“It ... seems to be characteristic of the more courageous person to be unafraid and unruffled in sudden alarms rather than to be so in those that are foreseen; it comes more from his state of character [hexis, often translated disposition], because less from preparation. Foreseen actions can be rationally chosen on the basis of calculation and reason, but unforeseen ones only in virtue of one's state of character.” - Aristotle

Picture Bob. Bald head, very full moustache, but most relevant, friendly. In the sense that he’s always laughing at your jokes, eager to do a favour for you, etc. To most people, given Bob's actions, we would consider him a friendly person. But there’s a catch. He only laughs at your jokes because he wants you to like him, and always does you favours because he can’t wait to reel one in from you down the line. Bob is like a friendly politician. They’re calculated, strategic, and only worried about getting people to like them. To perform actions constituted as friendly, generous, or brave, does not make Bob friendly, generous, or brave. Bob is not a friendly person in the sense that true friendliness requires acting for its own sake. It makes Bob friendly in his actions only. If these actions are done simply because there is something to be gotten out of it, instead of recognising that to do otherwise wouldn’t be virtuous as far as friendship goes, then the virtue of being friendly isn’t one Bob possesses, more likely that he has cultivated vices that are masqueraded as virtues. A friendly person does not smile to be liked - imagine your coworker asking about your weekend, but they’re checking their phone constantly while you answer. To be friendly must be much deeper. To be kind isn’t transactional, it is a reflection of who you are. A virtuous person acts kindly because that is who they are, not because they want applause. Bob must be friendly because that is a feature of Bob, one that is persisting, active, and reliable. Alright, enough of Bob.

What the hell is virtue?

We can define virtue as an excellent trait of character; a disposition deep within the person that has it. Julia Annas says in her book Intelligent Virtue that it isn’t just a lasting feature, it is one that is active. Virtue persists through challenges and hardship. It develops by encountering situations that require those virtues, such that they can become stronger. We must be careful, though, on what we mean by disposition. Take a very cold windshield in freezing temperatures. If I were to pour boiling water over it with a kettle, the windshield would break due to the rapid change in temperature, followed by laughs from my neighbour and a “knobhead” for good measure. It has a disposition to break under there circumstances, but this is not what we mean by disposition when talking about virtue. The windshield can’t learn from this situation and change its reaction given those same or different circumstances. For the glass, this is a static disposition, just as my monitor has the static disposition to burn in if I leave the same image on it for days (that’s why they’re called screen savers by the way.) This is not virtue. Virtue is an active disposition; being a truly generous person depends on your reactions to situations that call to be generous - acting generous strengthens your disposition to be generous, and acting ungenerous weakens it. It’s not surface level, like a mere habit. A person very good at drinking tea has done so out of habit yes, but it isn’t part of their character. Virtue though? Someone who habituates virtues will desire, choose, and act in a certain way reflective of those virtues. In order to be virtuous you must have a certain mindset about things. That’s why we can’t make the assumption that the person who practices temperance like a monk did so by reading about temperance, deciding that this is how they want to be, and then looking for motivation to be like that. It requires discipline, like going to the gym in situations where you may have wanted to do otherwise. Their existing character has been formed over time to be like this. By understanding that they are in a situation that requires temperance, by the way that they are, they will act in that way. An example Annas uses is that of learning to play the piano. At first you do need to consciously figure out the right hand placements, notes, scales, chords etc. As you get better, these things all happen without conscious thought. Your fingers simply just know where to go, they know the correct speed, the correct loudness and softness for certain parts of a piece, and can improvise given any key and any piece. This skill, even though it may have been habituated, is one that is active and self reflecting.

I watched the movie Soul again recently. They talk about “The Zone” throughout the movie. But it is at the beginning where it truly resonates with what I am talking about. When Joe Gardner is auditioning for the band at the start of the movie, and he enters into The Zone, we see the fruits of his habituation. Years of dedication, practice, and self reflection makes his improv look so easy, and that’s because, for Joe, it is! He starts getting to grips with the key and the song being played, but eventually he understands the context and, without even thinking, he’s playing at incredible speeds, using the entire piano. Him entering The Zone is akin to flourishing, and that is the point of cultivating virtues. We cultivate them to achieve what is known as eudaemonia, translated as “flourishing” or “well-being”. This in and of itself could have its own post, but for now know that virtue ethicists believe that by cultivating virtues, we can live a life that isn’t one purely based on superficial happiness, but genuine well-being.

