virtue-concepts as models (paradeigmata) of moral excellence to cultivate in themselves and model their character on.
One reason this is important is that so much of modern moral thought focuses on moral principles and rules governing external behavior. As will be explained below, the practice of Socratic reasoning shows that pure and perfect models of goodness can never be precisely described in terms of rules for external behavior. No matter what rules one devises, a terrorist or cynical politician can follow the rules in order to appear admirable and gain people’s confidence, for bad motives. This doesn’t mean that there should be no rules, only that becoming more and more admirable as a person can never consist in following more closely some set of rules for external behavior visible to other people.
A virtue is an admirable internal character-trait, not directly visible from the outside, as visible external actions are. A virtue such as kindness will of course manifest itself in external, visible kind behavior when the situation calls for it. But it can’t be said that the virtue of kindness is the behavior. If I am a politician looking for votes, I can act like a kind person, “do kind acts,” without actually being kind as a person. If I donate money to find a cure for AIDS, but do so in order to get votes and enrich myself at the voter’s expense, something good (curing AIDS) might be done, but this goodness is not in me.
One thing difficult about Socratic reasoning is that it ultimately requires describing such things as internal attitudes, motivations, skills, etc., which are much harder to describe clearly than are external actions.
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To explain this in more detail, take the example of the virtue of courage. What does it mean, not just to act courageously, but to be “a courageous person”?
Consider this: The German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz struggled with the problem of how generals could ensure that their foot soldiers would act bravely under enemy fire. The advice he gave to the generals: Threaten to shoot them if they do not stand their ground or charge when ordered to. “Make your men fear you more than they fear the enemy.”
This might produce soldiers who would act the way that brave people would act. But does it produce soldiers who are actually brave? If bravery has something to do with overcoming fear, it seems clearly not. This strategy simply overcomes one fear with another fear.
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If I am a courageous person — if I have courage as an habitual character trait — I will spontaneously act courageously when the situation calls for it. If when faced with danger I have to consult a set of rules or principles telling me what a courageous person would do in this situation — this is a sign that I am not yet a genuinely courageous person. If I am a loving person, I will spontaneously act lovingly when the situation calls for it. If I have to consult a set of rules telling me what a loving person would do in some given situation, this is a sign that I am not yet a genuinely loving person.
A virtue is an admirable character-trait that spontaneously comes into play when the situation calls for it.
A virtue is like a skill. If I am a skillful carpenter, I have a set of skills that spontaneously come into play when I am engaged in woodworking. These skills will manifest themselves in certain behavior when the situation calls for it. But I have these skills even when they are not being manifest in external behavior.
Courage as a character-trait will manifest itself in courageous behavior in situations that call for courage. But not all situations call for courageous behavior, and a courageous person does not cease being a courageous person just because she is not acting courageously at the moment.
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What, more specifically, does the virtue of courage consist in?
One of the best ways of describing this is:
The virtue of courage consists in certain habitual priorities for attention and concern, and skills necessary for implementing those priorities.
A person who lacks courage — say a sailor in a storm — will let her attention be preoccupied with the danger that threatens, and will allow her response to be governed entirely by an instinctive concern to flee the danger, giving way to panic and irrational responses.
A courageous person is one who is able instead to focus her attention on the practical possibilities open to her in this situation. This requires a certain mental skill, “keeping her cool” as we say, functioning creatively to improvise strategies, functioning rationally to assess risks and benefits, a willingness to take short-term risks for the sake of long-term safety.
Courage also requires the ability to weigh priorities: If there are more vulnerable persons aboard, a courageous person who is a good swimmer may let concern for their safety take priority over concern for her own safety. As in the case of many virtues, the virtue of courage might involve a kind of self-lessness, willingness to let concern for others or other important concerns take priority over concern for one’s own safety or advantages.
Courage comes into play in certain situations, and one of its main functions is to overcome certain natural emotional or instinctive responses. Faced with a wave breaking broadside, a sea-kayaker needs to learn to lean into the wave, resisting her instinctive response to lean away from it. Faced with a black bear, the instinctive emotional response of many people is to turn and run — the wrong thing to do in most cases because this tends to trigger a chasing-response on the part of the bear. It takes courage to resist this instinctive response to flee, and calmly and slowly back away.
