Virtue and Vice

Virtue and vice are the most common words of praise and blame we have, and the most disputed. Under them fall moral character as a whole, the particular excellences and defects that make it up, and the questions of how such dispositions arise, what they earn, and how they shape cities and churches. In the Harvard Classics hardly a work lacks the idea. It is defined by the philosophers and essayists, portrayed by the dramatists and biographers, legislated by the scriptures, and moralized in the fables. Hume names the double approach the books take. Practical philosophers paint virtue amiably to draw men from vice, while speculative ones seek the source of moral distinctions¹. Johnson adds that the search for the “seminal principles” of vice and virtue was a later enterprise than Shakespeare’s².

The first question is what virtue is. In the *Phaedo*, Plato’s Socrates holds that true virtue is the companion of wisdom. A virtue built on exchanging one fear or pleasure for another is only a shadow³. The dialogue also rejects the suggestion that virtue is the soul’s harmony and vice its discord⁴. The Stoics locate virtue in nature and reason. For Marcus Aurelius, injustice, intemperance, anger and fear are deviations from nature, and the ruling faculty is made for piety and justice⁵. More’s Utopians likewise define virtue as life ordered by nature and ruled by reason⁶. The moderns are less confident. Descartes complains that the ancient moralists praise the virtues without giving a criterion, so that what they call virtue may be apathy, pride or despair⁷. Rousseau’s vicar denies that virtue can rest on reason alone as a love of order⁸.

A second definition makes virtue a mean. Confucius calls holding the golden mean the highest goodness and finds excess and deficiency equally faulty^9,10. Without learning, he says, even love, truth and courage sink into vices¹¹. Dante purges prodigality together with its opposite, avarice¹². Pascal sharpens the doctrine: pushed to extremes, virtues turn into vices, and greatness lies in touching opposite virtues at once^13,14. Hobbes, by contrast, rejects the notion that virtue is a mediocrity of passions and makes the virtues simply means to peaceable living¹⁵.

A third answer places moral worth in the will. Kant’s despairing man who preserves his life from duty, and his benefactor who acts from duty rather than temperament, alone show moral worth^16,17. That worth lies in the disposition of the will, not in effects¹⁸. The thought has antecedents. Thomas à Kempis laments that men are judged by deeds and talents and not by the virtue from which they act¹⁹. The *Bhagavad-Gita* scorns those who follow virtue for its gifts²⁰. Hume, working from different premises, also holds that actions are criminal only as proofs of criminal principles in the mind²¹. Against this inwardness stands a line that finds virtue in activity unspoiled by self-regard. Marcus’s good man does good unboasting, like a vine bearing fruit²². Carlyle calls true virtue unconscious welldoing and reads moral philosophy itself as a symptom that heroic virtue has become self-aware and begun to decline^23,24. Emerson objects that virtues are commonly done as penances or apologies²⁵.

Whether virtue is one or many divides the authors too. Marcus treats prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude as the highest goods²⁶. George Long, expounding him, holds that virtue alone is indivisible and that its parts are practical conveniences²⁷. Pascal asks why the virtues should be divided into four rather than six or one²⁸. Franklin arranges his thirteen so that the earlier ease the acquisition of the later²⁹. Burns denies that any two virtues imply each other³⁰. Burke divides the great virtues that inspire admiration from the softer ones that are lovable³¹. Doubt about the very standard grows with the moderns. Pascal observes that theft, incest and patricide have all been counted virtuous somewhere³². Hobbes notes that one man calls justice what another calls cruelty, and that successful wickedness gets the name of virtue^33,34. Hume suspects that universal praise of justice partly reflects the fact that the words themselves imply praise³⁵. Yet he insists that moral sentiments arise from natural feeling and that the distinction between virtue and vice is real³⁶. Emerson goes furthest: no virtue is final, and the virtues of society are the vices of the saint³⁷.

