Before treating individual virtues, the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins by addressing what virtue is. Its opening paragraph reads:

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil. 4:8)

A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God. (CCC no.1803){1}

Three parts of the Catechism’s paragraph are noteworthy. First, the passage begins not only by citing Sacred Scripture but also by citing St. Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians to direct themselves to the good. Nor is this merely any good thing, but a specific sort of good designated as “worthy of praise” Phil 4:8). Only after exhorting Christ’s disciples’ attention to be firmly fixed on this kind of good does the Catechism present a definition of virtue. Finally, in a stark summary of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s commentary on the Beatitudes, the Catechism redirects its reader to the most praiseworthy of all goods: participation in the divine life. This last statement echoes the promise made to humanity’s first parents in the figurative account of the fall (Gn 3:5) (CCC no. 390).

 The Catechism’s lessons are not only contained in its words but also in its pattern of thought. Here, the academic proverb is verified: one can learn a lot of theology from a good table of contents. According to this rationale, to understand virtue, one must first grasp the nature of the good it seeks. This is not simply “the good” or a generic notion of “goodness.” Instead, it indicates a specific aspect of the good equally delineated in the Catholic tradition. As the Catechism says, it is only after discovering the qualities of this special sort of good that one more clearly perceives the demands required of anyone serious about seeking it. These demands are not only about actions to be performed but also include the possession of specific capacities within the agent herself. In other words, the sort of good to which Paul directs his readers demands a kind of “agathic congruence” within the human person. The person, through virtue, is configured to such a noble pursuit. And so, it is only from a discussion of the sort of good that virtue seeks that one can make better sense of what a virtue is, why it is necessary in human life, and its other characteristics.

The Kind of Good at which Virtue Aims

In his exhortation to the Philippians, St. Paul includes the encouragement that “if there is any excellence” (Phil 4:8). The Greek word Paul used, ἀρετὴ [or aretē], could just as easily be translated “virtue.” The Catechism (and many English translations of the Bible), however, can equally justify rendering St. Paul’s aretē as “excellence” because that is what “virtue” connotes. Virtue makes one good, but it is also a pursuit of the good.

The ancient Greek philosophers and Christian writers, certainly since the time of St. Ambrose of Milan, delineated three basic kinds of goods: the pleasurable good, the useful good, and the bonum honestum.{1} The last phrase resists adequate translation into modern English. Plato and Aristotle knew it as τὸ καλόν [to kalοn], and the ancient Roman jurist Cicero helped facilitate the concept’s migration into Latin as bonum honestum.{2} The term—in both Greek and Latin—carries a depth and range of meanings far beyond what any single English word can convey. For this reason, some scholars prefer to retain the original Greek or Latin expressions, while others venture to translate these terms into English. The diversity of proposed translations—ranging from “the noble”, “the fine”, “the beautiful”, “the fair” to “the moral”, “moral goodness”, “the virtuous good”, “the seemly”, “the fitting”, “the admirable”, and “the honorable”—reflects the conceptual breadth that the single phrase bonum honestum held for ancient minds. In this essay, we will render to kalοn and bonum honestum into English as “the virtuous good.” By this, one does not mean that virtue is good or to indicate those good things that accrue to one who practices the virtues. Instead, “the virtuous good” will indicate the specific sort of good toward which virtue aims.

Because all of this can seem rather “highfalutin” and foreign, a more mundane example may help. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his own description of what virtue is, introduces a helpful illustration in a memorable and enlightening manner:

Consider the example of a highly intelligent seven-year-old child whom I wish to teach to play chess, although the child has no particular desire to learn the game. The child does however have a very strong desire for candy and little chance of obtaining it. I therefore tell the child that if the child will play chess with me once a week, I will give the child 50 cents worth of candy; moreover, I tell the child that I will always play in such a way that it will be difficult, but not impossible, for the child to win and that, if the child wins, the child will receive an extra 50 cents worth of candy. Thus motivated the child plays and plays to win. Notice however that, so long as it is the candy alone which provides the child with a good reason for playing chess, the child has no reason not to cheat and every reason to cheat, provided he or she can do so successfully. But, so we may hope, there will come a time when the child will find in those goods specific to chess, in the achievement of a certain highly particular kind of analytical skill, strategic imagination and competitive intensity, a new set of reasons, reasons now not just for winning on a particular occasion, but for trying to excel in whatever way the game of chess demands. Now if the child cheats, he or she will be defeating not me, but himself or herself.{4}

MacIntyre’s case of the chess-playing child highlights the possibility of at least two kinds of goods that the child pursues. The first good is the pleasurable candy; the second is a good more difficult to describe. All one can say is that it is the good of playing chess well.{5} As MacIntyre points out, if the child is motivated by some good that is external to the playing of chess for its own sake, then the child has all sorts of reasons to cheat. For in this case, the good is something attainable whether one plays chess well or not. The good represented by the delectable morsel is something external to and separate from the actual game of chess. Therefore, all that might matter is the winning of the candy, by whatever means. However, “so we may hope” that amid the pursuit of candy there awakens within the child a desire to play chess for its own sake and do so well. When such a transformation takes place within the child, what is being sought is something new, something more mature. The victorious sweet becomes a mere side effect. This other, new sort of good, a good desired for its own sake apart from any usefulness or pleasure it may bring, is what the ancient philosophers and Christian scholars termed the bonum honestum: the virtuous good.

The virtuous good has several noteworthy traits. As one witnesses in the example of the chess-playing child, the distinguishing mark of the virtuous good is its being pursued for its own sake. Indeed, Aristotle insisted that acting for any other reason corrupts both the pursuit and the excellence of the act. Pursuing the virtuous good necessarily entails pursuing it for its own goodness. Using the Greek term kalοn, Joseph Owens explains, “The sole acceptable motive for bringing about kalon is kalon itself.”{6} So, in pursuing the virtuous good, motive deeply matters. While two soldiers may perform the same physical act of charging into battle, if one is driven by fear of punishment and the other by the virtuousness of the act, their actions are morally distinct. Actions lacking motivation for the virtuous good cannot be virtuous.

This character of the virtuous good as “being pursued for its own sake” distinguishes it from two other sorts of goods one might pursue, namely good qua pleasurable and good qua useful. Things or actions are often labeled “good” when they bring pleasure or serve a practical purpose. However, the virtuous good, and actions leading to it, do not possess value because they bring pleasure or serve a purpose. They are esteemed as virtuous because they are intrinsically good. Unlike goods sought after under the guise of mere pleasure, which are pursued only for as long as they satisfy, or useful goods, which are valued for what they achieve, the virtuous good motivates action regardless of any accompanying pleasure or utility. A parent who cares for her child only when it is enjoyable fundamentally misunderstands the nature of what it means to be a good parent. To parent well means that care must be given regardless of whether it is pleasurable or useful. Similarly, many human actions are motivated by their effectiveness in achieving some goal: taking medication to restore health, visiting the dentist to maintain oral hygiene, or tying shoes to walk safely. Such actions are called good because they lead to desired outcomes. They are useful. Yet, Aristotle argues that virtuous actions are not pursued for utility. The good at which virtue aims stands apart as something inherently worthy, independent of external outcomes. This is why Cicero could write that “even if it is not accorded acclaim, it is still good [honestum]; and by its very nature, we rightly say, it merits praise, though praised by none.”{7}

For the disciple of Jesus Christ, there is a deep irony here eloquently expressed by St. Ambrose:

For I said that nothing can be virtuous [honestum] but what is useful, and nothing can be useful but what is virtuous [honestum]. For we do not follow the wisdom of the flesh, whereby the ‘usefulness’ that consists in an abundance of money is held to be of most value, but we follow that wisdom which is of God, whereby those things which are greatly valued in this world are counted but as loss.{8}

The great irony is this: in a life devoted to the glory and praise of God, the pursuit of the virtuous good becomes what is most useful.

