What is Virtue?

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Virtue is the individual expression of morality... Societies are moral, and people preach or teach morality, but they live virtuously... But, virtue and morality are the same thing in reality, since no society or social living is possible without both of these concepts as realities...

I'm still trying to work this out. I'll say moral is what is "right", and virtue is what is "just." I think there is a distinction there. What is right is a broader term for what the vast majority of a society does for stability--the letter of the law for example. What is "just" is a higher form (for lack of a better phrase) of the "right" and is the spirit of what we find in the law for example. "Right" tends toward what people debated as "what they should or shouldn't do"..."just" points toward what most people, universally, say we should "Be." And this ties into my loose argument above about justice and virtue.

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

Interesting that you only pick one dictionary and one definition.
A dictionary definition of a word is effective if that definition is the exact meaning of the word as you intend it, and offered for the edification of he with whom you are attempting to communicate at the moment. It might have a different meaning to you another time;

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used." -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Its a start, and I own more dictionaries than you; but life is a continous process of definition... Words are forms.. All forms are forms of relationship. Only when we work out what definition of a word holds true for each of us many we proceed beyond it... Working out the definition is our relationship... And, most of our words point to moral realities... Sugar points of a physical reality, and every physical reality is also a moral reality; but most moral realities cannot be easily defined... We have to give notions like virtue meaning...We have to give notions like justice and freedom and equity and life and love meaning... That is what we do and who we are... That is the business we are about...

@Stringfellow,

Stringfellow wrote:

I'm still trying to work this out. I'll say moral is what is "right", and virtue is what is "just." I think there is a distinction there. What is right is a broader term for what the vast majority of a society does for stability--the letter of the law for example. What is "just" is a higher form (for lack of a better phrase) of the "right" and is the spirit of what we find in the law for example. "Right" tends toward what people debated as "what they should or shouldn't do"..."just" points toward what most people, universally, say we should "Be." And this ties into my loose argument above about justice and virtue.

It is a mistake to equate moral with right... Usually it is not a mistake to equate moral with health, or good... All communities are moral... Even the community of marriage is moral... it is a mistake to think, as the Christians do that the form of the marriage makes it moral... All marriages are moral... The difference is, that one is a microcosm of the gay or les community and the other of the heterectual community...

Abalard said that jus is the genus and lex a species of it... So if a law is not just it cannot be law, but there are many forms of justice not law, as in the kinds of agreements people reach all the time....

Again, virtue is individual, and morality is social... It is societies that are moral, and we see how hypocritical and destructive societies seem when societies are not moral and expect individuals to behave with virtue.. Both go together, and while justice as a general moral idea may be common to both, and must be to some extent, still justice cannot be fully defined, because it is defined in every circumstance by the people and conditions at hand...

What I can say is that if we have some dispute over justice it will always be the same for you as for me... We have some difference over my share of the fish we caught together... If you walk away with more and I walk away with less, it is because we have defined justice thus... And people find it essential to their well being, even to their lives, and so we have a word for the concept...Which we define specifically to specific situations...

@Fido,

What comes to mind immediately when i think the word virtue is what is natural? Physically and Consciously.

Virtue applied to my reality, must conform constantly and to be honest without as much thought put into it as it deserves.

Virtue applied consciously, moments i am willing to breakdown and realize myself in the simplest ways possible.

The connection between the two is where humans cannot stay to long because it contradicts basic principals of understanding.

For me atleast :Not-Impressed:

@Holiday20310401,

Another thought is that virtue is not a polis (πόλις) phenomenon, but an soul or a Psycho-logia (Greek: psȳkhē, and -λογία). Consider this -- "Arete (Greek: ἀρετή); in its basic sense, arete means "excellence" or "virtue". Arete is bound up with the notion of one's fulfillment of purpose; the act of living up to one's full potential." For Socrates, philosophizing leads one toward the Good. Plato gets at purpose in Rep. Book X where he tells the story of Er. Our daimon is our "soul(Greek: psȳkhē) guide" in life, the one who will lead us to the life we have chosen. (See myth of Er). For Socrates that is to live out our purpose, and to do this we must inquire into our own nature. Thus a virtuous life is one in which I strive to be the best "me" I can be. The trick of course, is finding out who I am. And figuring out my own portion (Greek: Μοίρα) of fate.

