Exploring Virtue: Being Virtuous and its Critiques

Setting the Stage

In many countries during a war, physically capable people are forced to enlist in the army and fight for their country, in what is called conscription. Whether they agree with the government mandates to go to war or not, they must serve. Within the context of war, they may face the dilemma of taking the life of an opponent. This decision carries significant consequences, as it determines their own fate: pulling the trigger ensures survival while refraining from shooting leads to their demise. Profound questions arise considering the ethical nature of this choice. Is it good or bad? Right or wrong?

We often find that what one considers to be good doesn't necessarily align with the perspective of others. Does this mean they are in the wrong, or are we the ones mistaken? As an alternative, could it be that the matter is not as fixated as we perceive?

In this post, we are going to talk about the concept of virtue, its components, and some of its drawbacks.

Movie: The Big Short

What is Virtue? What Does it Mean to be Virtuous?

Virtue is behaving to a high moral standard, and being virtuous is adhering to those standards. Those standards can be honesty, compassion, courage, generosity, justice, fidelity, and many others. 

According to Aristotle's theory of ethics, he describes the virtuous person as someone who is both a rational and good person at the same time. This theory considers the ancient belief that humans have a fixed nature and that we can only prosper if we adhere to it.

This is described in what Aristotle calls proper functioning. This can be seen in an item such as a spoon. Its proper function is to stir, scoop, or serve food, and it can be used to cut meat, but that is not its proper function. Along the same lines, Aristotle says that a human's proper function is to think and act in line with reason.

When we need to deliver difficult news to someone, we often have to deliberate what to say and how to say it. Being virtuous aligns with delivering that news elegantly and gently, positively offering feedback. 

A study published by Sage Journal found that feedback is a significant factor impacting learning and achievement, the type of feedback you give and how you deliver it can have different levels of effectiveness. It emphasized the importance of balancing positive and constructive feedback for a more effective and productive environment.1 

The Traits of the Virtuous

In our pursuit of leading a fulfilling life, developing virtuous traits becomes essential. Virtue covers a set of admirable qualities that guide our actions and help us build our character. Understanding and personifying these traits is a step forward toward our development both personally and professionally. 

Some of these keys traits are:

Courage: One of the cardinal virtues, it involves taking on challenges, and facing our fears with bravery. It has both a mental and physical aspect to it. 

Mental courage is upholding our values in the face of pressure and opposition. We can see this in social settings, where our values are challenged by a question or standing up for what we think is right.

Physical courage is taking decisions even if it could mean we would be physically harmed. It could be the mere fact of facing a physical threat or an act of heroism of saving someone from a burning building.

Generosity: This is the virtue that encapsulates a selfless and kind act, it could be as small as sharing food or as big as sharing wealth and time. It derives from the genuine desire to help others and leave a positive impact on someone's life. For instance, some powerful and wealthy people offer mentorship to aspiring entrepreneurs to leave a positive impact on their lives. A notable example of this is Steve Jobs mentoring Mark Zuckerberg.

Justice: Also one of the cardinal virtues, is treating others fairly and giving them what they deserve. It involves following moral standards and ethics to determine what is fair for each person we deal with personally and professionally.

There are many other virtues that we didn't get into, including honesty, compassion, and fidelity, as well as the remaining two cardinal virtues: temperance, and prudence.

Critiquing the Virtues

It may sound compelling to uphold virtuous standards at all times. However, that is far from the truth. We as humans are flawed beings, and it is within our nature to do things that we might otherwise not see as honorable as we would hope to be.

The concept of virtue can be vague and up for misinterpretation at times. As it is conflicting to deliberate what should and shouldn't be done in a situation when there is a lot of information to dissect. 

Imagine you are driving down the highway, and you see a child crossing that highway. You could potentially save the child by immediately stopping your car or slowing down and signaling other drivers to be careful. However, doing that could lead up to other accidents and endanger other people. This reflects the complexities of applying the concept of virtue in real life as there are other consequences and conflicting considerations.

It could seem like virtue means doing the right thing at the right time, in the right way, in the right amount, toward the right people. This concept is deeply conflicting, and leave so much room for exploitation. Because when a concept is up for multiple interpretations, it is easily manipulated. Now let's take a look back at the United States' invasion of Iraq. 

The USA declared war against Iraq in 2003 because they said Saddam Hussein waged war against the US with the 9/11 attacks and therefore the threat of "weapons of mass murder" is not to be ignored. With over 1 million Iraqi civilians dead and more than 7 thousand American soldiers dead,2 The war left Iraq destabilized even today with little hope for the future.

In a report published by Charles Duefer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, said: "After more than 18 months, the weapons of mass destruction investigation and debriefing of the WMD-related detainees has been exhausted."3 

Innocent people died, and many soldiers were deluded into thinking they were fighting for their country's freedom. Many people speculate what was the reason for the war, from the control of the middle east to the abundance of oil reserves in Iraq or both combined. The one thing for sure is that what many considered to be virtuous and honorable turned out to be manipulation. 

Final Reflections

This may leave us questioning why a person should strive to be virtuous and invest so much time and energy. What exactly is the purpose or outcome they seek to achieve?

That path will lead us toward chaos and disorder. Without virtue, we damage our sense of meaning resulting in dysfunctional or unhealthy outcomes. It leads us to negative consequences as our understanding becomes distorted. Our perception of purpose becomes unreliable, misguiding our actions and choices.

However, we need not to be consumed by a one-sided pursuit. As that leaves us unbalanced and prone to the dangers of manipulation. Virtue signaling, for example, is where we could intently express ourselves on moral high ground to show that we have a good character. Which is not true virtue. We see this type of virtue signaling a lot in social media where we see people posting and changing their profile pictures and jumping on a bandwagon to support a social cause to gain social approval or appear morally superior, rather than genuinely acting by those beliefs. 

True virtue is when our actions align with our values, whether in the presence of others or not. It comes from deep inside us and guides our actions with honesty and integrity. And understanding that it is not fixated helps us in our long pursuit of development.

Take a moment to reflect on this thought-provoking quote:

Thank you for reading! This topic is super interesting, and we cannot possibly delve into all of its aspects. We will cover more about this topic in future posts, so stay tuned!

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The Nicomachean Ethics By Aristotle.

1 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430298487 The Power of Feedback. Sage Journals.

2  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties   ORB survey of Iraq War casualties. 

3 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7634313 CIA’s final report: No WMD found in Iraq.