When the books turn from definitions to persons, they find virtues and vices mingled. Plutarch weighs Coriolanus’s temperance and justice against his haughtiness, and judges his violence worse than Alcibiades’ servility^38,39. Browne holds that no man is wholly bad and that good remains untouched in the depraved⁴⁰. Pope says all are virtuous or vicious only in degree⁴¹. Hamlet fears that one “vicious mole” corrupts a man’s virtues in general censure⁴². Macaulay finds the Italian statesman uniting treachery and cruelty with generosity and moderation⁴³. Sainte-Beuve’s Montaigne finds many men with single good qualities but none with many in excellence⁴⁴. Mixture invites counterfeit, and the comic stage exploits it. Sheridan sets Joseph Surface’s moral sentiments, which never become action, against his rakish brother’s real charity^45,46. Molière’s Cleante distinguishes sincere, tolerant virtue from the hypocrite’s⁴⁷. Rousseau traces the gap between being and appearing to society itself⁴⁸. Kant concedes that a cool observer might doubt that true virtue exists anywhere⁴⁹. Against such doubt Emerson exalts character as a latent power exceeding talent, preceding action and unrepaired by any change of circumstance^50,51. Cicero says something similar of old age, whose fretfulness and avarice are faults of character, not of years⁵².

Is virtue its own reward? The Stoic answer is plain. Epictetus says being good is itself the reward⁵³. Marcus bids us seek no return for a good act⁵⁴. Pliny places the reward in the silent approval of conscience⁵⁵. Emerson echoes them centuries later: the only reward of virtue is virtue⁵⁶. Others promise more. The Psalmist’s blessed man prospers like a tree while the wicked are chaff⁵⁷. Pope finds virtue’s prize in “the soul’s calm sunshine” rather than in bread or power⁵⁸. Hume holds that virtue brings more peace and favour than vice whatever providence may do⁵⁹. Washington asserts an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, honest policy and public prosperity⁶⁰. Franklin argues that vicious actions are forbidden because they are hurtful, so that virtue serves interest⁶¹.

Experience often contradicts this. The Psalmist sees falsehood prevail and the godly fail⁶², and Mill recalls that Socrates was condemned as a corrupter of youth⁶³. Plato answers with the soul’s immortality: if death ended all, it would benefit the wicked⁶⁴. Rousseau’s vicar says the victor is crowned after the games⁶⁵. Lessing treats the disproportion of goods to merit as a difficulty that drives inquiry⁶⁶. Behind this lies Satan’s question about Job, whether virtue is ever disinterested⁶⁷. Browne confesses that virtue as its own reward is a cold principle, unstable against temptation⁶⁸. Penn denies that honesty from fear of the magistrate is moral at all⁶⁹. Kant says a happiness principle erases the specific difference between virtue and vice⁷⁰. Lessing describes a progress from loving virtue for eternal rewards to loving it for its own sake⁷¹.

How virtue is acquired is answered by appeals to nature, grace and discipline. Rousseau makes pity the one natural virtue, overlooked by Hobbes, and derives the social virtues from it^72,73. Pascal finds in man an innate malignity and places all virtue in Christ^74,75. Kempis holds every virtue unaccepted without grace⁷⁶. Browne mediates: virtue born of nature is happier than forced education, yet it falls short of charity’s higher motives⁷⁷. Education and example dominate the practical writers. Plutarch observes that acts of virtue, merely related, stir a desire to imitate⁷⁸. Marcus opens his *Meditations* by crediting the family who taught him⁷⁹. Locke makes self-denial under reason the foundation of all virtue. He ranks virtue far above learning, which only makes the ill-disposed more dangerous, and holds that it is taught more by practice than by rules^80,81,82. Franklin’s chart of virtues never made him perfect but made him better^83,84. Plato had already noted that civil virtues formed by habit without philosophy earn only a gentler rebirth⁸⁵.

Whether virtue must be tried is the sharpest of these questions. Milton’s *Areopagitica* scorns a cloistered virtue that has never known vice. If temptation is removed, virtue is removed too^86,87. Browne adds that abolishing vice would destroy virtue⁸⁸. Penn calls innocence mere absence of guilt and virtue the overcoming of one’s own inclinations⁸⁹. Yet Milton’s own Adam counsels that trial be avoided rather than sought⁹⁰. Jonson holds that not to know vice is virtue⁹¹. Herbert’s mother thought ignorance of vice its best preservative⁹². Locke answers that a sheltered youth falls prey to vice abroad⁹³. Cervantes shows the danger of the testing view in Anselmo, who insists on proving his wife’s chastity by solicitation⁹⁴.

