Where to begin...?

As a sophomore in college, I had a single dorm room. No roommate. A space entirely my own. And I remember that, after the first ten minutes, it terrified me. I don’t think I ever finished entirely unpacking.

I had no one to tell me where my things were supposed to go.

I know that most normal people – you do realize I’m rather abnormal, I hope – would feel the thrill of freedom and the drive to creativity in deciding for themselves where their own things should go. But I was very caught up in a way of thinking limited to “right” and “wrong,” that had no room for “good” and its chums “better” and “best”.

It was actually the required class on Western Civilization that woke me up, or started to. The prof was describing the ancient and medieval notion that has come to be called “the great chain of being,” essentially that everything in the universe has a fixed place on a strict linear hierarchy, like rungs on a ladder, with “prime matter” at the bottom and God at the top.

It seemed obvious to me that, while a linear hierarchy is one way of organizing and relating the various things in the universe, it’s probably not the most useful. There are different kinds of order, and different kinds of relationship between things. Therefore, it didn’t surprise me when, years later, I discovered that great thinkers in ancient and medieval times held a much more subtle and nuanced view than that simplified and dumbed-down notion.

What did surprise me was how long it took me to apply my insight to my own life and behavior.

Clean your room, young man!

I’ve been living in my current apartment for about six months now, and I’m still not entirely unpacked. I have boxes and crates stacked against the wall, waiting for me to decide where to put their contents. Some of these boxes have remained unopened for the past couple moves I’ve made. This is because there’s a part of me that’s still afraid to put something in the wrong spot.

This fear is, I know, entirely unrealistic. It is stuck in a misunderstanding, or maybe a misapprehension, about freedom and order.

Order is nothing other than the relationship of things to each other. How I decide to order something, whether it’s the files in a cabinet or the furniture in a room or the tasks on my to-do list, depends on the relationships I’m looking at. With files, my goal is quick and easy access to information; the relationships I’m looking for are based on the use of the information I’m filing away. For example, bills and receipts go together, and letters from friends go together, and owners manuals and warranties go together.

Relationships between furniture, on the other hand, is based on the relationships I hope to develop between the people using the furniture. I like open rooms, where everyone can see and communicate with everybody else. There’s a part of me that wants to maximize open floor space, but a friend pointed out that putting some furniture pieces at an angle – even though it cut off a square foot-and-a-half in the corner, provided better sight lines for people sitting in chairs and on the sofa.

My to-do list actually benefits from a strictly linear ordering: first this, next that, third something else, and think twice before re-ordering the list. That’s because many activities, in reality, require something else to come first. It’s linear because the relationships are based in the uncompromising march of time.

Order provides the structure for free action. If my files are organized, I’m more free to find the information I want; if my furniture (and my to-do list) is well ordered, it’s easier to have fun with my friends.

Fear of punishment and fear of chaos

So order is both something that I create from and for myself, because it depends on the relationships I’m choosing to look at, and something that is independent of me, because those relationships are based in something real and objective.

This is normal and reasonable and helpful to me. Why, then, do I have such a fear of both aspects of order? Why am I afraid both that I’ll have to decide what to do, and that someone else will impose a decision on me?

I’m sure there are plenty of psychological reasons and childhood traumas that might explain the origin of my fears. But those don’t matter very much. What matters is, replacing my false view of order with a true one. And that is done one act at a time.

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.

Can you tell if this artist is moral?

I’m not much of a sports fan, but I heard a story on the radio the other day about Michael Vick, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles who took a break from football in federal prison but now is a contender for MVP of the NFL. The story revolved around the question of whether it was okay to cheer for Vick and the Eagles, to acknowledge Vick’s incredible skill as a player, in light of his less-than-upright past. The reporters admitted to a certain pressure to portray great athletes as morally good people.

In a similar way, I have friends who tell me that they just can’t watch some actors in any movie or TV show because they know too much about that person’s private life.

Thomas Aquinas points out, however, that art and morality are distinct categories – and for the sake of argument I’m including “sports” as a kind of art. The difference is that art is good or bad specifically in the work itself, whereas moral acts are good or bad in the act of working.

In other words, at a certain level, it doesn’t matter who paints a picture or throws a touchdown pass; you can say, “awesome” or “lousy” about the picture or the pass itself. On the other hand, it’s a moral question whether it was a good thing for that person to paint this or to throw that pass. Moreover, no matter how amazing a painter or player someone is, it doesn’t necessarily make that person any better a person. Talent or genius are, in themselves, incapable of bestowing wisdom or happiness.