While the virtuous good [bonum honestum] is distinguishable from the pleasurable good [bonum delectabile] and the useful good [bonum uti], one must be careful not to misunderstand the peculiarity. This distinction between the various kinds of goods is not principally a distinction in physical things sought (e.g., ice cream, medication, a game of chess) or their related activities. The distinction rests more in the inner life of the one doing the seeking. It is not, in the first place, a question of what one does, but why one does it. The child, initially motivated by candy, eventually desires to play chess well for its own sake. The physical activity of chess playing did not change as the child’s purpose was transformed. Yet the change in the child was what was significant. In the same way, it is better to understand the distinction among the diverse kinds of goods according to the sort of internal responses they demand. One response is demanded by the child who simply wants candy; another response is required of the child who simply wishes to excel at chess. Seeking the virtuous good, the bonum honestum, requires not just any response, but a particular type of internal response.

While the fundamental difference in response is something internal, this naturally can affect the sorts of physical activities and relationships in which one engages. Someone seeking only a life of pleasure may not often be found doing strenuous yard work. But, as Aristotle pointed out, the sort of good one seeks also affects the sorts of relationships one forms. Beer buddies, or friendships based on mutual pleasure, evaporate when the laughs cease. Classmates, who are otherwise strangers, gathering for the sole purpose of preparation for an exam will find their partnership dissolved upon the exam’s completion. Finally, those who share the pursuit of deeper forms of life are just the ones who have the capacity to accompany each other through the ups and downs of that life. In this way, the kind of good one pursues does have a bearing on one’s activities and relationships precisely because it will, to a greater or lesser degree, make demands on one’s inner life. What is demanded of the virtuous good’s pursuers is an inner congruency to the kind of good being pursued. When one sets out to pursue the virtuous good, of which Cicero wrote “that which merits praise, though praised by none”—the inner congruency demanded of that person is what we call “virtue.”{9}

That the virtuous good makes such demands upon one’s inner life is not too strong a statement. Echoing St. Augustine of Hippo, the Catholic tradition affirms that the virtues are those and only those agathic congruencies “by which one lives rightly and of which no one can make bad use.”{10} As the investigation turns to explore what virtue is, it is indirectly exploring facets of that highest and most noble good to which St. Paul exhorts us, the bonum honestum.

What Virtue Is: Virtue Perfects the Person

Virtue names a particular condition of the human person’s inner life. Just as one seeks the virtuous good throughout life—in one’s relationship, one’s commitments, one’s thoughts, work, play, and prayer—so too does this good demand a congruency echoed in the person’s inner life. Justice, hope, patience, studiousness, faith, docility are each necessary to grow “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). By virtues the human person responds more adequately to the good for its own sake. St. Thomas Aquinas notes that an adequate response includes responding “promptly, firmly, with pleasure.”{11} This alone can be done with the virtues. Although Sacred Scripture, along with the works of St. Jerome and St. Anselm, contains numerous early reflections on virtue, St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the first Christian thinkers to explicitly examine the general nature of virtue, states that “the true and brief definition of virtue is to say it is the order of love.”{12} Virtue makes it easy for one to respond to various goods, not for gain, benefit, or sheer pleasure, but because of their own goodness.

Recognizing virtue as an inner condition enabling one to respond appropriately to the virtuous good means that virtue, by its definition, is something good for the human person. For this reason, medieval thinkers codified the language of virtue as being “a good quality of the soul” (see, for example, ST I–II, q. 55, a. 4c). This important statement has two sides. On the one hand, virtue is identified as something perfective of the one who possesses it (“a good quality”). On the other hand, the Catholic tradition affirms that virtue belongs to the inner life of the person (“of the soul”). It is perfective, but perfective of a particular aspect of the human person.

Philosophers and theologians acknowledge two basic ways to speak of the soul. First, the rational soul can be addressed for what it is (i.e., its essence). Second, one can speak of the soul regarding its capacities (i.e., its powers). Virtue is the perfection of a human capacity, specifically a human power to act. Hence, St. Thomas summarized Aristotle’s thought, holding that “virtue is the perfection of a power [of the soul].”{13} In this sense, virtue represents a deeply ingrained inclination within a power to function well. This does not mean that virtue is an external addition to a power. Instead, virtue is an intrinsic disposition or tendency of the human power itself. The relationship between virtue and powers of the soul is comparable to a sunflower’s natural tendency to track the sun across the sky. Just as one can distinguish between the sunflower and its heliotropic tendency, so too can one distinguish a rational soul’s power from the inclinations those powers manifest. A person possessing the virtue of courage is inclined to act courageously even when confronted with danger. Yet, virtue should not be confused with the power itself nor the action born from its exercise. It is the ingrained tendency of the soul’s power toward some good action. In sum, virtue is that which orders the human powers, which in turn enables a person to live a flourishing and excellent life, a life in pursuit of the virtuous good. One of the clearest ways to understand the nature of virtue is to see it as the perfection of a human power.

Recognizing that the powers of the human soul can be directed toward the good in various ways, both philosophers and Catholic theologians emphasize the specific kind of determination that virtue entails. Virtue is not just any positive orientation but specifically “a habit toward the best.”{14} This distinction serves two key purposes. First, describing virtue as a “habit” underscores its enduring quality. Drawing on established philosophical tradition, Catholic theologians argued that virtue is not merely a favorable disposition (dispositio in Latin, denoting something easily altered) but rather a stable habit (habitus, something not readily changed).{15} Second, by highlighting that virtue is oriented “toward the best,” these same thinkers stressed that virtue is not simply any good disposition but a deeply rooted orientation toward that good which is most excellent.

From here it is possible to summarize the development of the argument thus far. Virtue is something that perfects the inner life of the human person by firmly disposing the soul’s capacities (i.e., powers) to respond appropriately to the virtuous good in the person’s actions. It is something oriented toward the best, that is, human excellence in any given situation. Simply put, virtue can be considered as that which exists between what one “can do” (powers) and what one “does do” (acts). Virtue is closer to what one “tends to do” where this tendency is understood in the terms of a firmly ingrained disposition of the soul’s power directed toward some good act.

With this established, one must address which of the soul’s powers virtue directs, for virtue does not dispose every power of the soul. The soul is the animating principle of the human person. Therefore, because virtue is a firm disposition directing a power of the soul, it is most appropriately attributed to those human powers that are not already determined by some other factor. Certain human capacities, especially natural ones, are already directed toward specific actions. These powers need no further assistance in moving toward some action since nature itself suffices to direct them. The five senses (e.g., hearing or sight) serve as a worthy example. These powers are naturally directed toward their respective functions: hearing or seeing. By its nature the ear is directed to hear. Consequently, speaking of a “virtue of hearing” is more than just unusual; it is incorrect. The sense of hearing has no need of a further “habit” to dispose it to its task of hearing. There exist other reasons why bodily powers do not possess virtues, but the fundamental principle is always the same: only when a human capacity could potentially be moved toward various acts is there the possibility of speaking of a virtue.{16} A consequence of this logic means that virtue is limited to those human powers of the soul that are not preordained to a single object by their nature or by other external factors. Virtue, in its fullest and proper sense, pertains to the habituation of human powers capable of being either well or poorly disposed—those not fixed in their operation. This understanding echoes the ancient Roman jurist Cicero’s assertion that “virtue is a habit akin to a second nature.”{17} Virtue is “second nature” precisely because it guides human capacities where nature itself has not already imposed a specific determination.