Courage as a virtue can be described as a fundamental attitude toward the world that has become habitual. This is an attitude that makes short-term personal safety only one concern among others, able to be given up either for long term gain or for other concerns that deserve to take priority in some given situation. This attitude can also be described as an habitual way of being-in-the-world, or habitual way of relating to the world.
One can describe what makes courage admirable by describing what motivates courage in the ideal case. Admirable courage can be differentiated from mere foolhardiness — foolish risk-taking in order to show off — by saying that admirable courage is motivated by a good sense of priorities and of proportion between risks taken and benefits to be gained by taking certain risks.
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A virtue can thus be described in terms of
-motivations,
-skills,
-fundamental attitudes,
-habitual priorities for attention and concern
all of these being parts of a person’s character that are present whether they are manifesting externally at the moment or not, but which spontaneously come into play when the situation calls for them.
It is obvious from all this that virtues are internal and invisible to the general public. To switch to the case of love: The general public can know whether I am acting in a loving fashion or nor. Only my very best friends can have a good idea about whether or not I am actually a loving person. This is also why, for a good Platonist “virtue is its own reward.” I can be motivated to act in ways others consider admirable, in order to gain certain social advantages for myself. But for this purpose it only matters that I put on the external “appearances” of virtue, not that I actually have admirable internal attitudes and habitual motives invisible to others, the “essence” of virtue according to Plato.
This is a point implied in Plato’s discussion of the virtue of rightness (dikaiosyne) in the Republic. In order to make clear the distinction between merely having a reputation or “seeming” (doxa) of rightness, and truly being (einai) right. he pictures two extreme cases. One case is the most extremely unjust person, who manages to gain a reputation (doxa) for rightness, and reap the benefits of such a reputation, while actually being most un-right. The other case is the extreme opposite of this — a person who is actually most right, but who seems to the general public to be most unright, and might even be put to death for he supposed unrightness. His reason for picturing this extreme case is that this is the test of a person who truly loves rightness — is he being right for the sake of the social benefits he will derive from this, or because he truly loves true rightness, and will be willing to die for this? (Plato undoubtedly has Socrates partly in mind here.) Internal love for rightness is not necessarily visible from the outside, but it is the true “essence” of rightness.
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What does it mean to cultivate a virtue?
Cultivating a virtue means not only changing one’s behavior, but changing one’s character, changing the qualities and habits of mind that make me the kind of person I am.
We are familiar with the idea that different people have different personalities and character-traits. Some people are gentle, some brave, some ambitious, some laid back, some calm, some high-strung. We are familiar with the idea that parents or teachers might try to “mold the character” of their children or students. We are also familiar with cases in which certain life-experiences (such as war, suffering, traveling, or solitude) can make someone “a changed person.” It seems likely that most people past a certain age have taken some hand in deliberately choosing, and making themselves, the kind of person they want to be.
But making self-administered character-formation a major task in life seems more rare today.
Cultivating a virtue is something like self-administered moral therapy. It is something like therapy in that psychotherapy is also aimed not just at changing a person’s behavior, but at changing their internal dynamics, changing those forces that motivate their spontaneous reactions to the world. It is like therapy in that, though I can change my behavior tomorrow, changing my internal psychological dynamics generally takes time. Cultivating a virtue requires patience with oneself, since molding one’s own character is a long-term process that takes time.
Cultivating virtue as a Platonist is unlike those kinds of therapy that aim just to remedy problems preventing a person from being “normal” and “well adjusted.” Platonist virtue-cultivation has the aim of perfecting one’s character, raising it to a higher level than it would be if I only conformed to conventional social standards of normalcy.
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Supposing that, as a result of Socratic/Platonic reasoning, I have developed a concept of courage that is free of defects and close to perfect, a Platonic Form of Courage representing courage at its most admirable. What would it mean to engage in long-term efforts to gradually mold my own character so that it came closer and closer to resemble the Platonic Form of Courage I have managed to conceive of in my mind?
