“Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”
Virtue, by definition, is the moral excellence of a person. A morally excellent person has a character made-up of virtues valued as good. For instance, he or she is honest, respectful, courageous, forgiving and kind. Because of these virtues or positive character traits, he or she is committed to doing the right thing no matter what the personal cost urges or desires but acts according to values and principles. Some might say that good qualities are innate and developed through good parenting, which they are, but we are not perfect. Virtues need to be cultivated to become more prevalent or habitual in daily life. With the habit of being more virtuous, we take the helm of our own life, redirecting its course towards greater fulfillment, peace and joy.
We know that we are becoming more virtuous people for the way other people respond to us. Our friends, families, co-workers and neighbors will trust and rely on us. They will come to us for guidance and help and will want to be around us because we inspire them to be better people. We will be known as people with exceptional character who make the right choices and strive for excellence in all we do.
Most virtue ethics theories take their inspiration from Aristotle who declared that a virtuous person is someone who has ideal character traits. These traits derive from natural internal tendencies, but need to be nurtured; however once established, they will become stable. For example, a virtuous person is someone who is kind across many situations over a lifetime because that is her character and not because she wants to maximize utility or gain favors or simply do her duty.
It is important to note, however, that there have been many different ways of developing this idea of the good life and virtue within virtue ethics or perhaps many interpretations has been made regarding the virtue, let us go deeper to it through considering the idea of Immanuel Kant.
Kant defines virtue as “the moral strength of a human being's will in fulfilling his duty” and vice as principled immorality. This definition appears to put Kant's views on virtue at odds with classical views such as Aristotle's in several important respects.
First, Kant's account of virtue presupposes an account of moral duty already in place. Therefore, rather than treating admirable character traits as more basic than the notions of right and wrong conduct, Kant takes virtues to be explicable only in terms of a prior account of moral or dutiful behavior. He does not try to make out what shape a good character has and then draw conclusions about how we ought to act on that basis. He sets out the principles of moral conduct based on his philosophical account of rational agency, and then on that basis defines virtue as the trait of acting according to these principles.
Second, virtue is for Kant strength of will, and hence does not arise as the result of instilling a ‘second nature’ by a process of training ourselves to act and feel in particular ways. It is indeed a disposition, but a disposition of one's will, not a disposition of emotions, feelings, desires or any other feature of human nature that might be amenable to habituation. Moreover, the disposition is to overcome obstacles to moral behavior that Kant thought were ineradicable features of human nature. Thus, virtue appears to be much more like what Aristotle would have thought of as a lesser trait or I can say continence or self-control.
Third, in viewing virtue as a trait grounded in moral principles, and vice as principled transgression of moral law, Kant thought of himself as thoroughly rejecting what he took to be the Aristotelian view that virtue is a mean between two vices. The Aristotelian view, he claimed, assumes that virtue differs from vice only in terms of degree rather than in terms of the different principles each involves. But wastefulness and greed, for instance, do not differ by being too loose or not loose enough with one's means. They differ in that the wasteful acts on the principle of acquiring means with the sole intention of enjoyment, while the greedy act on the principle of acquiring means with the sole intention of possessing them.
Fourth, in classical views the distinction between moral and non-moral virtues is not particularly significant. A virtue is some sort of excellence of the soul, but one finds classical theorists treating wit and friendliness alongside courage and justice. Since Kant holds moral virtue to be a trait grounded in moral principle, the boundary between non-moral and moral virtues could not be much sharp.
Fifth, virtue cannot be a trait of divine beings, if there are such, since it is the power to overcome obstacles that would not be present in them. This is not to say that to be virtuous is to be the victor in a constant and permanent war with ineradicable evil impulses. Morality is ‘duty’ for human beings because it is possible for our desires and interests to run counter to its demands. Should all of our desires and interests be trained ever so carefully to comport with what morality actually requires of us, this would not change in the least the fact that morality is still duty for us.