The second part of the Catechism’s description of virtue in general confirms this focus on virtue as a perfection of those powers of the soul needing further determination to do the good:

A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. (CCC no. 1803)

Certain words and phrases now appear to the informed reader as having substantial meaning: “an habitual and firm disposition;” “tends toward the good”; etc. Understanding virtue as a perfection of the person is fundamental to every virtue. Every virtue is this firm disposition (habitus) of a natural capacity of the person for the virtuous good.

Two potential contemporary pitfalls must be avoided in this understanding of virtue. The first relates to certain secular ethical trends popular since the beginning of the twentieth century. The conception of virtue held by the Catholic intellectual tradition and articulated in seminal form in the Catechism perceives an inextricable link between one’s ethical life and human nature. If virtue is the perfection of a power, then it becomes unthinkable to separate the ethical life from anthropology. If virtue perfects the human person, then virtue makes a man a good man. Yet, it is precisely this separation between ethics and anthropology that has marked much of anglophone ethical philosophy of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This separation between ethics and anthropology could be traced to a number of philosophers, but perhaps its most famed expositor was G. E. Moore and his critique of what he called the “naturalistic fallacy.”{18} It was through this critique of the “naturalistic fallacy,” which we cannot explore in depth here, that not a few have been led to the operative assumption that facts (what things are) and value (what is called good about them) are wholly separate. From there, professional philosophers busied themselves dividing the world into descriptive statements (about facts) and evaluative statements (about values). Of course, descriptive statements are taken to be what actually is while all prescriptive statements about how one should act, which include ethical statements, would simply be subjective expressions of emotions about personal values. G. E. Moore is ultimately wrong and, happily, there has been more than one sound rebuff of his naturalistic fallacy.{19} Nevertheless, it is worth noting how far some modern philosophical ethical accounts diverge from the Church’s understanding of even something as basic as the nature of virtue.

The second potential pitfall is far more common among Catholics. It consists in misunderstanding the term “habit” when speaking of virtue. Wishing to correct this misunderstanding, the moral theologian and Belgian Dominican priest Servais Pinckaers went so far as to entitle his first scholarly essay “Virtue Is Not a Habit.”{20} Therein, Pinckaers argues against the idea that a Catholic understanding of the virtuous person is a life of “automatic activity” learned by simple external, perhaps even forced, repetition of an activity:

If one gets up at a certain hour in the morning every day for a certain number of days in order to get used to it, he will acquire the habit of being an early riser. One awakens and gets up mechanically at the determined hour. The habit of smoking can be developed by smoking frequently, the habit of drinking by regularly drinking strong drinks, and the same for other similar habits.{21}

Is virtue this sort of habituation? This less than voluntary living is a far cry, argues Pinckaers, from what Christ calls His disciples. He writes about such a person:

His freedom has actually become useless to him. There is really nothing for it to do. Is this the ideal of moral perfection, however? Does it reside in this higher type of automatism? In such a conception of the virtuous man, is not the intervention of free will and personal engagement in action reduced to the minimum? In the last analysis, is not the virtuous man really an amoral creature, if, as St. Thomas says, moral value proceeds from the will illumined by the intellect?{22}

Instead, Pinckaers contends, the opposite is the case. Instead, virtue “allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself” (CCC no. 1803). In an oddly familiar example, though two decades before MacIntyre, Pinckaers argues his point by reference to the example of two chess players:

Take the example of a game. If virtue in any given realm is manifested by the successful performance of a perfect action, which chessplayer will be the one endowed with the “virtue” of the game? Will it be the man who has the habit of playing the game, but who, lacking imagination, always repeats the same old movements he has learned so well? Or will it be the player who shows himself capable of inventing new moves to upset his adversary, who is not accustomed to expect him to attack in this new way? Undoubtedly, it will be the second of the two players. […] This is so much the case that moral virtue can actually be defined as the capacity to create works that are humanly perfect on the moral plane. It is thus in his capacity to produce from within himself and to invent perfect actions that man shows himself to be the image of God the Creator.{23}

A properly understood habituation describes the virtuous person: one who embodies an interior freedom to give the best of himself. This is not an inner freedom that operates in violation of the moral law, but one that expresses its fulfillment. “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (Jas 1:25).

Various Kinds of Virtues

Because the goods pursuable for their own sake are numerous, so too are the virtues. Consequently, much of the investigation into virtue itself entails an inquiry into the different sorts of virtues.

Philosophers have for centuries offered their own insightful distinctions of diverse virtues. For example, Scottish Enlightenment thinker David Hume suggested that virtues which arise naturally in humans and are universally recognized—“natural virtues, such as the moral sense of benevolence—are categorically different from “artificial virtues,” such as justice, which arise through social contracts and agreements.{24} Another distinction often suggested in more contemporary literature is between “self-regarding” and “other-regarding virtues.”{25} Thinkers approaching the topic of virtue from their particular concerns tend to find still other distinctions worth describing. Feminist thinkers like Annette Baier distinguish between virtues exemplified by men (e.g., justice, impartiality) and more feminine virtues (e.g., care, trust) and moral systems which tend to accent one over the other.{26} Shannon Vallor’s more recent proposed categorization of “technomoral virtues,” virtues particularly needed to flourish in a technology latent society (e.g., honesty, self-control, civility), indicates that thinkers are still willing to posit new enumerations of virtues. Each of these divisions and classifications can be intriguing, insightful, and potentially helpful ways of exploring the virtues. Of course, one must always be discerning. Whether it be an anthropological empiricism (Hume), contemporary fluctuations in gender thought (Baier), or external sociological currents (Vallor), behind these theories of virtues lie larger philosophical outlooks that can be more or less antithetical to divine revelation.

In addition to these proposals, there exists a corpus of more perennial and even more universal distinctions about the virtues. These distinctions, often pioneered by classical philosophers, have already been taken up in the Catholic intellectual tradition. However, their perennial nature springs not from their age, but from the fact that they resonate far deeper with a robust philosophical and Christian understanding of the human person. Part of that stout philosophical and Christian wisdom classically entails speaking of the virtues according to a “causal definition.”{27}That is, a full explanation of the reality of virtue must attend to its material, formal, efficient, and final causality.{28} In the coming sections we will look at each of these in relation to virtue. Along the way, we will gesture toward various distinctions and definitions of virtue throughout the Catholic tradition.

