The Difficulty of Virtue
In his Nicomachean Ethics, in a sentence filled with insight, both anthropological and psychological, Aristotle observes, “Anyone can get angry, that is easy… but to be so with the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.”1
In effect, Aristotle is saying that human nature is wild and passionate, and that this natural wildness is essentially good inasmuch as it is an innate principle of actions that are themselves good, at least to the extent they can achieve goodness. However, he is also saying that our wild and passionate nature requires further formation if it is to become altogether good—“laudable and noble”—but that such formation in goodness, however dearly needed, is nevertheless terribly rare.
It is so rare precisely because of the difficulty of bringing this formation to completion. This is in fact the principal positive difficulty of human life—the entirely natural challenge with which we are tasked as we proceed toward the future. It is the difficulty of receiving the gift of the goodness of our nature while simultaneously taking responsibility for the proper maturation of this nature—all so that our nature might attain its proper completion in our individual lives.
This difficulty has a name; its name is virtue—for virtue is the immediate goal of this tough process of formation. Yet, while difficult, this task is most certainly worth the effort. Indeed, what could be more worthy on a natural level than willfully receiving the gift of human nature toward attaining its excellence (power and freedom) through our own free choices?
The Path to Maturity
As was clarified in the previous essay, as bearers of human nature, we are set on a path of development toward maturity. This path has two primary dimensions, the first of which is localized around the body, though with a reference to the soul, and the second rooted in the soul, though with a reference to the body. Yet, whereas the development of the body happens by nature through the way its determinate natural processes unfold (as long as it receives appropriate nourishment and stimulation), the development of the soul is wrought by our own free choices and their associated actions, and the way these same actions, when repeated through time, bring about our habituation.
Now, while this latter process of self-formation leads to the development of a vast array of coordinated habits, ranging from those basic and ordinary to those complex and creative, as we’ve seen, the apex of human habituation is attained only with virtue. The reason for this “only” is not simply because virtue orients us toward goodness in a definitive way, but also because it perfects the specifically human powers of human nature—those faculties for action that distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom, namely, the rational powers.
As the human being is a “rational animal” (according to the famous Aristotelian formulation), humanity is differentiated from other animals by the presence of the rational principle.2 This principle is distinguished into two rational faculties insofar as it needs a twofold orientation toward the world. On the basis of the truth and goodness of the world, its intelligibility and desirability, the rational principle must be both cognitive and desiderative if it is to be rightly oriented to the things of the world. As a result, the rational principle is divided into the power of reason, also called intellect, and the rational appetite, better known as will.3
Unlike most of the other potencies of human nature, those localized around the body and informing bodily organs, which come already determined with a natural ability to attain their proper goodness, the rational powers (and those subject to reason) do not come fully determined by nature. This means that these powers are not naturally capacitated to achieve their particular goodness unless they are determined by activation and development. Thus, reason and will, and all that is formatively subject to them, stand in need of a further determination in goodness. This is virtue.
Now, this determination of what is indeterminate yet determinable in human nature has a singular principle by which the whole venture is to be coordinated. Aristotle formulates this principle with great precision (and simplicity) when he says that we must live “according to right reason.”4 Since the good is distinguished by the use of reason, and since virtue is wrought by choosing and acting in accord with reason, while virtue then also furnishes the power to continue to act in accord with reason, this principle is universally applicable across the whole of human life.
Hence, in a word, this principle is that by which virtue is virtue, because it is both the principle by which the habituation of virtue is established, and the principle by which virtuous acts are subsequently enacted.
The reason for this universality is found in the fact that “accord with right reason” provides a complete and perfect principle by which the whole of goodness can be discerned, since reason itself is an openness to the full account of goodness and goodness in all its grandeur is surveyed by reason rightly oriented. But this “full account of goodness” and “goodness in all its grandeur” is exactly what we mean when we say “the true good,” and this is also why the will is called the rational appetite, for the will desires nothing short of this true good that is made accessible to it through the luminosity of reason.
How It All Works
Now, how is this accord with right reason worked out in the powers that stand in need of determination?
Well, given the basic division of the rational principle into reason and will, virtues are first distinguished into two kinds, those intellectual and moral, with intellectual virtues perfecting cognition and moral virtues perfecting volition. Whereas intellectual virtues are theoretically oriented and acquired by attaining truth in knowledge and understanding, moral virtues are practically oriented and acquired by attaining the true good with perseverance. Yet since intellectual virtues can be used for good or for ill (as they are not practically oriented by nature), the complete account of virtue is satisfied only by moral virtue, with the result that moral virtue alone is identified as virtue strictly so called.