Among the particular virtues, Bacon pairs temperance with prosperity and fortitude with adversity⁹⁵. Cicero roots friendship wholly in virtue, so that it exists only between good men^96,97. Bacon calls goodness, the habit of seeking men’s weal, the greatest virtue⁹⁸, and Milton names charity the soul of the rest⁹⁹. Manzoni warns, through Donna Prassede, that zeal to do good requires knowing how¹⁰⁰. Marcus counsels mildness on the ground that wrongdoing is involuntary^101,102, and Long calls forgiveness the hardest virtue¹⁰³. Prospero finds the rarer action in virtue rather than vengeance¹⁰⁴, and Burns pleads that to err is human¹⁰⁵. Humility, which Kempis calls great wisdom¹⁰⁶, has its comic counterpart in Franklin, who admits he cured his pride only in appearance¹⁰⁷. Its opposite heads the catalogue of vices. More calls pride the mother of all mischief, Browne the father sin, and Malory’s Grail quest the head of all deadly sins^108,109,110. Hypocrisy, condemned in the Pharisees’ clean outsides¹¹¹ and in Dante’s gilded leaden cloaks¹¹², is Molière’s whole subject¹¹³. Fielding makes it a source of the ridiculous¹¹⁴.

What vice does to the vicious is another matter. Marcus holds that wickedness harms only its possessor¹¹⁵, and Emerson that vice is an absence of being¹¹⁶. Plato pictures gluttons and the violent fixed into the natures of asses and wolves¹¹⁷. Racine’s Hippolytus argues that vice advances by degrees¹¹⁸. Whether vice is ignorance or weakness is debated across two millennia. Euripides’ Phaedra says men know the right but swerve toward delight¹¹⁹. Milton’s Samson grants that all wickedness is weakness but denies that weakness excuses¹²⁰. Epictetus calls the hardening of shame a vice that men misname strength of mind¹²¹, and Massinger’s Overreach glories in being marble to remorse¹²².

In the public order Socrates urged men to put virtue before private interest and the state’s welfare before its possessions¹²³. Washington calls morality a necessary spring of popular government¹²⁴. Burke holds that vices, not names or offices, are the true causes of public storms¹²⁵. Machiavelli breaks with this tradition. Perfect goodness ruins a prince among the bad, the appearance of virtue is useful, and miserliness is a vice that enables him to reign^126,127,128. Burke condemns weighing crime against advantage¹²⁹. Penn says a useful knave is no more fit for office than a whore makes a good wife¹³⁰. Macaulay assigns the immorality of *The Prince* to its age rather than to general depravity¹³¹. The corruption of whole societies is lamented by Dante in Florence¹³², by Luther in Rome¹³³, and by Woolman in the luxury of commerce¹³⁴.

Last comes the relation of virtue to faith and to art. Dante’s Virgil followed the four cardinal virtues blamelessly yet lacked the three theological¹³⁵. Pascal finds that Epictetus leads to pride and Montaigne to impiety, and that neither can bestow virtue¹³⁶. Long replies that the constitution of things gives sufficient reason for a virtuous life¹³⁷. Mill thinks Christian morality negative and incomplete, preferring innocence to nobleness¹³⁸. Rousseau’s vicar observes that virtue was practised in Greece before Socrates defined it¹³⁹. The Eastern codes widen the field: Confucius’s gentleman considers right where the vulgar consider profit¹⁴⁰, the Buddha fulfils the perfections¹⁴¹, the *Gita* distinguishes the heavenly from the unheavenly nature¹⁴², and the Koran lists the virtues of the devout¹⁴³. On poetry, Sidney holds that it makes men enamoured of virtue where history often shows vice rewarded¹⁴⁴, and Dryden that Homer made heroes vicious to show vice’s deformity¹⁴⁵. Johnson faults Shakespeare for making no just distribution of good and evil¹⁴⁶. Hume counts the confounding of vice and virtue a lasting blemish¹⁴⁷. Shelley answers that moral goodness grows through imagination and sympathy rather than precept¹⁴⁸.

These books leave several questions open. They do not settle whether virtue is knowledge, habit, sentiment or grace, or whether it needs a reward to be loved. They also leave unsettled whether it must meet vice in order to exist.