@Stringfellow,

Good posts... But I'd like to echo a point others who's' point seems to have fallen on deaf ears:

... I fear, again, that we're tossing into the mix disparate notions. I know that many seem to have an aversion to established definitions, but the best intent of philosophy (with regard to these kinds of concepts) is not to re-create concepts - and throw in anything we like - but rather to talk to different sides, implications and views of the concept.

It may be a given that we all create reality within ourselves and that widely-varying concepts exist; but this is not to say that it should (with regards to what "X" collectively-means). It is beyond my understanding; this propensity to decimate the nomenclature of terminology. It has but one result: Reduce to absurdity any discussion by muddying the waters of similar thought and encourage everyone to go off in any conceivable direction - all in the name of, "Hey man, it's just semantics!".

By all means, let's chit-chat all the possibilities there are upon a theme. But please, isn't it so much the better that we remain on a_Theme? I see no reason why the commonalities of reputable, well-established definitions can't be used to define that theme; at least as a starting place. There exists a place we can go, along that line of "Whatever it means to you is Right"-thought, where the potential for any common-understanding gets blown to bits.

I hope my intent is sufficiently-stated here. I see this as an important, yet subtle concept.

Thanks

@Stringfellow,

Stringfellow wrote:

Another thought is that virtue is not a collective phenomenon, but an individual psychological one. Consider this -- "Arete (ἀρετή); in its basic sense, arete means "excellence" or "virtue". Arete is bound up with the notion of one's fulfillment of purpose; the act of living up to one's full potential." For Socrates, philosophizing leads one toward the Good. Plato gets at purpose in Rep. Book X where he tells the story of Er. Our daimon is our "soul guide" in life, the one who will lead us to the life we have chosen. (See myth of Er). For Socrates that is to live out our purpose, and to do this we must inquire into our own nature. Thus a virtuous life is one in which I strive to be the best "me" I can be. The trick of course, is finding out who I am. And figuring out my own portion (moira) of fate.

There was a reason Plato could not quite get at it, even if Socrates was that Knowledge is virtue, because knowledge is not a function or quality of inidividuals, while virtue is...Society is the source of knowledge for the person, and character, which is one defitiniton of ethics, along with custom...The knowledge that leads to virtue is of ones own society and community, for only within their spirit can you be free, and this goes along with the seeming paradox of Socrates that one who is evil by choice is better than one evil by accident... Freedom is like virtue and morality a form of relationship, made possible by the support and encouragement of others.. It does not happen in a vacuum...

@Holiday20310401,

If I have muddied the waters I apologize. So as to be less confusing, I have amended http://www.philosophyforum.com/forum/philosophy-forums/branches-philosophy/ethics/2784-what-virtue-5.html#post36303 to include Attic Greek for the twentieth century words I used. The intent of my post will remain the same. My overall intent is to remain true to Holiday20310401's original query.

With Respect,
S.

@Stringfellow,

Stringfellow wrote:

If I have muddied the waters I apologize. So as to be less confusing, I have amended http://www.philosophyforum.com/forum/philosophy-forums/branches-philosophy/ethics/2784-what-virtue-5.html#post36303 to include Attic Greek for the twentieth century words I used. The intent of my post will remain the same. My overall intent is to remain true to Holiday20310401's original query.

