Virtue, according to the Greeks

You don’t even have to be Christian.

Huh?

So, at this point, I expect there are two groups of reactions to that sentence. First, from the Christians, I expect some flavor of “What do you mean you don’t have to be Christian?” And from the non-Christians (whether atheist or adherents of other religious traditions), “Why would you even ask that question? What does Christianity have to do with it?”

Here’s the thing. The virtues I’ve been studying arose in what’s called the Western philosophical tradition. Greeks like Plato and Aristotle wrote about them, and the early Christians picked up their ideas and ran with them. In developing the older, pagan ideas of virtue – ideas, by the way, which don’t fit neatly with the Jewish heritage of Christianity – they connected them to their theological notions, and significantly added three new virtues that were mentioned in the Bible: Faith, Hope, and Love.

The original Greek virtues were called Cardinal Virtues, since (like the cardinal directions on a compass) they point you in the right direction. The new ones were called Theological Virtues, because they are seen as gifts of God.

So I’m a Catholic myself, and I have no problem with some virtues being gifts from God. But I have big questions about how it works.

To start with, the virtues seem to overlap one another, or even replace one another. The obvious example is Charity trumping Justice: do you really need duty if you’re always going above and beyond duty?

At a slightly deeper level, it’s a little hard to see what’s particularly “theological” about the new virtues. After all, the goal is the same, isn’t it? All the virtues aim at making our lives more fully human, at helping us become who and what we’re meant to be. And you don’t have to believe in Jesus or have the life of the Holy Spirit in your heart to see that love is a good thing, that hope is important, even that faith – in the sense of trust and faithfulness – is central to living a properly human life.

And since I’m trying to build a career as a teacher of this stuff, shouldn’t I be able to explain it in some crystal clear way?

So here’s what I came up with.

The perfect cup

Maybe a royal Greek's coffee mug?

Now the goldsmith takes the cup to the king’s steward, who admires the cup. And the goldsmith is proud, and says, “It’s the perfect cup. You can’t get a better cup than this.”

But the steward says, “It’s excellent, no doubt. But it’s not perfect yet.”

The goldsmith is, understandably, heartbroken. “I can’t do anything more to improve it!” he cries.

“Of course you can’t,” says the steward. “But come with me.” And the steward leads the goldsmith to the palace’s cellars, where the royal vintner is maintaining the casks of wine. The steward hands the chalice to the vintner, and commands him to fill it with wine.

“Now,” says the steward, “it is a perfect cup.”

But the vintner laughs. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not perfect yet!” And he hands the cup full of wine to the steward, and tells him to drink. And as the steward tastes the wine, the vintner says, “Now that is a perfect cup!”

Perfection pointing to further perfection

So the cup itself has a kind of perfection in itself, but that perfection is directed toward the further perfections of being filled up, and being drunk from, even though it cannot achieve those perfections without something beyond itself.

Likewise, I can become a good human being in myself and by my own power; but being a good human individual is directed toward being a member of a community, toward receiving from others and giving to others. But these are not things I can accomplish without those others.

To go further, from the Catholic point of view, this shows how theologians can say that we are both created to share God’s life in heaven, and also utterly incapable of achieving that communion by our own power. A cup can’t be full unless wine is poured in from outside; but it first has to be a good cup, so that it will hold the wine that is poured in.

I hope this image is useful to someone else. It’s certainly been useful to me.

I’m not quite ready to post those notes yet. There are two reasons.

The first reason is that I’ve been asked to present a similar talk to the Northwest Catholic Family Education Conference. So I’m revising my notes a bit, and I’ll post the notes (and maybe the talk itself) after that.

The other reason is that, after the talk, I got into a great debate with a friend over the way I presented Courage and Temperance. I said that Courage was the virtue that strengthened us in facing external obstacles, while Temperance helped us overcome internal obstacles.

My friend objected that some of the choices that require the greatest courage are interior choices: facing one’s past, the wounds one has suffered or the wrongs one has committed. The decision to forgive someone or to pursue a new course in life can indeed call upon the deepest wells of fortitude.

