Virtues and vices are often seen as opposing forces in moral philosophy. In Aristotle’s view, virtues are character traits that represent a balance or “mean” between two opposing vices. For example, courage is a virtue that exists between the vices of recklessness and cowardice. In contrast, vices are negative character traits that represent an excess or deficiency of a particular virtue.
Virtues are positive character traits that are seen as morally good and desirable. They represent a stable and habitual disposition to act in a morally praiseworthy way. For examples, courage, honesty, kindness, generosity, temperance, and humility. Vices are negative character traits that are seen as morally undesirable and harmful. They represent a settled disposition to act in a morally wrong way. For examples, cowardice, dishonesty, cruelty, greed, gluttony, and pride.
The problem here is that these examples have always been historically contested. For example, Niccolo Machiavelli, diplomat and author, between 1513 and 1527, would have advised that for a Prince (a governing power) cowardice, dishonesty, cruelty, greed, gluttony, and pride might be a virtue as the opportunism. The observation here of the historical contestability is evidence for Aristotle’s golden mean as being correct, but it is never proof: the propositional logic only works as proof mathematically, and in all other contexts the correctness in determined by the probability, i.e. the argument of tight context determines the correctness. The key to determining the contextual correctness is comprehensively understanding harm (deep and wide cognition).
From Wikipedia, the mean might be worked as general principle and applied to context:
PRINCIPLES OF VIRTUES AND VICES
Most Roman concepts of virtue were also personified as a numinous deity. The primary Roman virtues, both public and private, were:
| Latin | English | Description |
| Abundantia | Abundance or Prosperity | The ideal of there being enough food and prosperity for all segments of society, personified by Abundantia. A public virtue. |
| Auctoritas | Spiritual Authority | The sense of one’s social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria. This was considered to be essential for a magistrate’s ability to enforce law and order. |
| Comitas | Humour | Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness. |
| Constantia | Perseverance or Courage | Military stamina, as well as general mental and physical endurance in the face of hardship. |
| Clementia | Mercy | Mildness and gentleness, and the ability to set aside previous transgressions, personified by Clementia. |
| Dignitas | Dignity | A sense of self-worth, personal self-respect, and self-esteem. |
| Disciplina | Discipline | Considered essential to military excellence; also connotes adherence to the legal system, and upholding the duties of citizenship, personified by Disciplina. |
| Fides | Good Faith | Mutual trust and reciprocal dealings in both government and commerce (public affairs), a breach meant legal and religious consequences, personified by Fides. |
| Firmitas | Tenacity | Strength of mind, and the ability to stick to one’s purpose at hand without wavering. |
| Frugalitas | Frugality | Economy and simplicity in lifestyle. |
| Gravitas | Gravity | A sense of the importance of the matter at hand; responsibility, and being earnest. |
| Honestas | Respectability | The image and honour that one presents as a respectable member of society. |
| Humanitas | Humanity | Refinement, civilization, learning, and generally being cultured. |
| Industria | Industriousness or Diligence | Hard work. |
| Innocencia | Selflessness | Giving without anticipating recognition or personal gain. Central to this concept was an unwavering commitment to incorruptibility, avoiding the misuse of public office for personal benefit, as that was considered a grave affront to Roman values, detrimental to both individual and communal well-being. |
| Laetitia | Joy or Gladness | The celebration of thanksgiving, often of the resolution of crisis, a public virtue. |
| Nobilitas | Nobility | Man of fine appearance, deserving of honour, highly esteemed social rank, and, or, nobility of birth, a public virtue. |
| Justitia | Justice | Sense of moral worth to an action; personified by the goddess Iustitia, the Roman counterpart to the Greek Themis. |
| Pietas | Dutifulness | More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order: socially, politically, and religiously. Includes ideas of patriotism, fulfillment of pious obligation to the gods, and honouring other human beings, especially in terms of the patron and client relationship considered essential to an orderly society. |
| Prudentia | Prudence | Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion. |
| Salubritas | Wholesomeness | General health and cleanliness, personified in the deity Salus. |
| Severitas | Sternness | Self-control, considered to be tied directly to the virtue of gravitas. |
| Veritas | Truthfulness | Honesty in dealing with others, personified by the goddess Veritas. Veritas, being the mother of Virtus, was considered the root of all virtue; a person living an honest life was bound to be virtuous. |
| Virtus | Manliness | Valor, excellence, courage, character, and worth. Vir is Latin for “man”. |
A vice is a practice, behaviour, habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhealthy habit. Vices are usually associated with a fault in a person’s character or temperament rather than their morality. It is much more difficult to catalogue vices. Depending on the country or jurisdiction, vice crimes may or may not be treated as a separate category in the criminal codes. Even in jurisdictions where vice is not explicitly delineated in the legal code, the term vice is often used in law enforcement and judicial systems as an umbrella term for crimes involving activities that are considered inherently immoral, regardless of the legality or objective harm involved. Thus tradition determines what is a vice.