Intellectual and Moral Virtues

If virtues are understood as perfections of powers, then, in principle, one could speak of a virtue for every human power that necessitates additional determination beyond what nature provides. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have categorized the soul’s powers according to distinct aspects of the human person. Among these capabilities of the human soul are two primary powers: the intellect and the will. Though both serve the rational creature, they do so in distinct ways. The intellect functions as a power of apprehension, enabling the perception and understanding of objects presented to it. The will, by contrast, is an appetitive power—the faculty of desire within the rational part of the human soul. As a result, there exist two categories of virtues within the rational part: those belonging to the intellect and those belonging to the will. Appropriately, the virtues of the intellect are termed “intellectual virtues,” while the virtues of the will are classified among the “moral virtues.”{29}

Yet, while all moral virtues have to do with desiring, the human person does not only desire objects presented by the intellect’s apprehension. That is, not all moral virtues are virtues of the will. Some moral virtues are perfections of powers that hone those desires stirred by sensible objects. These sensible powers—natural capacities to desire goods and avoid dangers—can also be perfected so the human person moves more easily and more freely toward the good. Traditionally, the power by which one desires a sensible good is called “the concupiscible appetite” and that whereby one desires to avoid dangers “the irascible appetite.” Virtues of these capacities are perfections of our passions.

Such nonrational appetites influence human action, but how can they be rightly oriented toward an authentic good? They can be so ordered only to the extent they desire in accordance with reason. The powers of the sensitive appetite can be habituated in such a way that they become well-ordered allies of reason. They can be called virtuous only to the extent that they assist reason in its pursuit of true good. It is, then, worth noting how fundamental the pursuit of a true and authentic good is to virtue. Participation in the intellect, which stretches to the truth about what is good, is essential for the very possibility of virtue.{30}

For moral virtues to qualify as true virtues, including those pertaining to the will, they must be guided by reason—both in their orientation toward truth and in the execution of reason’s directives. Yet, in the realm of practical action, the dependence between reason and the moral virtues is mutual. Just as moral virtues require reason’s guidance, reason itself depends on the moral virtues to arrive at right judgments regarding action. In matters of action, it is the appetitive powers that desire and move toward the end, while reason determines the best means of attaining that end. If, however, the appetitive power either desires an improper end or desires and end in a disordered way, then these misdirected appetites obstruct reason’s ability to discern and enact the truth in action. Thus, virtue requires the proper alignment of both right reason and right desire. This interdependence explains why an individual overcome by passion may be described as “not seeing things clearly” despite remaining fully capable of rational thought. Without properly ordered desires, reason’s ability to discern and act upon the truth is compromised. Plato vividly illustrates the relationship between appetite and reason in his chariot allegory, in which the charioteer—representing reason—struggles to guide the horses of diverse appetites that drive him forward.{31}

The Four Cardinal Virtues

The investigation, thus far, has identified virtue as a perfection of a power. Where a habituation is necessary, virtues are differentiated according to the diverse powers of the soul. Since virtues are perfections of powers, different powers mean different virtues: human reason, will, and the concupiscible and irascible appetites. These four basic powers of the soul yield four basic human virtues, each of which serves some part in disposing the person well to pursue the virtuous good.

While it would be tempting to call these four basic virtues the famed “cardinal virtues,” one cannot be so hasty. Importantly, distinguishing habits according to what is being perfected is not the only way to distinguish among virtues. One can also distinguish habits according to the actions toward which one is habituated. Yet, because the act itself is determined by the object at which it aims, this creates a sort of definitional domino effect. Just as the proper object determines the act, so too does the act determine the habit. Reasoning in such a manner, Thomas Aquinas argues for the possibility of not one virtue of the intellect, but a virtue for each of the intellect’s proper objects: knowledge, understanding, wisdom (regarding its speculative intellect’s aims), and art and prudence (regarding its practical intellect’s aims).

The total number of basic human virtues amounts to eight: five intellectual and three moral virtues. Yet, here one does well to recall another Aristotelian insight about the virtues. The human habitual perfections most deserving of the name “virtue” are those that perfect the person and his action. We have already seen that all three of the moral virtues disposed the person well to pursue the good for its own sake. However, of the five intellectual virtues, only one perfects both agent and act. The three speculative virtues (knowledge, understanding, wisdom) do not concern good action at all. For example, a biochemist may employ his scientific knowledge toward either the preservation or destruction of life. Lacking an intrinsic orientation toward good action, the scientist’s knowledge does not necessarily translate into good action. The same can be said for wisdom and understanding. Without an intrinsic link to good action, these speculative intellectual powers can be utilized in a harmful way. As such, while they are virtues in some sense, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom fall short of the fullest sense of virtue: that which perfects both the possessor and the possessor’s action.

Alternatively, “art,” or skillful craftsmanship, is about action. Yet it is more about producing a work of craftsmanship rather than the good act of crafting itself. That is, its perfection lives not in the crafter but in the external thing crafted. On the other hand, prudence is concerned with action itself, not merely its outcome or external production. This principle whereby prudence is extolled as a more worthy virtue over art can at first glance seem obscure. However, it becomes clearer when one recalls that virtue constitutes an agathic congruence to the good it is pursuing, the bonum honestum. This virtuous good is distinct from the useful good.{32} This is likewise what might be said to distinguish the skilled craftsman shaping a piece of fine art from one working to produce an artifact of use. Accordingly, any authentic pursuit of the bonum honestum is not merely a pursuit of a course of action because of the states of affairs it produces. If this were the case, the good being pursued would be external to one’s actions. One would be back in the position of the young man MacIntyre was trying to teach to play chess for its own sake. That young man initially only cared about winning the money for candy, something wholly external to the good of mastering the game of chess itself with all the internal cultivation that requires. Moreover, one would fall to evaluating a course of action to be good or evil based solely on its ability to produce some desired states of affairs. The loss of such a basic distinction between a pursuit of the bonum honestum and a pursuit of states of affairs is at the origin of a slide into utilitarianism that the occidental intellectual tradition has already witnessed. French philosopher Jacques Maritain indicated the same:

All that the utilitarianism of the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century succeeded in accomplishing was the complete destruction—even in the very camp of these defenders of virtue—of the idea of moral good properly so called, of the bonum honestum (good as right), which they replaced with the idea of the moral good as equivalent to the advantageous, or the “good state of affairs.”{33}

Returning to consider the nature of the virtuous good assists us in making sense of some of the critical, though initially opaque, distinctions necessary to account for virtue.

Following that distinction between art and prudence, prudence becomes the sole, yet all-important intellectual virtue for human action. Prudence, that perfection of practical wisdom concerned with doing something, alone matches Aristotle’s description of virtue as that which makes both its possessor and his work good. It is the prudent agent who will discern not only the constitution of the bonum honestum but also find the optimal pursuit of it given his own concrete conditions. It is not any intellectual virtue but rather prudence that is Plato’s charioteer.{34} It is right reason, both influenced by and guiding right desires, which directs the way to the virtuous good.

Returning to the three sources of appetites—the will, concupiscible, and irascible appetites—we can quickly delineate the other three cardinal virtues. The will has a natural orientation toward its own good as presented by reason. As such, it would seem not to need a perfecting habit. On closer examination, however, the will’s natural proclivity is only for its own good. Obviously, one may and does encounter goods that lie beyond the natural inclination of the rational appetite. In such cases, when an individual is obligated to render to another what is rightfully theirs, the will is benefited by a virtue directing it to a good beyond what the natural inclination provides. “Justice” names this moral virtue, properly ordering the will toward the good of one’s neighbor and ensuring that each person receives what is due to them.

The concupiscible appetites require right ordering with regard to sensible goods, which is achieved through the virtue of temperance. Temperance ensures that these desires remain well-regulated, neither excessive nor deficient, in their pursuit of such goods. The second category of appetites consists of those inclining a person to resist threats or obstacles that may arise in the pursuit or possession of a sensible good. These are the irascible appetites, which courage rightly directs by enabling the individual to endure difficulties and defend what is truly good in the face of adversity.