With Respect,
S.

come on wit da Greek.. I now have a dictionary, a bible, a basic Greek work book, and I guess, a grammer... Of course, the Bible is Dorian rather that Ionion, but I am starting to recognize words, cognates, thing like skorpion and asbestos... It is soo cool, and so backwards from our perspective... So tell me, so I do not have to refer to the dictionary if arete is not the basis of our word art...because taking off from the Greeks, the clerics of the middle age thought of art as all the activities of mankind... in my opinion.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

come on wit da Greek.. I now have a dictionary, a bible, a basic Greek work book, and I guess, a grammer... So tell me, so I do not have to refer to the dictionary if arete is not the basis of our word art...

I think this would be an interesting topic somewhere else on the forum. I'm guessing someone here reads Greek. It would be of interst to me to try and dig into not only the meaning of the Greek word, but to try and do it within the context of the culture and times of 350 B.C.E. IMHO this helps to "get into the head" of Plato, et al.

If this sounds good, perhaps one of the moderators would find an appropriate place for this discussion and move this post and the previous one there? ("General Discussion", "Social Groups", "???") ~ Thanks, S.

@Holiday20310401,

[quote=Holiday20310401]Virtue is progress. [/quote]

"Virtue is a path," says Plato.

[quote]"For to my thinking we have to learn of them as it were from wayfarers (those at the threshold of old age) who have preceded us on a road on which we too, it may be, must some time fare is it rough (Hesiod, Works and Days 290) and hard going or easy and pleasant to travel." It [life] is a path. Our own ability to look back from the threshold will be from what we have learned. For Plato, our highest goal was to learn of the Good. (Rep.) [/quote]

[quote=Holiday20310401]why did Plato feel compelled to try to understand this concept...what were his opinions...his conclusions? I mean this thread to be open to interpretation of works done by people regarding virtue, in relation to your own.[/quote]

[quote]
[/quote]The "cause" or perhaps here "purpose" of knowledge is to lead toward the Good. Both Socrates and Plato seem to hold virtue as a high form of the good, and since Plato seems to be saying that education leads to the Good, it is reasonable to assume that virtue can in fact be taught. And given Plato's own statements in Parmenides that the "many partake in the One", I will assume that virtue partakes in the Good. [/quote]

This fits with my own weltanschuang as I tend to view to world (knowledge included) based on Plato's theory of Forms, or in today-speak Archetypes. Our idea corresponds to The Idea and we can olnly partake of The Idea in small part at best. Thus my knowledge of virtue for instance is limited to what those at "the Threshold" have told us, to our own education on the matter (be it Plato or Kant), and what my own experience tells me. These combine to grasp at the concept of something that I believe to be a universal idea, but that is complicated by my own circumstance, beliefs, knowledge, and intellectual lack among other things to be sure.

@Fido,

Fido;36298 wrote:

Its a start, and I own more dictionaries than you;

Yes, sir! I'll take your word for that, sir. I'm sure that is important to you, sir, so it must be important to me, also. Right?
(Actually an opening statement like that would cause me to despair of any possibility of an intelligent and fruitful conversation. It tells me that ego is involved and not rational thought. 'Beliefs'. And, after reading the rest of your post here, I feel that my initial observation and prediction are valid.)

Quote:

but life is a continous process of definition... Words are forms.. All forms are forms of relationship. Only when we work out what definition of a word holds true for each of us many we proceed beyond it... Working out the definition is our relationship... And, most of our words point to moral realities... Sugar points of a physical reality, and every physical reality is also a moral reality; but most moral realities cannot be easily defined... We have to give notions like virtue meaning...We have to give notions like justice and freedom and equity and life and love meaning... That is what we do and who we are... That is the business we are about...

Yes, sir!
Shall I regard your words as universal truth, as you present them, sir?
(..or simply "point to" youPerspective, 'your' views.)
Permission to leave, sir?
(leaves the room, walking backward, bowing... rolling eyes...)

@nameless,

lol. Sometimes I feel there are too many words for any useful benefit.

Then again, sometimes I cant find the words Im looking for.