Courage is a good virtue to think about because being truly courageous often requires quick spontaneous reactions to a situation, focusing on the situation itself rather than reflecting on moral principles or rules describing what a courageous person is supposed to do in this situation. One habit of mind a courageous person needs is the willingness to make quick decisions in the absence of sure information about one’s choices. Socratic/Platonic reasoning about courage thus cannot have the purpose of telling a person what to do in all situations calling for courage.
Being courageous partly means having courageous impulses. It is difficult to imagine that a person wholly lacking in any courageous impulses could artificially bring them into existence from nothing. Cultivating courage usually assumes that some courageous impulses already exist on at least some occasions. Cultivating courage normally starts by getting in touch with these already existing courageous impulses.
Cultivating courage can be pictured largely as a matter of consciously constructing a personal identity. Given the fact that I experience many different impulses, I have some choice about which impulses I choose to identify with. If I experience some impulses that I recognize as cowardly and not admirable, I can choose not to identify with them. I can regard them as something unfortunately happening to me, but not part of my self-chosen identity. I can choose to identify rather with those inner impulses that I approve of as admirably courageous. If over and over again I choose to identify with my courageous impulses, these will gradually become a habit, an habitual part of who I am as a person.
How a person acts is most often an indication of what impulses she identifies with. Part of disidentifying with cowardly impulses is choosing not to act on them. Thus choosing to act courageously can be an aid to gaining those internal habits of mind that make up “being a courageous person.” But it is important to understand external behavior as a manifestation of which impulses one chooses to identify with. Ultimately, what needs to change is not one’s behavior, but the impulses themselves. Courageous impulses gain in strength the more often and the more strongly one identifies with them.
The skill of keeping one’s cool in the face of danger, remaining calm and focused, is part of the virtue of courage. This skill can be developed like any other skill, by repeated practice. A soldier learning to parachute can overcome fear of heights by repeatedly jumping and training herself to remain calm while jumping.
But courage also has to do with motivations. Courage becomes more admirable the more it is motivated by concern for those things that deserve to take priority over personal safety — the lives of others, a noble cause, and so on. It is not always easy for a person to understand her own motivations. Bringing my character more in accord with the most excellent ideas of courage thus requires sensitive introspection, becoming more aware of what actually does motivate me in taking risks or not taking risks.
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How Many Virtues are There
Martin Seligman is leader of a recent movement called “Positive Psychology,” promoting the cultivation of virtues. In Section 2 of a recent book, Authentic Happiness, he gives his readers a specific idea of what a virtue is by giving a list of virtues. He prefaces this section of his book with the following comments:
In this age of postmodernism and relativism, it has become a commonplace to observe that virtues are merely a matter of social convention, peculiar to the time and place of the beholder. So in twentieth century America, self-esteem, good looks, assertiveness, autonomy, uniqueness, wealth, and competitiveness are highly desirable. St. Thomas Aquinas, Confucius, Buddha, and Aristotle would have deemed none of these traits virtuous, and indeed would have condemned several as vice. Chastity, silence, magnificence, vengeance — all serious virtues in one time or place or another — seem now to us alien, and even undesirable.
It therefore came as a shock to us to discover that there are no less than six virtues that are endorsed across every religion and cultural tradition.” Authentic Happiness (NY: Free Press. 2002) p. 129-30.
Seligman starts here with the problem of “relativism” the view that “virtues are merely a matter of social convention,” in which case even things like “good looks” and “wealth” might count as virtues if people in a given society happen to admire them. He also shares the view, extremely common today, that the only solution to this problem of relativism is to find some list of virtues that are actually “universal,” actually “endorsed across every religion and cultural tradition.”
First, I think we have to ask about the logic behind this argument. Are genuine virtues — or perhaps the most important virtues — only those virtues that happen to be shared by all religions and cultures everywhere. Or should those virtues which happen to be common to all cultures the ones that should take priority over all other virtues, always and everywhere? For example, early Confucianism emphasized four main virtues, roughly translated as humanity, wisdom, rightness, and graciousness. “Graciousness” is only a rough translation of a Chinese word li, which needs several English words to translate: graciousness, politeness, etiquette, ritual, “the formalities.” Li does not figure prominently in the virtue-lists of Aristotle or Aquinas (whose virtue-list is largely borrowed from Aristotle), or early Buddhism, or in the list of virtues Seligman gives (listed below). Should we conclude from this “lack of universality” that that Confucians were wrong to list this virtue among the top four?
