Virtues and Vices

January 13, 2026 | 1,171 words | 6min read

Paper Title: Virtues and Vices

Link to Paper: https://philpapers.org/rec/FOOVAV-10

Date: 2002

Paper Type: Philosophy, Ethics, Virtue Ethics

Short Abstract This paper offers a description of what virtue is, as a corrective toward human passion. It argues that virtue does not operate as virtue when turned toward a bad end.

1.

In recent years, the topic of virtues and vices has been neglected in analytical moral philosophy. But this has been changing recently. Nonetheless, virtues and vices go back to Aristotle and Aquinas, where Aquinas largely followed Aristotle but is often more detailed and accurate, especially in his Summa Theologica.

Some initial remarks: it seems that virtue is beneficial to human beings. For example, one cannot fare well if one lacks courage; communities without justice and charity are wretched places to live, as seen in Russia under Stalin or Sicily under the Mafia. But to whom does the benefit go? In the case of many virtues, the answer seems clear: courage, temperance, and wisdom benefit both the person and others; vices harm both. But what about the virtues of charity and justice? Whom do they benefit? Since they are concerned with the welfare of others and may require great sacrifice, do they only help others?

Further, many things are beneficial without being virtues. Exercise, eating well, and so on may be beneficial, but mere benefit is not enough for a definition of virtue. What differentiates virtue?

We can say that virtue belongs to the will. What does this mean? Virtue is primarily judged by intention. If someone does something unintentionally, this is irrelevant to our estimate of virtue (with the caveat that performance of the will can signal failure of intention, e.g., purposeful ignorance).

Virtue also involves dispositions of the heart. Quick, compassionate, instinctive action in emergencies reveals genuine virtue; people who merely “mean well” but remain inert may lack it. Virtue may be judged by one’s innermost desires as well as one’s intentions.

Another important virtue for moralists is practical wisdom. But does this not seem to be part of the intellect rather than the will? This is not quite true.

We can contrast cleverness with wisdom: cleverness is the ability to take the right steps to any end, whereas wisdom is related only to good ends. Some people are wise without being clever or well-informed: they make good decisions and they “know what’s what.”

Wisdom is connected to the will. To begin with, it presupposes good ends: a wise person not only knows how to do good things, such as looking after his children or strengthening someone in trouble, but also wants to do them.

A second part of wisdom concerns values, distinguishing the important from the trivial. Many people spend their lives chasing what is trivial (wealth, status, reputation) at the expense of what truly matters (health, friendship, loyalty). Here wisdom involves valuation, judgement, and attachment. Vices like vanity, worldliness, and avarice involve false valuations.

Finally, how can we distinguish virtue from arts or skills? In arts or skills, voluntary error—intentional error—can be preferable to unintentional error. This is not the case for virtues. For instance, someone who deliberately makes a spelling mistake (perhaps when writing on the blackboard to illustrate a point) does not thereby lessen his skill as a speller: “I did it deliberately” rebuts that accusation. But if a man acts unjustly, uncharitably, cowardly, or intemperately, “I did it deliberately” seems to cast very serious doubt on his virtue.

2. Virtue as Correctives

The author proposes that virtues function as corrective dispositions. Each virtue corresponds either to:

• a temptation to be resisted (e.g., fear, pleasure, idleness, vanity, despair), or
• a deficiency of motivation to be supplied (e.g., benevolence, justice, charity).

This is aligned with both Aristotle and Aquinas, who contrast courage and temperance with justice. Courage and temperance concern passions such as fear and pleasure, while justice concerns operation (i.e., action not tied to a specific passion).

Virtues arise because human nature generates misaligned impulses:

• Fear leads us to flee when we ought to stand firm → courage corrects.
• Desire for pleasure leads to excess → temperance corrects.
• Idleness → industry.
• Pride → humility.
• Despair → hope.

Aquinas writes:

They may incite us to something against reason, and so we need a curb, which we name temperance. Or they may make us shirk a course of action dictated by reason, through fear of dangers or hardships. Then a person needs to be steadfast and not run away from what is right; and for this courage is named.

Thus, virtues are products of human nature. Virtue is the way it is because we are the way we are. If we were otherwise, virtue would be otherwise.

What about the virtues of justice and charity? Unlike courage or humility, they do not correspond to particular desires or tendencies that must be checked. Instead, they address a lack of motivation:

• If humans were as attached to the good of others as to their own, benevolence would not be a virtue.
• If we cared for others’ rights as much as our own, justice would require no virtue.

One question we can ask is: Is the person who finds virtue difficult more virtuous than the one who finds it easy?

We have two contrasting intuitions:

• true virtue takes pleasure in the good; difficulty indicates incompleteness
• but harder virtue is more admirable (more “moral effort”)

We can resolve this by distinguishing different kinds of difficulty:

• Difficulties from circumstance → increase virtue (e.g., poverty making honesty harder)
• Difficulties from character defects → indicate lack of virtue (e.g., temptation to steal shows insufficient honesty)

In Kant we see another distinction, since Kant famously thought that only actions from duty have “positive moral worth.” Hence some actions fulfill virtue without requiring virtue, and so have no special moral worth. Examples:

• an honest trader acting from self-interest
• ordinary acts of self-preservation (eating breakfast, avoiding cars)

But in unusual cases, virtues like courage, temperance, and hope are required even for self-preservation, which is why suicide can sometimes involve moral failure without invoking harm to others.

3. Virtue and Bad Action

Another question: can virtues operate in accordance with bad actions? Aquinas traditionally thought that virtues can only produce good action, while many modern philosophers argue that virtue can aid a villain in doing wrong.

Example: a murderer who kills boldly is not a coward, but we hesitate to call his act courageous in the full moral sense.

We can distinguish here: a person may have a disposition like courage, yet in certain contexts that trait does not operate as a virtue. This parallels natural properties: a poison is still a poison even when it does not act as one in a given setting. Similarly, “courage” may not operate as virtue when turned to bad ends.

These are not isolated cases but can be systematic problems:

• industry may become over-industry
• temperance may become refusal of pleasure
• prudence may become anxious self-protection

In such people, these traits no longer serve good action, so they are not virtues in them.

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