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

Yes, sir! I'll take your word for that, sir. I'm sure that is important to you, sir, so it must be important to me, also. Right?
(Actually an opening statement like that would cause me to despair of any possibility of an intelligent and fruitful conversation. It tells me that ego is involved and not rational thought. 'Beliefs'. And, after reading the rest of your post here, I feel that my initial observation and prediction are valid.)

Yes, sir!
Shall I regard your words as universal truth, as you present them, sir?
(..or simply "point to" youPerspective, 'your' views.)
Permission to leave, sir?
(leaves the room, walking backward, bowing... rolling eyes...)

Other than a moralist, I am a word person.... And ya, I think you can count on what I am saying because it is what have found true, and I would not waste a keystroke on what is false... So, go and read the socratic dialogues, and you will see those people trying to define virtually the same qualities we are working on today... Under the circumstances a dictionary is little help... In fact, these words are forms of relationship, moral forms which we ourselves in the conduct of our lives must define...

Let me give you an example... If you ask a common question: What is truth, every attempt to define truth has some exceptions... But if you look at people, you see they live and act according to their notions of truth, and will certainly object if you say they hold some false ideas... And to change a mind, you must first change a person's perception of truth, and this is no small feat, because that is intimate and essential to a person's self perception... And so truth is not a thing, not a thing at all, -of reason; but of emotion...On the one hand you might say truth is a corespondance between ones conception of reality, and reality.... Yet it is what every person percieves themselves to be, acting in accordance with their understanding of truth... And, in any event, truth is something we all work out together, not only as a representation of reality, but as a form of relationship...So the truth is a moral concept, a moral form... And if this is true, no one will be able to define truth with any accuracy...And so with virtue, that it can be defined, but only in the most general and open terms...

Rather than ask what truth is, or what virtue is; with moral forms one should ask what means truth, or what means virtue, because they have no being other than our meaning, which living people give to them...Moral forms mean because people find them essential to their lives...Thanks

@Stringfellow,

Stringfellow wrote:

"Virtue is a path," says Plato.

The "cause" or perhaps here "purpose" of knowledge is to lead toward the Good. Both Socrates and Plato seem to hold virtue as a high form of the good, and since Plato seems to be saying that education leads to the Good, it is reasonable to assume that virtue can in fact be taught. And given Plato's own statements in Parmenides that the "many partake in the One", I will assume that virtue partakes in the Good.

This fits with my own weltanschuang as I tend to view to world (knowledge included) based on Plato's theory of Forms, or in today-speak Archetypes. Our idea corresponds to The Idea and we can olnly partake of The Idea in small part at best. Thus my knowledge of virtue for instance is limited to what those at "the Threshold" have told us, to our own education on the matter (be it Plato or Kant), and what my own experience tells me. These combine to grasp at the concept of something that I believe to be a universal idea, but that is complicated by my own circumstance, beliefs, knowledge, and intellectual lack among other things to be sure.[/quote]
I think it is a mistake to think virtue can be taught even if it can be learned because it rests primarily on ones emotional connection with others...Like all forms of relationship, it is meaningless without the relationship... No one is virtuous on their own, but in relation to others... If they were the last person on earth, though they were in perfect health, no form, and no form of relationship would have meaning to them... That meaning, and that value is something we all share some part of, and it is the sharing that makes it real...

Plato's theory of forms is wrong....The only universal idea is not even an idea, but the reality of life that makes all real, and gives all meaning. A virtue, or all virtue has meaning because it/they support/s life....Kant is not of the mark saying knowledge is judgement, and that we can only know finite reality.... The problem here is that virtue cannot be concieved of as a finite

@Fido,

Fido;36424 wrote:

Other than a moralist, I am a word person.... And ya, I think you can count on what I am saying

Translated; You can count on the fact that I am speaking honestly, according to 'my' insight, 'my' understanding, 'this' Perspective...
I can, perhaps, tentatively, accept your claimed honestly.

Quote:

because it is what have found true,

What you have found to be true, for you, from youPerspective. I can accept your truth as offered by you.