So I modified my position. I said, Courage is what helps us to face an evil that we fear, and Temperance strengthens us to resist tempting desires that are not properly ordered. In other words, Courage opposes what is bad, and Temperance supports what is good.

She still wasn’t 100% on board with that, and I expect our discussion will continue through more conversations. Indeed, I hope so. I do love a good argument!

However, what is abundantly clear to me is that every good action partakes of all the cardinal virtues. So it is possible to find both Courage and Temperance, as well as Justice and Prudence – and probably Faith, Hope, and Love as well – in everything from resisting that second helping of ice cream to facing down a mugger in a dark alley to telling a loved one a difficult truth. The virtues are a way of sorting out the different aspects of moral and humane action. But they are not separable from each other. They are facets of the same gemstone, members of the same body.

My friend and I are arguing over whether it’s the hand or the fingers that play the piano. But we both know it’s the pianist who plays, and uses hand and fingers and arms and feet and everything else besides.

In this kind of argument, I find that we both learn something new by understanding the other person’s perspective. I wish I could pick a fight like that every day!

When: 10:30am, Sunday 20 March 2011
Where: 5062 9th Avenue NE, Seattle – the downstairs room in the school across from the church

Here’s a chart I’m putting on the handout:

I expect that’s perfectly clear to anyone who thinks exactly as I do. The above organization is (as far as I know) my own invention. If anyone out there actually knows stuff about virtue ethics and thinks I’m barking up the wrong tree, or am just barking mad, please drop me a line and correct me. I’m working stuff out as I go.

Anyway, if you want to know what I’m talking about, come hear me talk!

Second, and far less importantly: I’ve had tech troubles with my old computer for the past few months. Random crashes and so on. It finally became intolerable, so I have a shiny new laptop. (Okay, it’s actually a matte finish.) Now I have to constantly remind myself that cool new toys do not equal happiness.

“Yes, I love technology / though not as much as you, you see / but still, I love technology / always and forever…”

How much of the world's weight should I carry?

I consider tolerance to be a kind of stop-gap, a second-best, a hand-me-down virtue at most. For example, if I said to my beloved, “Darling, I tolerate you,” I would deserve the slap I would receive. Tolerance is the virtue of bearing with some necessary but undesirable thing. It is not the ideal toward which I strive.

That said, tolerance is a real virtue, even if a secondary one: I would place it as a sub-virtue of Fortitude or Courage, as a form of patience and perseverance. But it is only virtuous when directed to something that is both undesirable and necessary.

It’s clear to me that other people don’t fall into the category of “undesirable.” A human being is, by his or her very existence, good. This particular person may be inconvenient or uncomfortable – or even dangerous – to me at this particular time. But what is undesirable is not that person’s humanity; the inconvenience or danger is what is bad.

What isn’t so clear to me, sometimes, is whether I myself fall into that “undesirable” category.

Tolerating imperfection

My friends know that I’m the annoying sort of perfectionist who lets his fears of failure stop him from attempting good things. It’s a very bad habit, a genuine vice. But on the occasions I overcome it, I tend to swing to the opposite vice of sloppiness or even self-sabotage.

This makes it look like I’m very hard on myself, and so most people usually advise me to cut myself some slack, to be more tolerant of my failures. To me, this always looks like “lowering my standards” or giving in to vice.

But I was talking with my spiritual director the other day, and he reminded me that I should not tolerate evil. He pointed out that, while I was very intolerant of imperfection, I was very tolerant of temptation and of my own acts of vice and sin. This is exactly the opposite of what I should be striving for.

Imperfection is a normal and necessary part of human life: we are all finite, limited, and incomplete in and of ourselves. We depend on one another for everything from the basic necessities of survival to our highest personal fulfillment. Somehow I’ve got it in my skull that I need to be absolutely 100% self-sufficient, that I have to know everything and do everything without accepting any help from anybody, or else I’m a failure. That is a lie. It is utterly false, because it is contrary to human nature. My limitations and needs may be inconvenient or difficult, but they are not bad or wrong.