The problem of role models

So it makes perfect sense that someone who has some great gift might also be an alcoholic or drug addict, might blow all their money on gambling, or might be even be violent. There’s no necessary connection between genius and virtue.

But one of the ways human beings learn is by imitating others. So when I see someone doing something I really want to do myself, I tend to imitate everything about that person. I make that person an ideal, a model for the role I want to play. It’s easy to forget or overlook the difference between a person’s accomplishments and the actual person.

It’s even easier if that role model’s vices match with my own temptations. Someone who is promiscuous (whether apologetic, like Tiger Woods, or unapologetic, like James Bond) gives me an excuse to go easy on my own lust; someone who indulges greed, like Vick, or wrath, like Mel Gibson, lets me think that maybe I can get away with greedy or violent activity.

Now, if I want to throw a football, I can still learn a lot from Vick about how to excel at quarterbacking. If I want to be an actor, I shouldn’t ignore what Mel might have to teach. But I need to distinguish their skill at their arts from their virtue as human beings. I can learn tactics from Napoleon or rhetoric from Hitler, but I need to make sure I’m not imbibing grandiosity or insanity or inhumanity along with the expertise.

Putting art and life in right relationship

All that said, the question of whether it is good to throw a football or to attack an enemy or, for that matter, to do anything at all must come before that question of how to do it well.

When I’m watching others, I do my best to keep their work distinct from their person. I try to “judge not, lest I be judged.” I’m not perfect at this kind of detachment, but it’s my goal.

But when I’m doing work myself, whether it’s writing a book or talking with a friend, I do my best to do what is good and beneficial, and I try not to let fear or pride about how well I can do it interfere with the decision to do it or not.

As G.K. Chesterton famously said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” But it is also worth doing as well as I can manage to do it.

How can you mend a broken heart?

So there are a couple people in my life that make lots of bad decisions. (I don’t think they read this blog, but I won’t name names anyway.)

I’m not talking about decisions I disagree with, like choosing the creme brulee when there’s chocolate mousse on the menu. I’m talking about undeniably bad decisions, like burning bridges and painting yourself into a corner.

It’s hard to love someone in that situation, for two reasons. First, their bad decisions put up obstacles to receiving love; and second, I just stop wanting to love that person.

The limits of love

To love is to will the good of the one you love. But I’m not able by my own power to make good things happen for those I love. I’m just a guy, a mere mortal, with not much money or fame or power. So it may be very very good for a friend to get a new car, but I can’t afford to buy it for them. A friend may want a spouse desperately, but I can’t wave my wand and make romance spark. Someone may be suffering from an incurable disease of mind or body, but I’m not God that I can heal them.

So my love is limited by my ability to actually accomplish some good thing for those I love. But sadly that’s not the only limiting factor. Love can also be limited by a refusal to accept the good that I can and do give.

I know I’ve refused love myself in the past. (I probably still do more often than I admit to myself.) An obvious example is my lack of gratitude for the gifts my grandparents gave me when I was a child. I was a Star Wars fanboy, and I was obsessed with getting the Millennium Falcon playset – come on, who wasn’t? And I was so focused on getting the one thing I wanted that, when I didn’t get it, I practically spat on the action figures and Darth Vader carrying case that they did give me. I did return some action figures to the store, not because I had them already, but because I wanted something different.

More subtle refusals arose out of fear, rather than greed. I turn down offers of company when I’m feeling depressed, or I turn down offers of help when my pride is hurt, all because I’m afraid of my own weakness or of some imagined future regret.

So love can be inadequate to the need, or love can be refused. But there’s a third limitation as well: my own heart can grow cold.

All those rom-com superlatives, “I’ll love you forever!” and “Nothing can stop my love for you!” really do describe the ideal of what love is about – both romantic love and charitable love. As St. Paul puts it, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” But my emotions come and go, and there are lots of times I just don’t bear all things, or hope all things. There are times when, as a feeling anyway, my love comes to an end.

And that’s where the virtue of love kicks in.

Loving when it’s tough

Virtue is all about actions; feelings (or “passions”) are important only in that they give information or motivation to act. But an emotion is not a virtue, and a virtuous action doesn’t require feeling in the moment. Most of the time, it’s the action that gives rise to the related feeling rather than the other way around.

So taking the actions of love, even when my own heart is cold, is the way to grow in the virtue of love. It also reminds me that love involves the brain as well as the heart and the gut.

Dealing with my friends who are making bad decisions requires me to think things through: what is actually in my ability to do? what are they able or willing to receive from me? and how can I overcome my own fear or resentment toward them?

