A Discussion of Mark O’Keefe’s Virtue Abounding Chapter 1 “The Virtuous Life”
Last chapter introduced the idea of the seven virtues. The four cardinal virtues are courage, prudence, justice, and temperance, and the three theological virtues are faith, hope, and love.
Now we turn to the question, what is a virtuous life?
The virtuous life is the pursuit of a true moral beauty — the human person at his or her human best, and thus as God has willed — and the true living out of our fundamental human dignity. We are most genuinely ourselves when we are people of virtue. (p. 7)
Developing virtue improves the life of the person, but it goes further than that. Society is better if we become virtuous people.
…in order to have a truly good society of any kind — a society worthy of human persons — its members must be men and women in pursuit of virtue…we live together in a healthier and more human way if we can decide well (with reference not only to our own good but to the good of others), if we are disposed always to give to people what it is due to them, if we can overcome what stands in the way of realizing the good for ourselves and others, and if we can bring our natural passions into a right balance with what is good for us and those around us. (p. 7)
How do we develop virtue? With practice.
O’Keefe likens the development of virtue to the kind of practice needed to develop other skills like athletics. However, there is a type of mindlessness to the movements of an athlete, who after hours of practice, can perform actions without thought.
Virtues are not quite that. O’Keefe notes they are a kind of habit but not a mindless habit. Aquinas calls them “habitual dispositions.” (p. 2)
The virtues that guide our moral lives are a kind of modification in our will — that is, in our ability to choose to act for the good in certain areas of our life…The virtues that guide our moral life are like these learned and practiced skills, except that virtues are habits that guide our actions to seek what is truly good. (p. 2)
By developing virtue through the practice of doing the right thing, even when it is hard, our will — that is, our backbone or resolve — is modified so it becomes easier and easier to do good.
However, it can go the other way if we do the wrong thing again and again. Instead of developing virtue, we develop vice.
Habitus is a vice, as well. It is the opposite of virtue. A vice is a habitual disposition or an abiding tendency to do evil. Like moral virtues, we build them up, one decision at a time. Once we have them, they give us smoothness, ease, and promptitude in doing evil. The vice of dishonesty grows one decision after another, progressing from little white lies to more significant untruths, from occasionally to regularly. Eventually, telling lies can be like second nature. Like virtues, vices do not determine my action — I still have the possibility of choosing rightly — but it will be far more difficult to do so. (p. 3–4)
We are essentially a product of our past decisions. Which moral muscles have you been practicing?
If you face a dilemma that can be solved by lying, and you have chosen to lie many times before, you are much more likely to choose the vice of dishonesty.
Anyone who has spent time with small children know how natural lying comes to them.
It is only through much effort that they can be taught to choose honesty over dishonesty. They have to be taught, for example, that being a person others can trust will be better for them in the long run.
Likewise, your response to finding a wallet on the street or some other opportunity where you could do something wrong when no one is watching is shaped by your past choices between virtue and vice. You are more likely to do the right thing if you have been practicing virtue because you do not want to be the kind of person who is a thief or a liar.
One distinction between a virtue and a vice is that virtue is always directed to the good. Virtues cannot do evil.
O’Keefe differentiates this point with an example of courageous behavior.
Courage as a virtue allows us “to overcome what stands in the way of attaining a good.” (p. 3)
We say a police officer demonstrates courage when he puts his life in danger to achieve the good of protecting others.
We do not say a thief demonstrates courage when he faces an armed victim when he proceeds with the robbery because he is facing this obstacle to obtain evil, not good. (p. 3)
O’Keefe gives another example with the virtue of prudence.
In the same way, the virtue of prudence enables us to consistently choose well; but it is craftiness or shrewdness, not prudence, to know how to efficiently and effectively do evil. (p. 3)
Maybe it is this lack of distinction between virtues being the pursuit of good and vices being the pursuit of evil that plays a role in the anti-capitalism that Peter Foster explored in his book, Why We Bite the Invisible Hand.
People cast profit seeking as a vice when in reality the only way to obtain profits is to provide a good or service someone wants. Working to serve others is virtuous.
Cardinal versus Theological Virtues
As mentioned in the previous chapter, all virtues hinge from the cardinal virtues. How do the theological virtues fit in?
According to Aquinas, the theological virtues are given as gifts from God while the cardinal virtues are ones we can develop on our own through practice.
Beyond the virtues that we can acquire on our own…are the virtues that God gave us directly. These are the infused or supernatural virtues, and the principal of these virtues are the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity…God alone can give us faith to know God, hope to expect divine union, and charity to enter into a mutually self-giving friendship with the Trinity. Although they are gifts and come to us with grace, the infused virtues must be embraced and nurtured within us so they can function more effectively in our daily lives. (p. 5)
Charity is also sometimes called love and encompasses the love of God and the love of man.
The verse 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us” shows that our ability to love comes from God.
And in each of the gospels, we are called to love God and as a result to love our neighbors as ourselves. (Luke 10:27, Matthew 22:36–40, Mark 12: 28–31, John 13:34–35) That helps explain why these are called theological virtues.
Conclusion
I think Han Solo’s character arc from the original Star Wars trilogy (the only ones that exist as far as I am concerned) demonstrates all of these ideas well.
Han was living for himself not trying to do good. He made it clear he would make decisions based on what was best for himself even if it meant practicing vices like lying and stealing. As such, his behavior tended towards vice because that was his habitual disposition.
However, once he became involved with the Rebellion, initially for his own selfish reasons, he found himself being transformed through the demonstration of the theological virtues of the other rebels.
Faith, hope, and love developed in him a desire to do good. That desire then drove him to begin to act in a way that promoted good. Then his willingness to take dangerous risks became the virtue of courage.
This evolution in his character is part of what make movies like that so compelling. Many movies made more recently seem to lack any character development, perhaps because we as a culture are mostly unaware of virtue ethics.
Reference: O’Keefe, Mark, 2014. “The Virtuous Life,” Chapter 1 of Virtues Abounding, Cascade Books.