In other words, they are necessary, even if they are sometimes undesirable. I should tolerate them.

Not tolerating evil

Those imperfections are what a philosopher might call a “natural evil” or an “ontological evil,” that is, something lacking in some natural good of being. If I were blind, that would be an “evil” in the nature of my eyes; it’s an imperfection and a limitation. But it’s not a moral evil; it’s not an evil action, and it doesn’t make me an evil person.

Moral evil is what my spiritual director advised me not to tolerate. This returns to the ancient wisdom of Plato, that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit a crime or sin.

Why is this so? The answer I’m discovering is that, while natural evil is unavoidable, moral evil is unnecessary. There is no absolute reason I should do anything bad. I might make a mistake, or I might act out of ignorance, but there is nothing that binds me to do something I know is wrong. Nothing in the entire universe can compel me to choose to harm a fly, much less to harm my neighbor.

In other words, moral evil is intolerable – and most intolerable of all in myself.

So I need to turn completely around: I’ve been tolerating my neglect of friends and of duties, tolerating my “need” for hours of mind-numbing entertainment from TV or computer games; meanwhile, I’ve been intolerant of my ignorance and my lack of control over the impact of my work. I’ve got it backward.

I can’t be sure my efforts will succeed, but I can be sure that I will fail – and be a failure – if I don’t make any efforts. I need to learn to tolerate my imperfections, and become absolutely intolerant of my faults.

"And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood..."

Discernment is the process of seeing something more clearly. The reason to see something more clearly is to know how to act toward whatever is seen.

Pretty simple, right?

It’s one of those “easier said than done” things. There are two obstacles, at least two that I’ve encountered in my own life:

1. Admitting that I don’t see things very clearly to begin with
2. Actually acting on what I’ve discovered to be true

Seeing clearly

In terms of virtues, discernment falls under the virtue of prudence or wisdom: it is the skill of looking closely at oneself and the world to find a clear understanding of what one is to do.

There are other aspects of prudence, too. There is simple education about basic moral principles; there is memory, which allows us to learn from our experiences; there is thoughtful consideration of implications and consequences.

But discernment is, in a way, the act that brings those all together in a concrete situation. Here and now, with these people and in these circumstances – what is really going on and, therefore, what is the good that I should pursue.

As a semi-functioning egomaniac, I tend to assume that I’m the smartest person in the room, and that whatever I think or feel is pretty equivalent to absolute truth. I need to remind myself that there are other perspectives than my own, and that there are significant limits to the information I have. I have to do the basic work of checking things out, asking challenging questions, and making sure that my decisions conform to reality rather than trying to conform reality to my opinions.

It’s not even that big a blow to my ego, if I’m diligent about it. I don’t have to assume that I’m always wrong; I just have to avoid assuming that I’m always right. I have to remember that I have only part of the picture, and that it’s okay to have to work a little to find out the truth.

Actions speak louder than words

As difficult as it sometimes is to figure out what’s going on, and to decide how to act, the real challenge for me is putting that decision into practice. Here, the virtues required are temperance and fortitude, aka, self-control and courage.

I think the reason is that I’m an introvert and a writer. I live in my head, and I work through words. The thing about thoughts and words is that they’re very safe. I can change my mind. I can revise a sentence. But I can’t take back the past. I can’t undo some action I’ve committed, even if it’s so small as saying something out loud. And that incredible impact that even the smallest action can have terrifies me.

It terrifies me into the fantasy that inaction is somehow better or safer than taking some positive action. I flee into the self-indulgent comforts of laziness or gluttony or some other distraction from my cowardice. In other words, my failure at courage leads directly to a failure at self-control.

And it even leads to a failure at prudence: because the only way to really learn from my mistakes is to have mistakes to learn from.

Discernment leading to decision

So I have to be careful both to take the time needed to make a good decision, to gather as much relevant information as I can, but also not to stall or delay in acting on a decision, with the excuse that “I’m still discerning.”