Thus, following the tradition’s logic, one affirms the four most basic human virtues: the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance.

The Theological Virtues

With the four cardinal virtues, a philosopher may find some satisfaction in having delineated those virtuous characteristics, rendering oneself congruent to pursue the highest good for its own sake. A theologian cannot. In his famed City of God, Augustine of Hippo chides these ancient, non-Christian philosophers for thinking their virtues constitute the greatest of human happiness. He reviews each of the cardinal virtue’s insufficiencies in satisfying the human heart’s deepest longing. Temperance cannot quell the “lusts of the flesh,” prudence and courage by their very existence demonstrate that, in this life, one is beset with evils to be avoided and resisted. Justice is always a laborand not the rest for which one longs. Augustine concludes that the students of Plato and Aristotle did well to recognize the evils of this life that demand such virtues. Nevertheless, these ancient philosophers still thought this earthly life the most blessed possible. Augustine thought differently:

The life, therefore, which is burdened with such great and grievous ills, or subject to such chances, can by no means be called happy. […] Let them no longer suppose that the Final and Supreme Good is something in which they may rejoice while in this mortal condition. For, in this condition, those very virtues than which nothing better or more advantageous is found in man clearly attest to his misery precisely by the great assistance that they give him in the midst of perils, hardships and sorrows.{35}

Augustine concludes his chapter by echoing a call from a higher good, a more sublime beatitude and the necessary repudiation of anyone crafting for themselves something less:

We are in the midst of evils, and we must endure them with patience until we come to those good things where everything will bestow ineffable delight upon us, and where there will no longer be anything which we must endure. Such is the salvation which, in the world to come, will also itself be our final happiness. Yet these philosophers will not believe in this happiness because they do not see it. Thus, they endeavour to contrive for themselves an entirely false happiness, by means of a virtue which is as false as it is proud.{36}

Augustine does think that those without faith can have some degree of the virtues.{37} What he emphatically rejects, however, is the philosophers’ conclusion that such virtues are so well attuned to the human good that they can supply the longing for which the person was made. Such accounts of virtue fundamentally miss the mark because they miss the ultimate end, meaning, purpose, and good of every human life.

For Christian theologians like Augustine and Aquinas, the tally of virtues must be extended to include those that dispose the person well, not for a terrestrial end, but for a heavenly one. Thus, a Christian account of virtue incorporates three additional virtues that are at once unique to the Christian life and yet necessary for the fulfillment of every human life. While the cardinal virtues perfect both the person and their actions, they do so only with respect to a terrestrial end. Left to themselves, these virtues cannot direct a person toward an ultimate goal that transcends this life. For any disciple of Christ seriously considering the virtues, this limitation presents a significant problem. The human person is ultimately destined not for any merely natural end, but for a supernatural one, an end that surpasses the earthly aims of human existence. Consequently, if a person were left to rely solely on the cardinal virtues, they would remain incapable of attaining their highest purpose: eternal life with God. To address this deficiency, God grants certain individuals the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

The virtue of faith, like prudence, functions as a good determination of the intellect. However, rather than concerning itself with human practical matters, faith enables the intellect to receive and assent to truths revealed by God (ST II–II, q. 1, a. 1). It illuminates the mind with knowledge of both God and of the divine realities He discloses. Hope and charity, like justice, pertain to the will. Hope moves the agent toward the supernatural end by allowing him to perceive it as attainable (ST II–II, q. 17, a. 1). It is the virtue of striving for complete union. Charity, in turn, is the theological virtue that unites the will to the ultimate good: God Himself (ST II–II, q. 23, a. 1). It is the virtue of communion, a foretaste of that which is to come. Given the essential role of right desire in the moral life, charity holds the highest place among the virtues. Through charity alone, the agent not only perceives but also experiences a real union with their supernatural and ultimate end. In this way, charity achieves for the human person’s ultimate end what all other virtuous appetites accomplish for their natural ends.

To the four cardinal virtues, then, the disciple of Christ adds the three “theological virtues”: faith, hope, and charity. They are called theological virtues because their task is cultivation of a person congruent to the supreme meaning of human existence: life eternal with God.

Often the “theological virtues” are presented as counter-distinguished from the intellectual and moral virtues. The relationship between these categories is intricate. It may be tempting to classify them solely according to the anthropological divisions of the soul’s powers and the corresponding diversity of proper objects. Until now, this method has guided the investigation: moving from the capacities of the human soul to diverse kinds of virtues and, finally, to the identification of specific virtues. However, the theological virtues do not neatly conform to this taxonomy. If various virtues were discerned solely according to their corresponding powers of the soul, then they would ultimately be reducible to either intellectual or moral virtues. However, this is not the case. Scholastic theologians like Thomas Aquinas and much of the tradition that followed him introduced an additional criterion for distinguishing virtues: the ends toward which these powers are habituated. Thus, to understand virtue in its fullest and most proper sense, one must consider not only the soul’s powers (material cause) or the object of its proper act (formal cause), but also the end (final cause) to which a given virtue is directed. This the investigation has accomplished. Yet, one cause remains: the efficient cause, or more simply “the cause of virtue.”

The Causes of Virtue

In one of Plato’s early dialogues, his interlocutor, Meno, asks Plato’s Socrates about how one might acquire the virtues:

Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue can be taught, or is acquired by practice, not teaching? Or if neither by practice nor by learning, whether it comes to mankind by nature or in some other way?{38}

After this, the early Platonic dialogue wanders through assorted reasons and half-conclusions. With Meno thoroughly exasperated by Socrates’ aporetic arguments, Socrates finally concludes the only rational position seemingly available to them:

At the moment, if through all this discussion our queries and statements have been correct, virtue is found to be neither natural nor taught, but is imparted to us by a divine dispensation without understanding in those who receive it.{39}

The question of Plato’s The Meno is an enduring one. How can one come to possess the virtues? The same causes of virtue Plato considered likewise were raised time and again. Are at least some of us simply born with the virtues? Is virtue the result of the arduous work of cultivating one’s character? Or are virtues simply bestowed from above? Philosophers and Catholic theologians—Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Pascal, Francisco Suárez, etc.—have continued to ask such questions. Those causes of virtue entertained by these thinkers have boiled down to three: virtue is innate, acquired, or a divine gift.

Virtues innate from birth can seem outlandish to one accustomed to thinking of virtues as something gained by practice. However, if one recalls that virtues are dispositions to act in a particular way, what Aquinas called “natural virtues” become more thinkable (ST II–II, q. 51, a. 1). Nevertheless, it is important to note that these “virtues” differ significantly from what might typically be considered virtue today. Rather than being full-fledged virtues in themselves, it is better to think of these “natural virtues” as dispositions rooted in a given temperament or upbringing—both factors outside an individual’s voluntary control—that incline a person toward (or away from) the acquisition of particular virtues. For instance, a naturally choleric person may at first find it more difficult to practice and therefore cultivate the virtue of patience than a phlegmatic individual would. In this sense, “natural virtues” can be said to exist, but only in a very qualified manner. One would hesitate to call a naturally phlegmatic temperament a virtuous character in the fullest sense of the term.

