It Ain't Easy

Since we concluded that virtue is a state of character, the part of our soul that has standards and choices, let’s look further at what kind of state it is. Virtue can be also called excellence and it has to do with excelling both in condition such as health and in work such as athletics. Virtue will make a person healthy and allow that person to do better at anything that involves physical activity. What would be virtuous for a person’s state of character would be that which makes a person good and allows him to do his work well.

We see that any object that can be divided up into parts will have a middle and two ends. We find the middle in the exact center between the ends with objects. It is different with people. The amount of food needed to maintain good health varies with each person. A good trainer will seek to find the right amount of exercise and nutrition for each particular person. It might depend on the sport, the person’s age and metabolism. This trainer will try to avoid excess and defect and try to give what is right. The intermediate we are talking about won’t necessarily be the same for us.

We judge art this way; too much detail, color or not enough. One that is just right we will say it is good. Too much in either way we will call garbage. That is the way moral virtue applies to lives. It is specific to each person. Every passion we have will contain an intermediate area that will benefit the person’s life the most. Fear, confidence, appetite, anger and pity can all get out of hand if we have too much or too little. It is best to have them at the right times, toward the right objects, and the right people along with the right motives and applied the right way. So virtue itself has excess, defect and intermediate. Our actions will be the same way. As a matter of fact, virtue is defined by a combination of passions and actions. We observe success in others that get it right and approve of them.

There are innumerable ways to fail at anything but few ways to succeed. Doing wrong is very easy but doing what is right takes effort. It is really easy to miss a target but much harder to hit the bulls eye. People are good in only one way but bad in many. Shooting an arrow randomly in any direction might be considered freedom to some but it can also cause damage. It will serve no purpose in making a person a marksman either.

And so virtue is that part of our soul that is the state of character and it is concerned with choices. The right choice will vary with the person and will be an intermediate between extremes. It is found by rational standards that a person with practical wisdom will recognize. Vices are easy to form but using our passions and actions in a way that brings excellence takes much more work.