Secondly, what would it take to substantiate the claim that some particular virtues are actually “endorsed across every religion and cultural tradition”? Seriously surveying all the virtues valued in literally every religion and every culture would be an enormous undertaking, requiring careful attention to the particular meanings of words in a vast number of languages in the world. To my knowledge, no one has actually ever done this, and my first point above questions the utility of actually doing this.
Finally, when Seligman gets down to describing in a very specific way his supposedly universal “six virtues,” one can see that very many items on his list are very modern virtues indeed. Some, like “allowing oneself to be loved,” did not figure on any traditional lists of virtues. Others, such as “intellectual curiosity” were not only lacking on traditional lists, but were condemned by classic Christian authors like St. Augustine. He only makes “curiosity” appear to be “traditional” by listing it under the general heading “Wisdom.”
Actually, Seligman’s list is valuable for present purposes precisely because when he gets specific, he introduces so many virtues admired today that were not included in traditional lists. This tends to support my argument that there are an indefinite number of possible virtues, some only recently recognized as virtues, and others yet to be discovered by future generations.
Here is Seligman’s list, grouped under six headings.
- Wisdom and knowledge, made specific as: curiosity and interest in the world, love of learning, judgment, critical thinking, open-mindedness, ingenuity, originality, practical intelligence, street-smarts, social intelligence, personal intelligence, emotional intelligence, perspective
- Courage, made specific as: valor and bravery, perseverance, industry, diligence, integrity, genuineness, honesty
- Humanity and love, made specific as kindness and generosity, loving and allowing oneself to be loved
- Justice, made specific as: Citizenship, duty, teamwork, loyalty, fairness and equity, leadership
- Temperance, made specific as: self-control, prudence, discretion, caution, humility and modesty. (“Temperance” translates Plato’s Greek word sophrosyne, which had very different connotations than the English “temperance, described in an appendix below.)
- Transcendence and spirituality, made specific as: appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, optimism, future-mindedness, spirituality, sense of purpose, faith, religiousness, forgiveness and mercy, playfulness and humor, zest, passion, enthusiasm.
The general headings 1, 2, 4, and 5 are the four main virtues listed in Plato’s Republic, which were listed as “the four cardinal virtues” in Medieval Christianity, alongside three further “theological” virtues of “faith, hope and charity” — “charity” including both love of God and love of one’s neighbor. I don’t know where Seligman got his sixth category “transcendence and spirituality”, which includes an extremely diverse set of virtues.
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Here is a longer list of clusters of virtues, using words and phrases commonly used today to describe people we admire:
responsible, loyal, diligent, disciplined, orderly
altruistic, caring, thoughtful, polite, courteous, gracious, kind, compassionate, forgiving, empathic, sympathetic,
understanding, tolerant, non-judgmental, affable, friendly, gentle
creative, spontaneous, in touch with feelings, natural, genuine, open, sincere, “comfortable in his own skin”
unique, being oneself, authenticity, proud, self-confident, independent, self-assertive,
self-aware, unpretentious, down-to-earth
respectful, obedient, law-abiding, cooperative, modest, humble
ambitious, energetic, serious, driven, hard-working, tough, inner strength, self-assertive, brave, willing to take risks
optimistic, looking on the bright side, cheerful, sense of humor
sensual, enjoys life, loves nature, cares for the planet, capable of great intimacy and deep friendship
appreciates art and music, savoir faire, self-actualized, devoted to self-fulfillment
pure, calm, self-possessed, chaste, unmaterialistic, otherworldly
integrity, intellectual honesty, rational autonomy, willingness to question, truth-seeking
wise, experienced, thoughtful, intelligent, prudent, cautious, careful, broad knowledge
balanced, moderate, sober, internal harmony
Another essay gives a more detailed discussion of some very modern and unique virtues that characterize Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, “super-man.”
These lists, limited to a small selection of what can easily be expressed in the vocabulary of standard English, are already pretty long. It would certainly expand greatly if we included the virtue-vocabularies available in many other languages. It includes many ideas that were not familiar to people in Medieval Europe, and people in the future may discover ways of being an admirable person as yet unknown to us.