This is true in small decisions (like prioritizing today’s to-do list) and in major life decisions (like whether to marry or what career to pursue). Major decisions may require more time or effort spent in discernment, but the discernment always leads to a decision. A discernment that is meandering toward ambiguity is, by definition, going in the wrong direction.

Like all virtue, discernment is about reality: seeing reality clearly, and acting accordingly.

Classical virtue - very classy

I was talking with a friend this weekend, and she said that she was a little confused when she first visited my blog because it wasn’t clear what kind of virtue I was talking about. So I took another look at the page, and I realize that the words “classical” and “cardinal” are entirely missing from the page.

I’ll rectify that soon, but in the meantime I realized that it never hurts to take another look at the big picture.

The classical virtues

The main reason I’m writing this blog is as a kind of public self-improvement exercise. I’ve found that the classical philosophy of virtue describes my strengths, my faults, and my potential. It also gives a very practical structure to work on overcoming my weaknesses and to work toward my potential.

These virtues are traditionally grouped under the four “cardinal” virtues and the three “theological” virtues:

• Cardinal virtues
  • Prudence, AKA Wisdom
  • Justice
  • Fortitude, AKA Courage
  • Temperance, AKA Self-control
• Theological virtues
  • Faith
  • Hope
  • Charity, AKA Love

Each of these virtues describes a different way to achieve a certain excellence or fulfillment of human life. They are ways to become more human, and more humane.

Habits of life

A virtue is a habit of life, that is, it is an inclination to live and act easily and effectively. It’s not a “natural” inclination, in that no one is born with it. We acquire the virtues, mainly by practicing the kinds of actions associated with them. For example, I develop an inclination to courage by taking standing fast in the face of danger and difficulty, even when I am terrified; as I grow in courage, I find that facing danger is easier and less intimidating – if not actually less frightening. I grow in both confidence and ability.

On the other hand, a virtue is exactly a “natural” habit because it is fulfills my nature as a human person. It is part of human nature to grow, to develop, to learn, to interact with other people, and so on. Virtues are the habits of living a fully human life: wisely, justly, lovingly. Practicing virtue helps me to become more myself.

It is something like the habit of playing a musical instrument: at first, the actions don’t feel natural; but with practice, they become a kind of “second-nature”. Playing music becomes easy and enjoyable. Virtues are habits that apply, not just to a single activity like music, but to every aspect of life.

Vice

A vice is essentially a bad habit: it is an inclination to act less than human, or even contrary to human nature. We all have them. My own main vice (as far as I can tell) is sloth: I’m lazy, and I also tend to be skeptical about whether something is worth doing. It takes a lot to get me moving. This means that I spend a lot of time and energy complaining or looking for escapist entertainment rather than actually facing reality or doing something positive.

Generally speaking, every virtue has at least two vices: too much and too little. Taking courage as an example again, it’s possible to be too timid, or to be to rash. Courage is bold, but not brash; it’s cautious, but doesn’t hesitate.

Overcoming vice and growing in virtue go hand in hand.

That whole “theological” thing

The “cardinal” virtues were taken for granted by the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and it’s possible to find similar ideas in most ancient cultures. In the middle ages, Christian philosophers like Thomas Aquinas added three “theological” virtues mentioned in the Bible. These virtues are acquired, not only by practice, but by a gift from God.

I include them in this blog, not because I want to push a Christian agenda, but because I think there is a natural aspect to these virtues that fills out the cardinal virtues. Love resolves the conflict between justice and mercy, hope gives purpose to courage and temperane, faith extends rational prudence into deep relationships.

That said, I’m a practicing Catholic myself, and many of the people I read approach these virtues from a Christian point of view. It would be silly to try to hide that. My goal, though, is to propose rather than to impose, to share the wisdom I’m learning without expecting it to be the final word.

"Have you read my new book?"

I just returned from breakfast with George Weigel – he happened to pick my table to sit at – who was this morning’s speaker for the Catholic Professionals of Seattle. The basic gist of his talk was to promote his newest book: The End and the Beginning, which is a “sequel” and a completion of his 1999 biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope.