A truly friendly individuals choices with respect to friendly and unfriendly actions reflect their views about things like respect and kindness, but these views will come into fruition with respect to other actions like emotional ones. To value being friendly as someone does, they will choose to surround themselves with friendly people, to bring up their children to be friendly, to disapprove of crude and disrespectful remarks and retorts, seeing such as being deplorable rather than being amused by such actions. To be shocked and disappointed when those close to them do not reflect such virtues, but be unsurprised when they do, Of course to be at such a point would require the cultivation of multiple virtues, not just friendliness, and so to attribute friendliness (or even the opposite), in respect to it being a virtue, to singular acts, or small sequences of the same acts is reckless, especially when we don't know why they acted the way they did. We know that Scrooge became compassionate overnight, but we are told that this spark was fanned by constant compassionate acts after the story. Ge came to see that being compassionate and kind is a worthwhile way to live, and cultivated this through habituation and reflection. As annas says, the first step is a conscious realisation that this is how you would want to be, but like scrooge, we will only “get good” at it through habituation and experience. It’s like a skill, and skills cannot be left unattended. They must be constantly refined and practiced on, just like a pianist practices constantly, they become better. But if they stop, they get worse. Unlike walking to school and remembering routes, habituation in respect to virtues is active and intelligent. Annas puts it nicely:

“The intelligence displayed in an expert tennis player's strategy, for example, has come from practice and habituation, but it is not mindlessly repetitive. Similarly, a brave person (not someone who has just decided to be brave, or read a book about it, but someone who has become brave as a result of habituation) is now disposed to be brave in a way which is persistent, reliable, and characteristic. But when faced by an occasion when he should face risk or danger for something worthwhile, his response is not a mechanical, habit-based one. Like the expert tennis player, he responds directly to the situation in an intelligent way, one which takes account of all the relevant factors; habituation has sharpened rather than blunted his response. Bravery may be shown by rushing to the rescue; it may also be shown by first carefully assessing the situation. Loyalty may be shown by unflagging support; it may also be shown by seriously questioning the person who demands unflagging support.”

Some situations may require some degree of temperance, some may require on the surface a “lack” of it (as virtuous as Jesus was, he did get angry and knock over the table at the temple), but after taking into consideration the context of a situation, we reveal that it was perfectly in line with temperance after all. This is where phronesis (translated as “practical wisdom”) comes into play. There is being honest, but honesty can be blunt and distasteful. Phronesis is an intellectual virtue that allows us to assess a situation and determine an appropriate response. Much more will be said on this in future posts.

There are degrees to virtue, To have a disposition to always be honest for example would a perfectly virtuous character, but this isn’t realistic. Those who are more virtuous than others, even 10 fold, may “fall short” in some instances, and act in certain ways we may not expect given who they are. Not to mention we are emotional creatures, no matter how rational you may want to be (although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing). You could be honest enough to know that you should tell the truth when the teacher rounds up the classroom and asks "who threw the egg shaker in this bright light and burned it?!” (which actually happened by the way, it was me, yes i owned up), but the potential implications like alienation from classmates or implicating others involved; an inner conflict, could prevent this from happening. Because of this, virtue ethicists draw on a distinction from perfect virtue and continence - acting rightly despite inner conflict. To be perfectly virtuous would be to do what you should without struggling, but the continent must control a desire or temptation to do otherwise.

This isn’t to say that we should shame people for “falling short” (we always will, none of us are perfect). To do so would take away from the admirability that should be expressed about those who manage to act well in situations when it is incredibly hard to do so. However, Philippa foot lets us know that it depends on what “makes it hard” to act virtuously. If someone is poor, and they see someones wallet drop from their pocket, and they are in the position to return the wallet to the individual, and they do it, then it is indeed admirable that they did this in spite of their current situation. However, if what makes it hard is that someone not in financial trouble sees a wallet drop on the floor, and decides to return it, overcoming the temptation of greed, then praise is not really warranted here. She argues distinctly from a difference of external and internal struggles. For the poor person, despite her external struggles, she decided to do the right thing. They had no desire to take the money, it didn’t cross their mind. Deep down, they had a disposition to be honest, and so were honest. But the person that gave the wallet back after overcoming greed, even if commendable, is second to virtue. He is continent, and this stems from an internal character flaw. True virtue means to eliminate these flaws, so that these desires and temptations are not even thought of.

I have been incredibly influenced by Julia Annas account of virtue. She was an influence for this blog on virtue, and will be in subsequent blog posts on topics relating to virtue ethics. I would highly recommend giving Intelligent Virtue a read. It isn't too technical and is perfect for everyone.

References

• Annas, J. (2011). Intelligent Virtue. OUP Oxford.
• Foot, P. (2003). Virtues and Vices: And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (Reprint edition). Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Hursthouse, R., & Pettigrove, G. (2023). Virtue Ethics. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Access Here.