Quote:

and I would not waste a keystroke on what is false...

You can speak honestly, you can even honestly present the 'scientifically false', if you honestly feel it to be 'true'.
I, too, have related much 'honestly' that I have subsequently found to be 'false'.

Quote:

And to change a mind, you must first change a person's perception of truth, and this is no small feat, because that is intimate and essential to a person's self perception...

Why would you ever feel the need to 'change' someone's mind (ego!)? What makes you think that youPerspective is superior to someone else's Perspective, of the moment (besides ego)?

Quote:

And so truth is not a thing, not a thing at all, -of reason; but of emotion...

As you understand it, at the moment, for you.

Quote:

On the one hand you might say truth is a corespondance between ones conception of reality, and reality.... Yet it is what every person percieves themselves to be, acting in accordance with their understanding of truth... And, in any event, truth is something we all work out together, not only as a representation of reality, but as a form of relationship...So the truth is a moral concept, a moral form... And if this is true, no one will be able to define truth with any accuracy...

You define and describe your own 'take', your own 'understandings of the moment', your own biasses and limitations and speculations and interpretations and experiences, etc...

Quote:

And so with virtue, that it can be defined, but only in the most general and open terms...

In your opinion, from youPerspective.

From 'this' perspective, defining 'virtue' seems simple.
The complete 'set' of 'virtue' seems to be 'humility'; the sole 'sin', 'vanity/pride'!
All else are but 'subsets' that can be followed back to the original 'set'.

@nameless,

Quote:

nameless wrote:
Translated; You can count on the fact that I am speaking honestly, according to 'my' insight, 'my' understanding, 'this' Perspective...

I can, perhaps, tentatively, accept your claimed honestly.
I am only telling you what I have found... Prove me wrong or get along little doggy.

Quote:
What you have found to be true, for you, from youPerspective. I can accept your truth as offered by you.

Truth is just a form, and I don't get hung up on forms, but see though them... So when Voltaire said: If you would discuss with me, define your terms, I see that he is pointing out a specific purpose of all forms, which is a certain stability in time...What good would it do us after all if we were discussing virtue this minute, and in the next using a identical word having a different meaning... And if I am talking of sugar, there is a relationship between the physical reality and the form; but of moral concepts we can only see what they are after the fact, as in virtue results in good, but the proximate cause is not the only cause, and not even much of a cause in our minds if we cannot cause the cause...

Quote:

You can speak honestly, you can even honestly present the 'scientifically false', if you honestly feel it to be 'true'.
I, too, have related much 'honestly' that I have subsequently found to be 'false'.

Honesty is a form of relationship, a moral form that people find necessary because it is...

Quote:

Why would you ever feel the need to 'change' someone's mind (ego!)? What makes you think that youPerspective is superior to someone else's Perspective, of the moment (besides ego)?

As you understand it, at the moment, for you.

As some times happens people read philosophers long before they can understand them, and in the process learn more than they can use... My first philosopher was Marx... That is because I am a born revolutionary, and still am... But I have move beyond Marx, and idealism even if I have found a way for humanity to get beyond forms... I have found that informality is best, because the less of form the more of relationship... As far as changing minds goes, no growth is possible, and not the slightest change or progress is possible without a change of mind, of perspective to be more exact... It is all we can change of people as far as I know... People change forms, and that is how people progress since what is essential to people cannot change, and will not change... Since everyone is playing on their perspective of self interest, you have to show them what can be changed about reality, and that is form and perspective, which go together, since people see the forms of reality about them rather than the reality. Most people simply cannot see that things like philosophy, government, religion, economy and etc. are not eternal... People think because they grew up in a form that it is forever...That is the easy thing to change, but people wear themselves out trying to change human nature, or their neighbor, and it is so much waste... We can change forms, and it is as pleasant as changing underwear...

Quote:
You define and describe your own 'take', your own 'understandings of the moment', your own biasses and limitations and speculations and interpretations and experiences, etc...