There was a bit of cold war spy drama, and a bit of “Lifestyles of the Holy and Famous,” and a bit of Vatican inside baseball; but one detail from his presentation jumped out at me. He said that he took part of the structure of his book from the process of canonization – the Catholic Church’s process of declaring someone a saint. One of the stages asks witnesses to describe the potential saint’s life in terms of the theological and cardinal virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity; Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance. Mr. Weigel noted, as an aside, that it’s an interesting exercise to look at life through the lens of the virtues, but that most people don’t do it.

A life out of focus

The virtues really form the only lens that has been able to bring my own life in to focus. But I only stumbled upon them by accident, myself. The classical model of virtue runs almost directly counter to most of twenty-first century American culture.

Now, Americans tend to value daring, or initiative, or valor; and that quality is similar to courage. Americans appreciate cleverness and foresight; those are certainly aspects of prudence. And it goes almost without saying that Americans are passionate about rights, which are a part of the virtue of justice.

However, American culture takes these values for granted, as a collection of qualities whose importance is assumed to be self-evident. In fact, it’s a kind of jumble that ultimately serves another purpose: one’s own interests.

Following the more-or-less normal course of life, I always found myself confused: should I take a risk or should I follow the safe course? Should I insist on my rights or make sure I’m not trampling someone else’s? Should I pursue my own interests or those of my employer/family/country?

Putting life in focus

When I discovered the idea of the virtues, I finally found a principle to help me answer all those questions. Like putting on my glasses, it brought all the fuzzy shapes into focus, and I could see more clearly what to do – and, more importantly, why to do it.

The virtues depend on one another. Love, or Charity, shows us what is good, and drives us to pursue it. Prudence shows us what is real, and sorts out the details of the situation as it really exists. These two virtues form the bedrock and cornerstone of our lives.

Justice and Faith both guide us in knowing what to do: we give to everyone what belongs to them, and we recognize them as fellow children of God, infinite in dignity and worthy of profound respect. These virtues form the framing structure that gives shape to our lives.

Hope, Courage, and Temperance all give us the strength or the stamina to follow through on the loving and prudent actions that Justice and Faith guide us to do. They support us in the face of despair, or fear, or temptation. They are like cross-braces that give a building strength and stability.

Taken together, the virtues describe the whole form of a person’s life.

An end and a beginning?

As Mr. Weigel points out in the life of Pope John Paul II, the virtues allow us to understand the depth and complexity of a man whose actions sometimes appeared confusing or contradictory to American eyes.

But I find virtue is as important at the beginning of each day as it is at the end of a life. I ask, how can I understand my own life; and how can I bring it to be the best life I can carry out, the kind of life I was created to live?

Words do not suffice

My aunt recently passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. Needless to say, her death has affected the entire family, but my uncle and cousins most of all. Now, our whole family tends to meet difficulty with humor, so there’s been lots of laughter; but I’m sure when I’m not around to see it, there are tears as well.

Still, they put what’s called “a good face” on the matter. At the funeral, we sang songs like “Rejoice and be glad,” and at the reception the line was, “She wanted it to be a joyful occasion.” And she did. I think she wanted a celebration of life.

Being a Christian, I see a certain reason in that: there’s hope for a greater joy in heaven than there ever was on earth. Even from a purely natural perspective, there’s a certain gratitude for all the good that she brought to our lives: her sharp wit and quick smile and constant love as a wife and mother.

But the loss is real. I remember a few years ago when one of my best friends was diagnosed with cancer; she’s currently in remission and is doing well, pursuing a career and so on. But there was a stark moment for me when I realized that I couldn’t take her for granted, that at some point she might be gone from this world. And if I felt like a piece of myself was being torn away just at the possibility of losing my friend, I can’t imagine what my uncle and cousins must be enduring at the real loss of my aunt.

