[lit-ideas] Re: Definition(s) of Virtue
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:20:42 -0600
William Ball wrote:
Arete is the perfection of a virtue. The word might be,
in Greek, entelechy, a term sometimes meant god-like.
"Arete" would be ANY kind of excellence, including atheletic excellence.
There are therefore many kinds of virtue because there are many kinds of
excellence. "Virtue" makes it sound too limited, confined just to a
moral dimension, while "arete" extends to all fields.
The kind of "arete" that is a "mean" between extremes Aristotle calls
"moral virtue." Thia excellence can be destroyed by too much or too
little of the quality. These excellences are developed as habits before
we have as much control and awareness as we do as adults. They are
excellences that we share, in part, with other animals--courage, or
intemperance, are not unknown to dogs and cats, for example.
But there is another kind of excellence ('arete") that is NOT a mean
between extremes. That's what Aristotle calls "intellectual virtue."
This is something one can NOT have too much of. It includes things like
wisdom, or common sense, or artistic ability. The more of these things
we have, the more human we are. He calls them "intellectual" because
they are more the result of conscious, deliberate effort while the moral
virtues can be developed even before one thinks about them; they only
develop inside a person as a deliberate, thoughtful effort, not just as
training when young. One can't develop "wisdom" the way one develops
"temperance;" one has to work on wisdom from within, but one can be
guided by parents and others to not over-indulge.
Sadly, college teachers can't do much about developing "moral virute" in
students; if they are too undisciplined to think straight, and too
intemperate to sit still for an hour while they think, there's not much
one can do for them. This kind of moral education must happen before
college.
But the development of intellectual virtue seems exactly what college is
for. The more one develops wisdom, the "better" a person they are.
Philosophy can sometimes (although too infrequently) help with this
moral development.
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx
Forest Park, IL, USA
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