Virtue

Use in the book

Perfect innocence is lovable but unreliable, so admiration for innocence is not yet an account of virtue. The soul’s health formula gives virtue an image of well-being. The distinction between limited habits and principles gives it a broader reach across circumstances. The explicit definition through doing good without favorable inclination and avoiding evil despite passion stresses self-command. Finally the moral program assigns a person their own virtue and other people’s happiness as a double end. These are related but distinct descriptions: virtue is not merely having agreeable feelings, nor is it simply maximizing one’s own happiness.

Places to read

1. I, p. 32, entry 3, ¶1Innocence is compared with virtue without being equated to it.
2. I, p. 44, entry begun p. 43, no. 1, ¶10Virtue is the soul’s health.
3. I, p. 47, entry 1, ¶13Principles give coherence beyond habitual cases.
4. I, p. 213, entry 9, ¶1Virtue acts against inclination when necessary.
5. I, p. 298, entry begun p. 297, no. 2, ¶4Own virtue is coupled with others’ happiness.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves the love/reverence distinction in the innocence comparison, the habits/principles alternatives, and the own/others distribution in the double-end passage. It does not turn the nominal definitions into one systematic creed.

Moral perfection

French: perfection.

A brief perfection fragment distinguishes attaining a condition from sustaining it; its field is unspecified. The securely moral application occurs in the separate program that assigns self-perfection to morals.

Places to read: I, p. 428, entry 13, ¶1; II, p. 808, entry 1, ¶2.

Use in the book

The moral virtues are the active form of felicity. Ethics teaches how affections and conduct may become honourable, useful, and happy; philosophy is realized in governing one’s life by the truth discovered. Virtue is therefore neither a decorative accomplishment nor a list of prohibitions detached from positive goods.

Its superiority to money is made practical in the discussion of changing fortunes. Patience, faith, and courage can be acquired or displayed when wealth is absent, while wealth itself can be used well if rightly received. The reader must learn to prize a virtue above a chest of money without supposing that poverty mechanically creates excellence.

Christ’s Cross is the school in which virtues take their fullest pattern. Injuries then become occasions for steadfast charity, but the response must remain vigorous and helpful rather than indifferent. Enjoyment reaches outward as conduct that makes another person’s good its concern.

Places to read

1. I.58The Cross is a school of virtues.
2. I.84Virtuous response to injury combines meek correction and continued beneficence.
3. III.45Ethics directs passions and virtues toward honourable and happy life.
4. IV.89Virtue is to be prized above money through both poverty and abundance.
5. I.88Virtue of the passion uses the distinct sense of effective power.

In this edition

In I.88, virtue means efficacy or active power, not one item of moral character. Keep that sense separate from the ethical plurals elsewhere.