A second way one can come to possess a virtue is through exercise, a process that aligns most closely with the contemporary understanding of virtue. By repeated practice and perseverance, an individual develops “acquired virtues” (ST I–II, q. 51, a. 2). The human powers possess a passive potentiality that, through consistent exercise, becomes habituated to a particular kind of act. Over time, this habituation strengthens the inclination toward virtuous action while gradually eliminating contrary dispositions. However, this process is gradual and does not occur instantaneously. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind Pinckaers’ point above: what is being cultivated is not a mere automatic, external act but a facility of active and freely chosen activity born from the deepest part of the self. This means that the acquired virtue requires sustained effort and time to develop. However, once acquired, it is likewise true that such virtue is not easily lost.

Does this mean that all virtue is the product of deliberate effort and practice? Christians, at least since the time of Augustine, have argued otherwise. A good habit may also be obtained in a third way: by direct infusion from God. Because these are “poured out” or “infused” by divine gift, these virtues are called “infused virtues” (ST I–II, q. 51, a. 4). The theological virtues fall into this category, as faith, hope, and charity cannot be acquired through human effort alone. Instead, they are given only through infusion, as they are necessarily congruent to the end they are in pursuit of. Because these virtues by their nature orient and direct the person toward a good that exceeds natural human capacity, eternal life with God, their cause is necessarily and always a divine gift.

Since the divinely infused virtues direct the person toward God as their ultimate end, Thomas Aquinas stoked controversy by concluding that an infused form of the cardinal virtues is also necessary to enable good action in light of that end. Thus, for Aquinas, cardinal virtues could exist in two distinct forms. They may be possessed in their acquired form, assisting the agent in achieving natural, terrestrial ends. However, they may also be possessed in their infused form, elevating the agent’s actions so that even their earthly pursuits are oriented toward their supernatural destiny (ST I–II, q. 63, a. 3c; De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 10c). This thesis is controversial even today.{40} Even if one accepts the proposition that there can exist both an acquired and an infused form of each of the cardinal virtues, it is unclear whether these would co-exist distinctly or somehow conjoin into one cardinal virtue.

As shown above, Augustine thought cardinal virtues without orientation to the ultimate and most meaningful end for human life resulted only in a virtue “as false as it is proud.”{41} Thomas Aquinas thought eternal beatitude important enough to stipulate an entirely new set of cardinal virtues, those given by infusion and calibrated, as it were, to navigating the affairs of this life in light of the next. If the end reigns so supremely, then is it possible for a Christian to affirm the existence of authentic virtue in one not oriented toward eternal life by God’s grace? That is, do those without God’s grace have real virtue? Yes, though classically it would be argued by Thomas Aquinas that this virtue can never be fully fledged virtue without the soul’s possession of the theological virtue of charity. It is charity that unites the agent to God as his ultimate end through the appetitive faculty. In fulfilling this role, charity shapes and directs all other virtues in light of the supernatural end to which it is already oriented. Charity is a foretaste of Heaven and serves as the North Star of the moral order, ensuring that all other virtues remain properly directed toward their highest fulfillment. As such, absent the divine gift of charity, even the best humanly honed, acquired virtues, while not false, are certainly imperfect. This reality of what the literature calls authentic “pagan virtue” must make its full weight felt in the life of a disciple of Christ. Even those who have not ordered their lives to God in encountering Jesus Christ can still cultivate human virtue to such a degree that they become witnesses to Christians in the world. Moreover, simply because one is not accounted as a visible member of the Church does not mean that God is not at work secretly and divinely, moving the person’s heart in preparation for his conversion.

A Comprehensive Definition of Virtue

Having examined virtue according to the four causes, a more comprehensive definition of virtue is possible. This definition, drawn here from the works of Thomas Aquinas, encapsulates various philosophical and theological definitions of virtue reaching back to Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Peter Lombard, and Hugh of St.-Victor. Aquinas’s states clearly that this definition “comprises perfectly the whole essential notion of virtue”:

Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which one lives righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us, without us (ST I–II, q. 55, a. 4).{42}

Aquinas’s enthusiasm for this definition of virtue stems from his Aristotelian, causal approach. While commenting on what makes the best sort of definitions, he wrote: “And so it is that many definitions of one thing are sometimes given in accordance with the different causes. But the perfect definition embraces all of the causes.”{43} Following this line, Aquinas expounds the above definition by reference to the causes—material, formal, efficient, and final—contained in that proposition.

“…a good quality…”: The Formal Cause of Virtue

Here we should understand “a quality” to indicate “a habitus.” This has clearly been the language we have been using to refer most essentially to the kind of thing virtue is, and it is predominately the language taken up in the Catholic tradition ever since Aquinas’s specification. In Aristotelian philosophy, a habit is a certain kind of quality, distinguishing it from a passion or an easily changed disposition. So, habit indicates a firmly ingrained disposition that is not easily changed. Yet, both the gifts of the Holy Spirit and vices will be called habits. What differentiates virtue from these? More than anything, it is critical to recognize “good” as an essential qualification of virtue. Virtue is not any habit. It is a good habit that disposes the person “to give the best of himself” (CCC no. 1803). To be a good operative habit is its formal constitution. Since the formal cause most directly answers the question “what is it?” virtue is most essentially said to be a good habit that disposes one to act well. This itself appears throughout the Catholic tradition, including in the Catechism’s definition of virtue. “A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good” (CCC no. 1803).

“…of the mind…”: The Material Cause of Virtue

One can consider Aristotle’s material cause in several ways. In natural substances, like the proverbial bronze statue of Pericles, the material cause is generally that “material out of which” the statue is made.{44}Virtue, explains Aquinas, does not have a material cause in the sense of something “out of which” [materiam ex qua] it is made. Nevertheless, virtue can be said to involve a material cause “about which” [materiam circa quam] it operates and “in which” [materiam in qua] it resides. The material about which virtue acts indicates the specific object of a virtue (e.g., justice to the just thing, chastity to the chaste act). The material in which virtue resides is what is contained in this definition. Augustine’s phrase “of the mind” indicates the soul, or more specifically the powers of the soul “in which” virtue resides and perfects. In the terminology of the scholastics, these powers are called “the subjects” of virtue, as opposed to the objects they aim at, the material circa quam. The words “of the mind,” according to Aquinas,accommodate an appropriate understanding of virtue’s material cause [materiam in qua]. Nor does the Catechism’s definition fail to mention these powers of the soul. “The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers” (CCC no. 1803).

“…which God works in us without us”: The Efficient Cause of Virtue

We have already seen that, throughout the centuries, philosophers and theologians alike have discussed three causes of virtue. Underscoring only the third, virtue as divine gift, the traditional definition seems limited in its scope to the infused virtues alone, something Aquinas concedes. Nevertheless, while God is included as cause, nowhere here does it indicate He is working in a supernatural manner. Thomas Aquinas points out that even regarding the things done by us, “…God causes them in us, yet not without action on our part, for He works in every will and in every nature” (ST I–II, q. 55, a. 4, ad. 6). When one takes this phrase to designate supernatural, infused virtue, one can also enter here into the discussion of the meritorious causality of these virtues. Through the very gift of God, the graced man becomes capable of meriting life eternal, the end to which these virtues especially dispose one.

