Val Ed

• Virtue, just like all transcendental reality, is intangible.
• virtue can be manifested and expressed by means of actions
• According to Peter Kreeft, a philosopher, and author, “Virtues are good habits while vices are bad habits.
• Character is the sum of your habits that direct your behavior.
• Behavior is something visible, external, in the world, while virtues and vices, habits, and character are all invisible, internal, inside your soul.
• Your behavior shows your individual character to others; it makes the invisible visible
• Virtue is a state of character concerned with a choice
• lying is a mean (middle ground), it is determined by rational principle in which a person of practical wisdom would determine it.
• The ethical course of action is relative to our particular circumstances, meaning that there is no one rule that fits all situations
• but the ethical course of action is objectively true in that any rational person looking at the situation will be able to understand the correct ethical course of action.
• mean, Aristotle refers to something midway between two extremes
• virtuous act is the one that falls between the extremes of what is deficient and what is excessive relative to the situation
• All of the moral virtues are a mean between harmful extremes (too little, too much) in our actions and emotions
• Too little: Cowardice

  Mean: Bravery

  Too much: Foolhardiness
• Too little: Stinginess

  Mean: Generosity

  Too much: Profligacy
• Too little: Self-ridicule

  Mean: Confidence

  Too much: Boastfulness
• Too little: Apathy

  Mean: Calmness

  Too much: Short-temperedness
• Sometimes, the mean lies closer to one extreme than the other because of the particular circumstances involved.
• That is why an emphasis on virtue–the ability to discern how to make ethical decisions—is the key to an ethical, good, and balanced life that is worth living
• Phronesis - practical wisdom
• Phronesis - This form of practical reason helps one recognize which features of a situation are morally relevant and how one can do the right thing in practice
• virtue is a learned skill.
•  person who listens to and learns from the reason of others is a rational person, and the same holds for ethics
• The truly virtuous person:-Knows what she or he is doing:

  -Chooses a virtuous act for its own sake.

  -Chooses as a result of a settled moral state

  -Chooses gladly and easily
• The more you practice virtue, the more you are capable of virtue because virtue becomes a way of life
• Virtue comes from a latin word vertu
• Virtue means “moral life and conduct; a particular moral excellence or perfection.”
• virtue is closely associated with morality, ethics, goodness, character, behavior, and conduct
• virtue id defined in the dictionary as “thinking and doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.”
• Transcendere, which means to ascend on, elevate oneself above, cross, path, etc.
• The concept of transcendence is attained by experience and in such a sphere denotes a spatial relation
• This term indicates the property of a man by which he or she constantly goes beyond himself or herself in all that he or she thinks, will and in all that he or she realize
• • In Greek, virtue, and excellence share the same root-Arete
• virtue is also called moral excellence.
• St. Augustine of Hippo define virtue as odo amoris
• ordo amoris - the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it
• St Thomas Aquinas defines virtue as an act consonant with reason.
• Since a human being is human, he or she has a reason, his good lies in being in accord with reason.
• EAC MANUAL defines virtue as:    “…the wisdom to choose to do only the right thing.”
• Wisdom is the soundness of the mind