Stuck with virtue

My senior year at Berry, one of my favorite professors taught a class entitled “Virtue”. To be honest, I never knew exactly what we were studying. All the classical virtues were tossed about at some point – justice, mercy, prudence – and several more modern virtues were explored in depth – tolerance, integrity – but virtue itself was a moving target. Reasoning from the bottom up, it was hard to come to any coherent system of virtue. And looking to history, it was almost impossible to see any string of civilizations rally around a particular set with consistency. In the end, I left the class more confused than invigorated.

So, for the better part of two years now, I have put questions of virtue behind me. The questions are complicated. They are confusing. They are perennial, so to speak. But more importantly, my adherence to specific virtues had always required sacrifice (you forego a lot of temporary comfort to be honest, or just, or merciful), and I became wary of the sacrifices as I became more confounded by the reasoning behind an adherence to the virtues I had held for so long. It didn’t seem worth it.

That is a tough place to be. As Alasdair MacIntyre noted in his book, After Virtue, systems of virtue give societies and peoples rules by which to play the game of life. They give people direction, focus, shared goals, both individually and as a group; and without them, this world can be a tough thing to face.

Knowing that, it recently occurred to me that I can’t really live life without a clearer conception of those basic things that I consider virtuous (True? Good? Beautiful?); and I most certainly can’t live it without a set of rules that give me drive, focus, and inspiration. As the same professor who taught my virtue class recently wrote, it seems that I am “stuck with virtue”. And I am ok with that. In fact, I think I’ll write about it.

So, if everything goes according to plan. I am going to start fleshing out a few of those virtues (as I see them) here on this site. I have no idea how frequently this will occur. I have no idea what style these entries will take (Stephen Dunn’s Riffs and Reciprocities? Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues?). If things start to go wrong, I will likely shut down the project and the site; but I want to take a free-form stab at those things that I consider important (Describing them? Illustrating them? Questioning them?) and see where it takes me. Some of the topics will be very serious (love, hope, faith, justice) and some will be close to curmudgeonly eccentricities (punctuality!); but they will all be important to me.

Please join me if you’d like to share in the discussion. Heck, I might post something else occasionally, too.

All posts will be archived under The Virtue Project.

Running list

The virtue of community

The overlooked virtue: Blindness

Comments

[Mungowits]

well....glad to see you back! Are you okay?

And, the virtue question is an interesting one. I am revising the ANALYTICAL POLITICS book (the one with Cambridge U Press, with Hinich), and in the first chapter I wound up talking WAY more about virtue than is...well...virtuous.

I am interested to know, though: do you think there is no such thing as virtue, that there may be but we don't agree what it is, or there definitely is and other people just misperceive it? Or some "d" option I have left out?

[John]

I think these 13 essays provide an excellent starting point re any consideration of virtue.

1. www.dabase.net/truthfrl.htm

Plus

2. www.dabase.net/twoarmc.htm

[John]

Mungowits,

Everything is fine on my end -- just exceptionally busy. I am working a job that requires a lot of time, trying to decide among graduate school / work options for next year, and dealing with a few personal issues.

The virtue question is an interesting one. I have always (and still) believe in concrete/permanent human virtues -- but I became discouraged at how difficult it is to "prove" any of them -- historically or through reason. In essence, it became a lot easier to treat the question of virtue as if it were not paramount to daily life than to think about it too seriously or act on virtues that may or may not be true.

Now I just think I was taking the easy way out. It is probably too high a burden to put on a 25-year-old self to have all the answers to a locked and loaded bottom-up system of morality, so I think it is now worthwhile to sort through some of the generally accepted virtues in my faith and in writing I respect and see what they mean -- in theory, in practice, and to me personally.

I will have to check out your writing in the first chapter of Analytical Politics!

[Elizabeth]

This should be fun...

Hey John...
If you need any food for thought, I am participating in a Socrates Cafe on Xanga. Its a lot of fun and might take the pressure of you for material. Take care!

B