“…by which one lives righteously, of which no one can make bad use…”: The Final Cause of Virtue

Virtue’s formal constitution includes, by definition, its goodness. However, the final cause indicates virtue’s end or telos. This most immediately is a good action toward which it disposes the person. Therefore, these two phrases, reasons Thomas Aquinas, indicate the final cause of virtue. The first, “by which one lives righteously,” indicates the exclusion of any act that is always evil [semper ad malum]. An act is always evil when it is “not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person.”{45} The second phrase “of which no one makes bad use” prevents virtue from being applied to morally ambiguous acts. Excluding evil and morally indifferent actions in the definition ensures virtue can only pertain exclusively to what is authentically good. Our own investigation began with the end in mind: virtues are an agathic congruence of the person disposing them to be well-suited to pursue the virtuous good, that good which is loved and sought for its own sake

The Tree of Life: A Symbol of the Virtuous Life (Rev 22:2)

From here, one can look back over this survey of virtue’s various distinctions. If virtue is a perfection of the powers of the soul, then the first method of distinguishing among virtues is to distinguish according to the various powers of the soul. However, we discovered that while one may distinguish virtues according to that part of the soul that they perfect, this is not the only way to distinguish among the virtues. Virtues are not only distinguished according to their powers (“the subject”) but also according to the acts they dispose one toward (“the object”). The same holds true for moral virtues. Just as “justice” names the virtue that disposes the will to render to each what is his due, it really names a virtue which can have a plethora of virtues subdivided by their objects. For example, Aquinas and many Catholic scholars following him call justice due to God the virtue of “religion,” while justice due to one’s parents or country is dubbed “piety.” Virtues are distinguished according to what is being perfected (i.e., the powers) as well as what one is being perfected for (i.e., the proper acts).

When the investigation considered the divergences in virtue on account of the various ends of human life, another major distinction was drawn. On the one hand, there exist the terrestrial, connatural ends of human life. These give rise to virtues congruent to the same ends, most commonly reducible to the cardinal virtues. However, as Augustine persuasively argues, for the disciple of Christ such an account of virtue is deeply misleading by its omission of faith, hope, and charity. These virtues orient the person to a supernatural life which God holds out in Christ. Virtues, then, are likewise distinguishable by the ends toward which they orient one. Finally, it became apparent that virtues could be distinguished according to their causes. While dispositions of one’s particular personal temperament would not typically be called a virtue, they can make it easier or more difficult to cultivate such virtues. Yet, through the exercise of repeated, freely chosen practices, one can foster the acquired virtues. Finally, the infused virtues are those given from above. How one comes to possess a virtue is yet another way to distinguish virtues.

By attending to the four causes of virtue—its subject, objects, ends, and causes—a wider and more detailed moral universe begins to disclose itself. Yet this is still not the end of the myriads of virtues one can name. The medieval Christian scholars also regularly referred to virtues which form a part of another virtue. For example, to be prudent one must consider various sorts of information. Sometimes that input will come from those who have greater experience in some aspects of life. According to Thomas Aquinas, what is needed is the virtue of “docility:” that good disposition to be instructed by others wiser than ourselves. Indeed, one cannot be wholly prudent without it. So, there exist some sub-virtues that are “integral” to our acquiring and practicing the main seven virtues. Sub-virtues that function in such a way were dubbed “integral virtues” (ST II–II, q. 48, a. 1).

There are still other “sub-virtues.” Some name virtues that are found in various roles one fulfills. For example, justice to one’s neighbor in a community is one virtue (i.e., commutative justice), while the justice one owes to that community as a whole is a distinct virtue (i.e., legal justice). Moreover, the justice that civil society, taken as a whole, owes to each member of the community is again another virtue (i.e., distributive justice). One could imagine a governor of some political entity having to act according to all three of these roles. He may owe his next-door neighbor something as a member of the community, his own taxes to the community as a citizen, and a distribution to everyone in the community as governor overseeing a common fund. Each of these is justice, but justice makes demands on our imagined governor based on his diverse roles in the community. These sorts of sub-virtues Aquinas calls “subjective virtues,” because they are in a real sense relative to the role of the one, or “subject,” under consideration (ST II–II, q. 61, a. 1, esp. ad. 4).

A third and final classification of sub-virtues details those virtues which have some connection to a cardinal virtue but somehow fall short of its full power. These are “potential parts” or simply “secondary virtues.” For example, temperance is the habitus by which one self-moderates pleasures of touch that are the most difficult to moderate. The ancient Greek philosophers realized those pleasures of touch most difficult are those connected to human survival: they are the pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Yet, while the principal virtues of temperance will discuss these pleasures, one can consider “potential parts” of temperance that respond to one’s need to self-moderate in other areas of life. “And so, any virtue that is effective of moderation in some matter or other, and restrains the appetite in its impulse towards something, may be reckoned a part of temperance, as a virtue connected thereto” (ST  II–II, q. 143, a.1c).

Thus, even after drawing distinctions according to the four causes—distinctions that enabled the inquiry to account for diverse forms of virtue—the scholastic method empowered the Catholic tradition to contemplate a moral universe as rich as it is profound. While the charting of such distinctions and methods can resemble at times a clumsy human attempt to chart the stars in that universe, one must not confuse this intellectual attempt at charting with the beauty of the night sky itself. In fact, the richest aspect of discovering the virtues does not lie in its definitions and methodical distinctions. Its most profound aspect lies in discovering the richness of each virtue and the good it opens for those willing to make the journey among the stars. If one wishes to encounter the virtues, one can do no better than become a frequent reader of the lives of the saints.

Attentiveness to these more particular virtues (and their contrary vices) aids one not only in acquiring those virtues, but also in naming and combating the effects that the contrary vices initiate in one’s life. Nowhere is this more obvious than in a good examination of conscience based on the virtues. Such an examination will not only be attentive to the more general points of virtue, but also the specific conditions (e.g., when, how, how often) one meets or fails to meet the demands of the virtuous good. Such an examination of conscience, accomplished in a wider spirit of gratitude to God and repentance, aims not only to better confess one’s sins in the sacrament of penance, but is already the beginning of an amendment of one’s life. A healthy and firm purpose of amendment has, as always, the aim of cultivating a life more attuned to the call of Christ. In this, a detailed study of the virtues (and their contrary vices) can be a real, practical aid in coming closer to the Lord Jesus Christ, the author of every good.

Indeed, perhaps having sensed the insufficiency of such an academically detailed account, previous generations of Catholic moral scholars retreated to another, more Biblical image of the virtuous life. The virtues were best represented, they thought, by the image of the tree of life spoken of in the closing pages of Scripture:

…on either side of the river,
the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit,
yielding its fruit each month.
The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22:2)

This was a fully mature tree, planted by restful water, whose branches represented all the diverse virtues and distinctions among the virtues. On this tree’s trunk is written one word: charity.

Some Characteristics of the Virtues

Having investigated the nature of virtue in general and the distinctions among the virtues that necessarily follow such an inquiry, it is natural to begin to wonder about the unity of this panoply of moral perfections. Largely engaging the Aristotelian account of the virtues, the Catholic intellectual tradition has noted several ways the virtues are placed in relation to one another or to the passions.