In your opinion, from youPerspective.

From 'this' perspective, defining 'virtue' seems simple.
The complete 'set' of 'virtue' seems to be 'humility'; the sole 'sin', 'vanity/pride'!
All else are but 'subsets' that can be followed back to the original 'set'.

Look, Name less.. I see Plato and Socrates looking for a hard reliable definition to their moral concepts, and the fact that we deal with the same concepts tell me they are essential to our needs... And the fact that we have been looking for the same animals for thousands of years shows we have been going about it in the wrong fashion... All people learn virtue and morality... It is not learned because it is taught because the basis of it is in our emotions... We feel what is right, and if virtue must some times argue against cruel logic to win our best behavior then let the fight begin... People know what is right because they feel what is right...Emotions can be learned, but not taught...

I am not saying the definition is easy, and I am saying virtue is specific to specific situations... The easy thing to see is that the most morally conscious and virtuous people represent extant healthy communities, which was the very thing suffering change in Attica... Wealth, and individualism are signs of a failed society, failed forms of relationship... People are always relatively virtuous, and virtuous in relation to something, which is their community ethics... The question of how to produce a virtuous individual is false, wrongly concieved... one becomes virtuous in accepting the community ethic, but if the community has garbage ethics the individual cannot be expected to behave better than...

@Holiday20310401,

Fido says that;

Quote:

Truth is just a form, and I don't get hung up on forms, but see though them...

This is the most meaningless bit of nonsense I've heard in awhile. That you can so easily dismiss (whatever notion you have of) Truth (couldn't be much of a notion!), with the idiot notion of 'forms' (not calling you an idiot, just the fellow who came up with the idea in the first place), well, I can see that further conversation on the subject would be fruitless...
I do notice, however, that you have in no way refuted what I have offered, as it has yet to be refuted by anyone, no wonder you haven't.
I do inderstand that you don't like what i have offered. That's fine and dandy. If you should think of a good refutation sometime, please educate me.
'Till then,
Peace

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

Fido says that;

This is the most meaningless bit of nonsense I've heard in awhile. That you can so easily dismiss (whatever notion you have of) Truth (couldn't be much of a notion!), with the idiot notion of 'forms' (not calling you an idiot, just the fellow who came up with the idea in the first place), well, I can see that further conversation on the subject would be fruitless...
I do notice, however, that you have in no way refuted what I have offered, as it has yet to be refuted by anyone, no wonder you haven't.
I do inderstand that you don't like what i have offered. That's fine and dandy. If you should think of a good refutation sometime, please educate me.
'Till then,
Peace

Thanks for the complement... So what does that mean???If you can't beat 'em, run like hell???

Look, sorry I don't get all weird on truth... I know, and you know, when we die all these forms that mean so much for us now will mean nothing... Watch me massacre this Name: Schopenhaur said: when I die the world dies with me, and also, the world is my idea...I trust he understood essentially as I do.. But more than this, for the last person alive, when humanity finally dies, truth will have no more meaning than money even though both are a part of the currency of life... Our forms serve a purpose, and some times they act against our purpose...We have to learn when to let them go...

As far as truth goes it is good, but after a while what it takes to catch it is just like the energy put into an object to increase speed, and it only adds mass... You can't make it more important than it is... Just like anything else, you only need the magic number to figure it out... I don't know how to write the magic number...I think it kind of looks like a butterfly or a zero or a pie with a line down the middle. Like (l) kind of... It is spelled: E n o u g h, and it does not rhyme with dough. Enough for me, enough for two, enough for everyone... No virtue is possible without enough...No truth is possible without enough...No life is possible without enough... Everybody needs enough from their relationships, and people can live without forms for a while, but no one can live without relationships...

So try to put things in perspective, that life is the ultimate judge of truth...With enough truth people live, and without enough, people die, and ditto for justice and peace and honor, and generally, virtue. Enough is the magic number...

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