The study of virtue is the study of living well, for a virtuous person cultivates ideal human characteristics with heroic duty in order to establish a constancy of excellent behavior; the virtues are selected cornerstones of goodness, serving as a foundation for proper and exceptional human behavior, qualities which we must strive toward achieving and in the process embody the good life. Rather than live by following mere rules or commands the virtuous person strives to enrich his character, punishing himself more severely than a judge ever could in the face of failure or infraction, looking past laws to focus on greater goods, basing his life on the practice of those ends. Virtue can both be reflected in personal conviction as well as in the aspirations of a larger community; but in both cases must be practiced by individuals in order to come to fruition. In this manner virtue is an exercise rather than a framework, requiring constant embodiment and labor. The classical virtues defined by the ancient Greeks as ideal qualities of a good man include temperance (self-control), prudence (wisdom), fortitude (courage) and justice (honesty, magnanimity). A man practicing the virtue ethic would ask of every thought, action, decision and judgment: am I behaving with restraint, insight, bravery and fairness, am I behaving in an excellent rather than a merely satisfactory way? In this way the vices and moral corruption are avoided: intemperance, imprudence, cowardice (dispiritedness) and injustice. Where personal behaviors fail to adhere to these standards of conduct, self-scrutiny is exercised, contingent on the virtue of justice, as no other man may judge the quality of another, in adherence to the doctrine of things in and outside of our control (ref: Epictetus).

The virtue ethic is in great contrast to most modern ethical systems which judge the good of their actions dependant on legality or the net attainment of happiness. This grubby mode of life leads to civic and communal atrophy, as the nature of people degenerates to mediocrity and a self-centered existence in which desires and indulgences remain untempered in the face of social decay. What makes us obviously happy may not be the wisest choice, and this notion is lost on the contemporary society, which has no knowledge of how to live well or how to judge the justice of a situation, and instead has become reliant upon the opinions of others in guiding their behavior, dangerously corrupted by government and media demagoguery. It must at least be said that the guardians of our society must behave with virtue, as their offices require a more demanding character and greatness of spirit than the common citizen’s pursuits, in that their service impacts the whole of the community. If this latter behavior is governed by desires and a bare and wavering adherence to mediocre laws rather than inspiring ideals, the state disserves the people, more interested in serving its own ends rather than securing the wellbeing and flourishing of its people. A cultivation of virtues breeds exemplary character and behavior, traits most deserving of high offices. In this manner the public servant must embody the virtues so as to fulfill his duty properly.

Yet virtue is not simply a vessel to bring about proper conduct in government, as a virtuous doctor remains steadfast in his labors and treats the grieving with magnanimity and fairness, while a virtuous teacher grades indifferently, treats the misbehaving student with tempered justice and has the courage to defend “controversial” papers against the administration. Virtue is synonymous with behavior consistent with an exceptional human, an aspiration rejected by modern cynics with hollow and meaningless phrases such as “we’re only human,” degrading the human spirit to nothing but a shadow of its true potential. The sole good in life is living well through virtuous conduct and treating fellow humans with love and justice, as nothing else deemed “good” (money, sex, drugs) by the popular society survives destruction or cannot be taken away from us. The “goods” of the common people are transitory and in flux, destroyed in an instant, capricious and at the whims of fortune, while the virtues brand in the spirit. Ultimately, society will not stop decaying until the TV is turned off and serious effort is put toward educating the children in how to behave with prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.