Use with caution. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

Hat tip to Mark, who’s forgotten more about the internet than I’ll ever know.

It takes practice to look this cool

Anyone who plays guitar (or, as I do, bass guitar,) develops calluses on their fingers where they hold down the strings. It doesn’t take long, maybe a week of playing a little every day; but that can be a painful week, and the strings feel like they’re cutting into the soft flesh at the tips of your fingers. It’s especially bad if you only play occasionally, because any calluses you develop fade away when you’re not playing, so they have to develop all over again.

Whenever I pick up the bass again after neglecting it for a month or so, it’s not just the physical pain I feel. I feel a kind of moral pain, that “I should’ve been practicing all this time.”

But when I do practice regularly, not only do I learn new songs quickly and enjoy the music more, I also find it just plain physically easier to play. My fingers don’t hurt at all – not till I’ve been playing solidly for a couple hours or more. My fingers have calluses to protect them, and they’ve grown stronger through exercise.

Building up habits of virtue

Now, for the past couple weeks I’ve been distracted, pulled in several different directions. I haven’t always been able to get to bed on time, or to eat at normal meal times, and so on. Sometimes I’ve used the difficulty of the day as an excuse to break my habits, to stay up late or to sleep in, to drop my daily prayer and meditation, to skip walking or exercising, to let the dishes pile up, and so on.

So right now, I feel like my soul has lost its calluses, and lost its strength. It’s hard, even a little painful, to do simple things like add appointments to my calendar or fold my clothes as soon as I take them out of the dryer. I know I should, and I know how much easier it makes life; but I’ve let myself go soft, and that means I have to deal with some extra difficulty here and now.

Virtue makes life easier exactly by embracing the difficulty of life. That is to say, developing good habits allows me to do only the actual toil, and suffer only the necessary pain, of the work itself – instead of having to toil at learning how to do the work, and enduring the pain of building strength and resistance, every single time I try to do something.

There’s no avoiding the difficulty and suffering of life; but the habits of virtue build up the ability to keep going, even to do better and better things, with as little difficulty and pain as possible.

The primary virtue of prudence

I find in my own life I keep returning to two virtues: charity and prudence. Charity is called the “form” of the virtues, because it directs us toward what is good; that is, it is the habit of focusing on the goal of virtue. Prudence is called the “first” of the virtues, or the primary virtue, because it shows the means to achieve the good; that is, it is the habit of making responsible decisions.

These two virtues, especially prudence, are the hardest for me to develop. They’re also the most rewarding. They provide the strength and the toughness needed for the other virtues to form and to flourish.

My temptation to neglect prudence usually takes the form: “I’ve done so much already, I deserve a break.” It’s the illusion that there are times or situations in which I don’t have to make a good decision. It’s an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for my own actions.

So, when I find I’ve let myself go soft, as I have over the past couple weeks, I realize the only solution is to start practicing again. Scheduled routine, to-do lists, and journaling are some of the tools I use for practicing prudence. At first, it’s hard, and I keep wondering why I have to do this dull and artificial-feeling work. Don’t I already know what I think, and what I have to do?

But it’s the difference between knowing where to put my fingers and actually playing music.

"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.

Mine! You can't have any!

In Christian circles, there are two great commandments (Matthew 22.37-39):

1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the foundation of the Christian approach to the virtue of Charity, and I’ve mentioned the first one in a previous post. It can be controversial for those who don’t agree with the Christian approach to God.

The second is something we tend to equate with the “Golden Rule”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It tends to be accepted in secular and religious ethics alike.

Almost every comment on these commandments raises an interesting point: there are three kinds of love in these two sentences: love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. You have to love yourself in order to love your neighbor in the same way; you have to know what you want your neighbor to “do unto you” if you’re going to treat them accordingly.

How do I love myself?

Love pursues what is good. So, if I love myself, I’m after what is good for me. That sounds awfully selfish, doesn’t it?

The difference between loving myself and being selfish is in the good that I’m pursuing. So, if I ignore the good things that make me more human – learning, community, health, and so on; that is to say, virtue – and chase after the good things that are mere derivatives of those fully human goods – pleasure, comfort, satisfaction, etc. – then I will basically get what I ask for. I will have short-term pleasures and comforts which will fade when I find myself ignorant and unhealthy and alone.

What is good for me is based on who and what I am. I am a human being, endowed with a mind and existing as part of a community. The good that I must pursue, the love I must show toward myself, is rooted in the community and is discovered by my mind.

