Why is good character hard to come by? No one knows what it means
David Whalen
The very idea of moral character has been hollowed out. It’s now thought to mean “being good,” and we tend to regard it simply as obeying rules, avoiding evil, and exhibiting “nice” behavior. Next to the more traditional idea of virtue, this kind of bloodless, anemic do-goodery makes a trained dog seem more interesting than a human being. In its fullest conception, virtue includes much more than good behavior; it includes the idea of being something, or becoming completely what it is to be human.
The way we attain virtue, becoming fully what we are, is suggested by the etymology of the word “character.” The term derives from an ancient Greek word meaning “engraved mark,” something that is gradually inscribed yet difficult to remove. Indeed, the virtues are acquired in just this fashion: through the repetition of acts that at first may be difficult or against our inclination but which eventually etch upon our souls a habit of good character.
This habit of good character is classically described as falling into four categories known as the cardinal virtues: temperance has to do with self-discipline, especially as regards things pleasing or painful; courage denotes the “golden mean” between cowardice and brash overconfidence; justice is a habit of giving people what is due to them; and prudence, also known as practical wisdom, is the habit of deliberating correctly about what ought to be done.
It may sound melodramatic, but today there is a contest between two warring schools of thought on virtue. In fact, we have reached a kind of cultural crisis. The first school regards character and moral excellence roughly in the ways described here — as a matter of our nature. From this perspective, the virtues are proper to us. They don’t come automatically, of course, but the capacity to attain them is an essential part of our being. Moreover, what is good is not whatever we happen to desire or want. It is more objective, more real, and more natural than that.
The other school is sometimes called the “voluntarist” school. Leaving aside some physical or biological givens, this school holds that what is good is not part of our nature. Rather, the good is merely a descriptive term for what is subjectively desired. “Good” is whatever someone happens to will or choose, not a completion of our human nature.
This constitutes a crisis because the first school understands “human nature” as robust and indelible, while the second regards it as a thin tissue of whatever things people frequently happen to do, or whatever might be physically possible to do, or what is inscribed simply in genetic code. Gone is the idea of a deep human nature, one that includes purposes. Gone is the “why” or the “what-this-is-for” of our faculties and capacities.
According to the first school, for instance, the purpose of intelligence is knowledge. The “why” of our appetites is self-preservation and generation. And the “what-this-is-for” of our choices and actions is virtue. We have purposes built into our nature.
According to the second school, however, we have few or none. Our culture is torn, in other words, between the idea that people are a certain kind of being that becomes fully itself in virtue, and the idea that we are not much of anything, so our acts are a heap of “whatever.”
The classic understanding of virtue, the good, and human nature isn’t quaint finishing school stuff, wishful thinking, or old-fashioned mumbo jumbo. Character, or the lack of it, is as real as our appetites, as ever-active as our minds, and as imperative as the difficulties we face.
Saint Augustine famously said, “Love and do what you will.” This is often misinterpreted as, “Love, and let whim take care of the rest.” Rather, he spoke precisely of human nature most fully realized through the virtues. Love the right things, and you will choose the right things, whether in battle, in business, or at home.
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David Whalen is an associate vice president for curriculum and a professor of English at Hillsdale College.