Then, given the fact that there are four powers in need of determination with respect to the good practically considered—will and reason, and the sensible appetites, both concupiscible and irascible—our nature requires four primary virtues, one for each power. These virtues are called the cardinal virtues—from the Latin “cardo,” meaning “hinge”—because they are those habits around which the whole of our moral life rotates. This means that everything included in our lives practically considered bears reference to these pivotal virtues, and all our actions, whatever their kind, are modulated by their deployment.
Looking at this a little more closely: the concupiscible appetite is determined by temperance, since it needs to be tempered in its desire for the simple sensible good; the irascible appetite is determined by fortitude, since it needs to be fortified in its desire for the difficult sensible good; the rational appetite is determined by justice, since it needs to be opened toward the good of the human other with something like the earnestness for goodness that it harbors for oneself; and, finally, reason is determined by prudence (a.k.a., practical wisdom), since it needs to be rendered astute in its judgment of what is concretely good, here and now, within this context, together with these particular circumstances.
Now, even though, as indicated above, the complete account of virtue is fulfilled only by moral virtue, intellectual virtue is also decisive towards the achievement of human perfection, since intellectual virtue perfects us in our relation to truth—our primary allegiance, and that which undergirds all other goodness. This is especially the case with respect to the virtue of wisdom (which is seated alongside art, science, and understanding), because it is precisely through the exercise of this virtue that we are oriented toward our total goodness—namely, the truth of God and the things of God—which is also coincident with our own human happiness.5 Indeed, one could even understand the whole of the life of virtue as that which orients us toward this end, the exercise of wisdom in relation to things divine.
In just this way we discover that the full determination and proper perfection of human nature is entrusted to the human being—to each and every individual, and to one another via the reciprocity of education, and to our communities and cultures more broadly. It is entirely through this perfection of our nature that we are rightly oriented toward the world, one another, and our Creator. And this is what it means to become capable of love, with stability and steadiness. Since to love is to will the good of someone (that someone being oneself or another), when we acquire virtue we are made powerful in our ability to love—agile in our aptitude for goodness, ready in our performance of the good, and joyful in its accomplishment.6
It is for this that we have been created.
About the Author: Dr. Robert McNamara is a lecturer in philosophy and department head at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Ireland, adjunct professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, USA, while also tutoring periodically at the ITI Catholic University, Austria, and the Maryvale Institute, England. Robert is an associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, an associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Man and Woman, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland (currently suspended). Having studied physics, computing, philosophy, and theology, Robert brings a multidisciplinary approach to his work while exploring anthropological and metaphysical themes in ancient, medieval, and phenomenological thinkers, with a defined focus on philosophical personalism in the Christian tradition. He currently resides in Carlow, Ireland, with his wife, Caroline, and their five children.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II, Ch. 9 (1109a26–29).
Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. I, Ch. 7 (1097b22–1098a5), where Aristotle uses the phrase ‘zōon logon echon (ζῷον λόγον ἔχον),’ which translates as an ‘animal having logos [reason/speech].’
Though intellect and reason refer to the same reality, the power of cognition, they bear a subtly differentiated reference to this reality, with intellect denominating the power as understanding, and reason as proceeding toward understanding.
“κατὰ τὸν ὀρθὸν λόγον” See Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. II, Ch. 2 (1103b31–32), Bk. II, Ch. 2 (1103b31–32), Bk. VI, Ch. 13 (1144b21–28).
It should be noted that this explanation is yet only a presentation of virtue from a natural perspective. Yet, with this explanation in place, where we have considered only the kinds of virtue we can acquire by ourselves, we can then complete our picture of human formation by attending to the way human nature is perfected by the theological virtues. In comparison to natural moral and intellectual virtues, theological virtues are not acquired through repeated actions but are rather infused by God through the endowment of grace. There are three theological virtues, one seated in the intellect, namely, faith, and two in the will, namely, hope and love (or, more properly stated, charity). By faith we know God and the things of God with God’s own knowledge, by hope we await our own and creation’s fulfilment in God with God’s own certain mercy, and with charity we love God and the things of God with God’s own love. The theological virtues are then not only those habits of intellect and will be which we are firmly oriented toward God, but they are precisely that which elevate human nature so that each individual can come to participate in divine life.
Among others, see Aristotle, Rhetoric, Bk. II, Ch. 4 (1380b); Ethics, Bk. VIII, Ch. 2 (1155b31); Aquinas, ST IaIIae, q. 26, a. 4, co.
Thank you so much for all this wonderful and wise review of what God has given us - to know, to love to choose. God bless you for all you do. For many years I have worked to share these truths with our youth in all learning settings via Classic Film Study Project. at our nonprofit, Educational Guidance Institute. Thank you so much!!!!