The Doctrine of the Mean

The most famous discussion revolves around Aristotle’s comment that virtues exist in the mean.{46} The idea is that virtue is found in a balance between excess and deficiency. While this seems reasonable enough on its face, this “doctrine of the mean” is frequently repeated with inadequate attention to its reasonable limits. For example, Aristotle (and Catholic scholars following him) was addressing the moral virtues when he articulated this doctrine. Aristotle’s notion largely fits those virtues that dispose well one’s passions, either concupiscible or irascible, and actions chosen by the will.{47} As such, one must understand the doctrine of the mean to have as its primary target those virtues that dwell under the dome of temperance, courage, or justice.{48}

In regard to the passions aroused or actions embarked on, one can most aptly speak of their being an overreaction or underreaction. But the virtuous person’s passions and actions are those that are neither in excess nor in deficiency. Moreover, this mean, or balance, is relative to the person. In accordance with Aristotle’s famous example, it is relative to the person just as eating is relative to the size and need of the one eating. Therefore, the mean cannot simply be decided in advance for all agents. It is reason’s task to discern the balanced response in each particular circumstance. Yet a moment’s reflection verifies what Aristotle indicates next. Given that it is precisely these passions that can blind reason from being able to calmly carry out its discerning task, Aristotle found he could only say that virtue is a habit “lying in a mean relative to us, this [mean] being determined by reason and in the way in which the prudent man would determine it.”{49} Discerning precisely how much is too much or how little too little is very much the difficulty. Aristotle could do little more than indicate the human conundrum and state that the good response would be in accordance with how the prudent man would have discerned it. Little more than that can be said from the philosopher’s point of view.

For the disciple of Jesus Christ, the human drama involved in discerning the mean in our passions and actions, though clarified, is not cleared away. The entire Aristotelian doctrine of the mean brings to the fore the necessity of models of sanctity. The search for the prudent person, especially one with a prudence illumined by faith and inflamed by charity, underscores the need for the stories of lives of men and women of various times and conditions who were authentic disciples of Christ. The words of Paul can be heard in each of the Church’s canonized saints: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). In the prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture, especially the life of Christ, the study of the lives of the saints, as well as those holy voices in the Church today, a disciple of Christ finds not only inspiration for his own life, but also tangible aids in finding those people of practical wisdom. The stories of saints aid each disciple to “put on the mind of Christ” (Phil 2:5). Even closer to home, offering such a formation is one of the basic missions of every family. The Second Vatican Council stated that “the family is a kind of school of deeper humanity.”{50} This humanity is found in finding the mean in which many virtues consist.

The human person is one, and insofar as the person is fractured and broken by sin, she is called to become more integrated, more whole. This healing is the work of grace. Part of this graced healing happens in and through the living of a virtuous life. This virtuous life, what Augustine called “the art of living well,” demands a unity of life.{51} The Catholic tradition’s theological exploration of the virtuous life has long been fascinated with this unity. How are the distinct virtues part of a complete human life? Are some of those agathic congruencies more important than others? The other characteristics of virtues seek to answer questions such as these.

The Unity of the Virtues

Conceiving of the virtues as various agathic congruencies of the human person, congruencies whose shape is determined by the virtuous good which they are attuned to, underscores the necessary unity among the virtues. If the person is to be rendered wholly congruent to the bonum honestum, then it becomes starkly apparent that being congruent in only one way or in only one facet of life is radically insufficient. This is why we can recognize a clever CEO as an example of prudential business decision-making, yet at the same time tragically recognize that his ability to be a good parent to his children is seriously wanting. Each of us can recognize the possession of virtue in one aspect of life without another. We have not become wholly congruent to the demands of the good life for which we were made.

Yet, in a perfectly virtuous life, how are the virtues united? For Thomas Aquinas, the interconnectivity between the virtues lies in their cause. For example, between innate dispositions (those due to a natural inclination or through external habituation) which are not deeply ingrained habitūs, there exists no real unity. Such dispositions, due to personal temperament or forced behavior, are not guided by the person’s own prudence. Without the guidance of right reason, these inclinations may just as easily lead a person toward bad actions. While these people may act in a way that resembles virtuous behavior, in fact their inner life is empty of reason’s guidance. Given different circumstances, these same inclinations could give rise to vice.

Moral virtues acquired by deliberate striving for human excellence are connected with and by prudence. Their relationship is one of mutual dependence. Right reason in action (i.e., prudence) cannot exist without right appetite, since right appetite determines the end. Consequently, prudence requires the moral virtues. Yet the moral virtues, in turn, require prudence, as prudence makes the practical judgment about what ought to be done for the sake of the desired end. In this way, prudence serves as the unifying force among the moral virtues, integrating the excellent inclinations cultivated through habituation into a cohesive whole.

Yet, the virtues can be(and ultimately need to be) connected in an even more profound manner. For if the end is established by the desire, what ultimately guarantees that one’s desires are rightly ordered? Are the cardinal moral virtues enough? How, for instance, can the moral virtues guide one to an end that exceeds one’s natural capacity? If no external standard ensures that one desires the correct ends, then a significant limitation appears to be built into this structure of virtue. The divinely infused virtues provide the solution to this problem. Here, the disciple of Christ must surpass the Aristotelian, not only by grounding one’s account of virtue in the divine but also by incorporating a sober acknowledgment of the fallen will’s susceptibility to disordered desires. The weakness inherent in the will can only begin to be corrected through God’s infusion of grace and the theological virtue of charity. Charity is the infused habit that establishes a right desire for the supernatural, ultimate end—eternal life with God. As such, charity shapes and directs all other virtues, ordering them toward this final goal. “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14). It is charity that creates the strongest and most profound interconnection among the virtues, ensuring their full maturity. Only in this context, where the person is actively directed to the life everlasting, do the virtues achieve their highest form and their closest configuration to the virtuous good that is beatitude.

The Goal of a Virtuous Life: Becoming Like God

The Catechism’s single paragraph introducing the notion of virtue ends with a staggering statement: “The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God” (CCC no. 1803). Yet, here is the promise held out to our first parents by the father of lies: “to become like God” (Gen 3:5). This has long been the promise of how many philosophical doctrines and pagan rites? John Courtney Murray elaborated on this radical promise and its relation to God made flesh in Jesus Christ:

The Incarnation is not only a revelation of what man is, but of what he can become, if he chooses to lay hold of the new divine energy (grace) that has been put at his disposal through the Humanity of Christ. I mean that man can become lord of creation and like to God: “for to as many as received him, he gave them power to become the children of God,” (Jn. 1:12) enjoying the freedom of his house on earth, having access to the mansions of his own blessed immortality.{52}

After indicating that it is in Christ that man finds the answer to burning, fundamental human questions, Murray continues:

The anguished note of these two questions shaped all philosophical and religious thought. To find the answer to them were directed all the philosopher’s contemplative effort and all the solemn initiations of the mystery cults. But one answer never entered their heads: that God himself should raise them to his blessed freedom and immortality, by coming down to them, to share in time their slavery and thus to shatter it, to grapple in combat with their death and thus to overcome it. It was the historical fact of the Incarnation that certified the eternal hope, somehow native to the human soul, of becoming like to God.{53}

The virtues and the life they shape are part of a wider human drama, a narrative between God and man. It is a drama that begs for further articulation and is a story that involves other realities, which is why the Church continues to speak of gifts of the Holy Spirit, beatitudes, sin, conscience, society, law, faith, prayer, and sacraments. Central to this story is the person of Jesus Christ, who through the call to holiness both empowers and implores each of His disciples to work with His own “divine energy” poured into their lives. Christ’s invitation to a life of virtue constitutes each disciple’s call to share in His configuration of them to Himself, who is the glory of God, and thereby to “become partakers of the divine nature”:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and virtue, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature. (2 Pt 1:3–4)