Even my emotions come through the filter of my mind. I remember a time in high school when I was mad at my mom because she was late picking me up from school – till I discovered that she’d been delayed by some crisis of her own. My emotions followed my understanding: I was angry when I thought I was being treated unjustly, but grateful when I saw how much my mom went through to pick me up, and compassionate besides when I knew what she was struggling with.

Discernment: the habit of discovering the good

It’s not always easy to sort out what’s really good and what’s a derivative or lesser good. For example, I have a cold right now. It’s hard to focus for very long, and I get these coughing fits. I just want to lie down and sleep – for about three years.

At the same time, I have work to do: commitments I’ve made to others, and projects of my own that need attention. There are friends and family who need me in small ways, and I want to be available to them.

In times like this, I remind myself that the good is always one. What is truly good for me is (at least) not harmful to the community that I’m a part of; and what’s good for them is not seriously harmful for me. Love of self cannot be contrary to love of neighbor, that is, to seeking what is good for those around me.

So today, I’m trying to balance the good things I can do for others (I hope this blog is a good thing!) with the “self-care” I need: the clear liquids, bed rest, chicken noodle soup, etc. I’m pulling back on some commitments, and pushing myself through discomfort on others, based on what I’m able to do and what has a greater urgency to be done.

This blog, by the way, is one of the easiest things I do during the day. It’s a great way to prove to myself that, even if I’m a little uncomfortable, I’m still able to do something. And it lets me know that I can do a little more, still, before I hit the wall.

Just keep walking, just keep walking...

I get overwhelmed pretty easily. Sometimes, just looking at the pile of dishes in my sink exhausts me. Other times I’m more ambitious: I figure I can conquer the world but I worry if I’ll make it outside the little pond of our solar system. But the fact is, whenever I face a new task – or a new start on an ongoing task – there’s a part of me that asks, “Can I really do that?”

For example, I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a book about my grandmother’s life. Until the last couple weeks, I’ve been stuck on the magnitude of the project. I talked to one of my uncles about my problems, and he suggested a couple ways to break the project down into smaller pieces, each of which is do-able in an hour or two.

Well, duh! says I. I know how to do that. I just don’t want to.

Why not? Because there’s another part of me, call it the grandiose egotist side, that doesn’t want to do anything that isn’t instantly apparent as brilliant and perfect. Plugging along at little tasks just doesn’t have the same feel as finishing a book, or even a chapter.

Reality check

It’s at this point that I need to pull myself back down to earth. Both my despair of finishing a job and my desire for the feeling of accomplishment are unwarranted. What is true is that every task has some pleasant and some unpleasant aspects to it. That’s just the nature of reality, and it does no good to focus only on the difficult aspects while ignoring the easy or exciting aspects – or vice versa.

Rather, I need to focus on what is directly in front of me: what is here and now. So, for my grandma’s book, I have some research to do and some notes to take today. If I spend my time worrying about how many interviews I still need to conduct, or on the other hand daydreaming about how high it will reach on the New York Times bestseller list, then I will create my own failure.

If instead I do a couple hours of work, and spend five minutes at the end reviewing what I’ve done, then I will see the progress I have made. It may be small progress, but it shows me where I am in the big picture of the job. Moreover, it allows me to know exactly where to pick up again tomorrow.

Life application

Now, the example of working on my grandmother’s book is an application of the virtue of prudence, with a little temperance thrown in for good measure. And even though it’s a book – a book! – it’s still a fairly small and focused task.

The life of virtue is a call to apply virtue to every aspect of my life. I need to be prudent, not just about writing a memoir, but also about cleaning my kitchen and relating to my friends and voting in the election and my attitude toward strangers and…. I need to do this for the next 50 years or however long I happen to hang out on this earth. Zoiks! I really can’t deal with a task that big!

And yet, a life is composed of days, and a day is composed of hours. Every moment is an opportunity to practice some small virtue. Every day is a chance to live life fully – meaning to fully live, though not to live an entire life.

I used to write up a daily inventory on this blog. I stopped that because I was self-censoring, leaving out the parts of my life I didn’t particularly want to publicize. So now I’m keeping the inventory in a journal. This is an old practice. The Jesuits have a form of it called the Examen. Twelve-step programs call it the Tenth Step. The reason behind keeping an inventory is to learn to recognize what is really going on in any given day. It is like reviewing my work at the end of a task: it gives a reality check and shows me where I am in the bigger picture.

Slowly but surely, I’m beginning to see my life – my desires, my relationships, my work – more clearly. Slowly but surely, I’m making progress in virtue, and part of that progress is recognizing my small steps forward as genuine progress.

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.