The problem of evil

It’s times like this that, philosophically, the so-called “problem of evil” comes to the fore. How can we understand, or explain, or just deal with the painful and grievous events that happen every day in the world around us? Whether it’s disease and death, or inhumane crime, or natural disaster … where does it come from, and what does it mean for how we live our lives?

Voltaire (to grossly oversimplify) suggested that we simply “cultivate our own gardens,” that is, do the best we can with what we’ve got, and not pretend the world is any better than it is. It’s a kind of detachment from those things that are beyond our ability to control.

Buddhism goes even further, if I understand it rightly. It advocates a radical detachment from all things, good and evil. For even good always leads to evil, when it is lost. So if we avoid attachment to all things, we will never have cause for grief. Both these approaches share the great insight that good things, good people, are ultimately limited and vulnerable. They fail to meet that unlimited longing for good that lives within our hearts.

But their solutions strike me as, well, cowardly. Grief, at least, has the courage to stand in the face of loss and acknowledge just how good this person, this relationship, is that has been lost. Grief is the act of love in the face of loss.

The “problem” of goodness

I think it goes deeper still, though. Grief demonstrates that our very awareness of evil is dependent on the existence of good. It is very possible to experience good without evil, such as on a wedding day when even clumsiness and tears are causes of joy; but it is impossible to experience evil without good. No one would attend a funeral unless the one who has died was a great good in their life.

It’s easy to answer, where does evil come from? It comes from the loss of something good. The greater question is, where does good come from?

How is it possible that wonder and beauty and joy and a profound connection between persons enters into the world? Why do I experience a painting (a mere arrangement of colored globs) or a gesture (a simple mechanical motion) or a person (just another animal, after all) as something that gives meaning to life, that organizes my priorities, that I can only describe as “good”?

This is the great mystery of life, it seems to me. And it is a mystery that is celebrated rather than solved, celebrated even in times of loss and grief.

Eileen Nearne

I ran across this eulogy of Eileen “Didi” Nearne, an agent of Britain’s Special Operations Executive charged with maintaining communications with France during World War II.

She worked cleverly and faithfully, but ultimately was captured and tortured by the Gestapo (apparently using a technique similar to waterboarding). She was interred in a concentration camp, but escaped and hid until the Allies arrived.

I tend to imagine a war as a highly dramatic situation where the moral lines stand out more clearly; but Didi’s work, for the most part, took a much more everyday aspect. She operated a wireless set. She held down a day job. She had to decide when to tell a lie and when to tell the truth. She had to make difficult choices with uncertain consequences. Her stakes were, in some ways, higher; but the nature of her choice was not very different from the kind of choices I face each morning.

She maintained her cover as long as she could, but when captured she refused to contribute her labor to the Nazi war effort suffered greatly for her stand on principle. She managed, not only to escape herself, but to help others to escape with her. This required both prudence and courage in choosing just how best to combat the evils she faced.

When she returned home, she also returned to a more “normal” life. She did not cling to either the pain or the glory of her work during the war. She lived with her sister, and made the best contribution she could to her community. She continued to suffer what we now would call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from what she endured during her captivity. But she resisted the temptation to leverage her heroism or her suffering for personal benefit.

Her service was to God and Country, and she left it at that. She may not have been a saint, (or maybe she was); but she certainly was a model of courage and prudence, and is a good reminder to me that simply doing my work quietly can sometimes help change the world for the better.

Other information is available:

• Her biography at Wikipedia
• Obituary in the London Telegraph
• Obituary in the New York Times

1. Prayer and fasting
2. Peaceful vigil
3. Community outreach

The prayer and fasting acknowledges that human action alone is insufficient to overcome the widespread assumption that abortion is a reasonable option. The peaceful vigil aims at letting a clinic’s employees and clients know that there are alternatives to abortion, and at letting the wider community know about the activity of an abortion clinic in their neighborhood. The community outreach educates people about the reality of abortion through church, media, and campus outreach.

It’s easy to get involved, and it’s a great way to grow in the virtues of justice, fortitude, and charity.