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To expand on the point about linguistic particularity: Reflection on the virtue-words in the Greek language that Plato uses in his discussions of virtue reinforce this point that virtue-concepts in different cultures are really different from each other. This makes it difficult to translate from one language to another in a word-for-word fashion.
For example:
“Beauty” in English normally refers to visual beauty. Kalos, Plato’s equivalent, refers not only to “beautiful” character, but most remarkably to “beautiful” laws and institutions. Translators often feel compelled to translate kalos as “noble,” “fine,” or “refined.”
“Piety” in English is normally used only in religious contexts. Eusebeia, Plato’s equivalent, refers both to one’s attitude to divine beings and to one’s parents.
“Courage” in English has no reference to male/female differences. Andreia, Plato’s equivalent, means literally “manliness,” similar to the Latin word for “virtue” generally (vir=”man”, virtus = manliness.)
The Greek word sophrosynē is commonly recognized as one of the most difficult of Plato’s virtue-words to translate into English. Latin authors translated it by temperantia, which eventually became “temperance” in English (as in Seligman’s list above). But “temperance” and sophrosunē have completely different connotations. An Appendix below gives a fuller description of the untranslatable Greek word sophrosunē by the Greek scholar A.E. Taylor.
Appendix III of the essay How to Conduct a Socratic Discussion contains a Socratic discussion of a Russian virtue-concept “Dushevnii,” literally “being soulful”, written by a student from Russia. It illustrates well how discussions of virtue-concepts from different cultures will proceed in different directions because of different sets of associations.
There are potentially thousands of virtue-Forms more perfect in their goodness than the imperfect virtue-concepts people usually use for self-evaluation and to model their characters on. So there is no need for everyone to agree on their choice of which perfect virtue-concepts to take for these purposes.
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Appendix:
- E. Taylor on Sophrosynē
(Excerpt from A.E. Taylor. Plato: The Man and His Work. London: Methuen. 1937. p. 47-48.)
It is easier to indicate from the usage of the language [in early Greek literature, not in Plato] what this moral excellence [sophrosynē ] is, than to find any one name for it in our modern English. In literature we find sophrosynē spoken of chiefly in the following connexions.
… The word means literally the possession of a “sane” or “wholesome” mind ; sophrosynē is thus contrasted with the “folly” ‘ of the man who “forgets himself ” in the hour of success and prosperity, and ” presumes on ” his advantages of wealth or power, pushes them to the full extreme in his dealings with the less fortunate.
Or it may equally be contrasted with the “unbalanced” conduct of the fanatic who has only one idea in his head, can only see one side of a situation and is blind to all the others. In this sense, as the virtue opposed to the pride of the man who forgets that the gods can cast him down as low as they have raised him high, the recklessness of the successful man who forgets that he may himself come to be as much at the mercy of another as others are now at his, the pitilessness of the fanatic who can only see one side to every question, sophrosynē covers very much of what we call humility, humanity, mercy.
Again, the word is a name for the kind of conduct thought becoming specially in the young towards elders, soldiers towards their superior officer, citizens towards their magistrates. In this sense it means proper modesty and even covers such minor matters as a becoming outward deportment in speech and gesture.
In still a third sense, it is the characteristic of the man who knows how to hold his imperious bodily appetites, ” the desire for meat and drink and the passion of sex,” in easy and graceful control, as contrasted with the man who offends us by unseemly and untimely greed of these appetitive enjoyments. In this aspect, sophrosynē is what in good English is still called ” temperance,” if we take care to remember that it is part of the virtue itself that it is not the imperfect self-restraint of the man who holds himself in check ungracefully and with difficulty, but the easy and natural self-restraint of the man who enjoys being “temperate.”
If it does not seem an affectation to use such a phrase, we may say that sophrosynē is the spirit of the “disciplined” life. It is not, as Hume insinuates, a “monkish” virtue, except in the sense that you certainly cannot be a good monk without it. Neither, as Hume forgot, can you be a good soldier, and that is why in the Laws Plato throws sophrosynē and valour together, and insists that the former is the major and the harder part of the lesson every good “fighting man” has to master. [Taylor’s reference to Hume is to Hume’s Inquiry into the Principles of Morals, Section IX. Part I.]
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