From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordProbité names moral rectitude in lived conduct, distinguished from the more elevated rhetorical force of vertu.
- In JoubertThe account of perfect probity gives it three relations: civil law, honor, and the just and unjust as delicately felt within conscience.
- In this editionThe English translation retains probity and uses grandiloquent for emphatique, indicating inflated elevation rather than merely strong emphasis.
- A place to beginPerfect probity answers to civil law, honor and conscience.
- English renderings
- probity
Meaning
Probité names moral rectitude in lived conduct, distinguished from the more elevated rhetorical force of vertu.
Use in the book
The account of perfect probity gives it three relations: civil law, honor, and the just and unjust as delicately felt within conscience. It is therefore neither mere legal conformity nor only private sincerity. The later comment about ordinary usage observes that virtue commonly means probity, but finds the grander word excessive for that meaning. This is a lexical and stylistic distinction as well as a moral one: naming conduct with the highest available term can distort its scale. The two witnesses define a useful route between Law, Honor and Conscience without claiming that all uses of virtue elsewhere have this narrower sense.
Places to read
- I, p. 129, entry 1, ¶2Perfect probity answers to civil law, honor and conscience.
- II, p. 568, entry 1, ¶1Ordinary virtue may mean probity, but the term can be excessive.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains probity and uses grandiloquent for emphatique, indicating inflated elevation rather than merely strong emphasis. The numbered relations in the first passage are preserved; no hierarchy beyond their stated order is invented.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 129; II, pp. 568.