The poet Dante Alighieri listed the following seven deadly vices, associating them structurally as flaws in the soul’s inherent capacity for goodness as made in the Divine Image yet perverted by the Fall:
- Pride or vanity: an excessive love of the self (holding the self outside of its proper position regarding God or fellows; Dante’s definition was “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbour”). In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, pride is referred to as superbia.
- Envy or jealousy: resentment of others for their possessions (Dante: “love of one’s own good perverted to a desire to deprive other men of theirs”). In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, envy is referred to as invidia.
- Wrath or anger: feelings of hatred, revenge or denial, as well as punitive desires outside of justice (Dante’s description was “love of justice perverted to revenge and spite”). In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, wrath is referred to as ira, which primitive vices tempt astray by increasingly perverting the proper purpose of charity, directing it inwards, leading to a disordered navel-gazing preoccupation with personal goods in isolation absent proper harmonious relations leading to violent disruption of balance with others.
- Sloth or laziness: idleness and wastefulness of time or other allotted resources. Laziness is condemned because it results in others having to work harder; also, useful work will not be done. Sloth is referred to in Latin as accidie or acedia, which vice tempts a self-aware soul to be too easily satisfied, thwarting charity’s purpose as insufficiently perceptible within the soul itself or abjectly indifferent in relationship with the needs of others and their satisfaction, an escalation in evil, more odious than the passion of hate
- Avarice (covetousness, greed): a desire to possess more than one has need or use for (or according to Dante, “excessive love of money and power”). In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, avarice is referred to as avaritia.
- Gluttony: overindulgence in food, drink or intoxicants, or misplaced desire of food as a pleasure for its sensuality (“excessive love of pleasure” was Dante’s rendering). In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, gluttony is referred to as gula.
- Lust: excessive sexual desire. Dante’s criterion was that “lust detracts from true love”. In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, lust is referred to as luxuria, which vices tempt cultivated souls in their ability to direct charity’s proper purpose to good things or actions, by indulging excess. Thus in Dante’s estimation, the soul’s detachment from sensual appetites become the vices most difficult to tame, urges not as easily curbed by mere good manners since inflamed via appropriate use rather than inappropriate misuse. Hence conventional respect for the ninth and tenth commandments against coveting and social customs that encourage custody of the eyes and ears become prudent adjuncts to training against vice.
Vice in Epicureanism involve challenging false beliefs and attaining beliefs that are aligned with nature. In this, Epicureanism posits an entirely naturalistic, non-religious theory of virtue and vice based on the rational pursuit of pleasure. For the reasoning above, it means the impossibility of having a definite list of Epicurean vices. The contextual Aristotelian still stands as the better option.
Claus Dierksmeier, for example, conducts research on topics of economic and political philosophy as well as globalization ethics. Claus Dierksmeier (born May 17, 1971, in Pforzheim) is a German philosopher. He holds a chair for globalization ethics at the University of Tübingen and works as a strategic consultant in politics and business. He is a board member of the international think tank The Humanistic Management Network and Academic Director of the Humanistic Management Centre. Julian Nida-Rümelin (born 28 November 1954) is a German philosopher and public intellectual. He served as State Minister for Culture of the Federal Republic of Germany under Chancellor Schröder. He was professor of philosophy and political theory at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich until 2020. Nida-Rümelin is vice chairman of the German Ethics Council. Nida-Rümelin believes human agency requires the ability to weigh reasons and act upon the result of weighing reasons, but it does not ensure morally acceptable agency. Even an officer in a Nazi concentration camp may act by weighing reasons. Humanistic ethics must discriminate between good and bad reasons, good and bad forms of reasoning, good and bad forms of emotive attitudes. Hating somebody because he lives a different life is irrational, as seen in the hatred of homosexuals in a majority heterosexual community, or hatred based on skin colour. The structural account of rationality is optimistic insofar as it assumes that clarifying reasons that strive towardsat intra- and interpersonally coherent agency and belief allow the elimination of bad, misleading reasons of all the three kinds mentioned above (practical, theoretical, and emotive reasons). Therefore, the relationship between anthropological humanism and ethical humanism is not deductive, but pragmatic. Those who take anthropological humanism seriously tend to embrace a humanistic ethos and those who reject humanistic principles of agency tend to fight against anthropological humanism, expressed in different forms: social Darwinism, racism, reductionist naturalism, chauvinist nationalism, discriminating sexism and other forms of anti-humanism. Since communication plays a central role in this form of humanism, Nida-Rümelin presented an account of humanistic semantics.
Today, humanism is a philosophy that combines Christian ethics and humanist principles of the Renaissance humanist movements across time.
Featured Image: Slide-006.-Huxley-on-Human-Miseries.png, June 17, 2019.
Slide 006. Huxley On Human Miseries
Neville Buch
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