Virtues and Vices

1. The noble is the object of praise, the base of blame: at the head of what is noble stand the virtues, at the head of what is base the vices; the virtues, then, are objects of praise, but so also are the causes of the virtues and their accompaniments and results, including the acts they give rise to: the opposites are objects of blame.

If in agreement with Plato we take the soul to have three parts, then prudence is the virtue of the rational, gentleness and bravery of the passionate, temperance and continence of the appetitive; and of the soul as a whole, justice, liberality, and magnanimity. Folly is the vice of the rational, irascibility and cowardice of the passionate, intemperance and incontinence of the appetitive ; and of the soul as a whole, injustice, illiberality, and small-mindedness.

2. Prudence is a virtue of the rational part capable of procuring all that tends to happiness. Gentleness is a virtue of the passionate part, through which men become difficult to stir to anger. Bravery is a virtue of the passionate part, through which men are difficult to scare by apprehension of death. Temperance is a virtue of the appetitive part, by which men cease to desire bad sensual pleasures. Continence is a virtue of the appetitive part, by which men check by thinking the appetite that rushes to bad pleasures. Justice is a virtue of the soul that distributes to each according to his desert. Liberality is a virtue of the soul ready to spend on noble objects. Magnanimity is a virtue of the soul, by which men are able to bear good and bad fortune, honor and dishonor.

3. Folly is a vice of the rational part, causing evil living. Irascibility is a vice of the passionate part, through which men are easily stirred to anger. Cowardice is a vice of the passionate part, through which men are scared by apprehensions, especially such as relate to death. Intemperance is a vice of the appetitive part, by which men become desirous of bad sensual pleasures. Incontinence is a vice of the appetitive part, through which one chooses bad pleasures, though thinking opposes this. Injustice is a vice of the soul, through which men become covetous of more than they deserve. Illiberality is a vice of the soul, through which men aim at gain from every source. Little-mindedness is a vice of the soul, which makes men unable to bear alike good and bad fortune, alike honor and dishonor.

4. To prudence belongs right decision, right judgment as to what is good and bad and all in life that is to be chosen and avoided, noble use of all the goods that belong to us, correctness in social intercourse, the grasping of the right moment, the sagacious use of word and deed, the possession of experience of all that is useful. Memory, experience, tact, good judgment, sagacity—each of these either arises from prudence or accompanies it. Or possibly some of them are, as it were, subsidiary causes of prudence (such as experience and memory), while others are, as it were, parts of it, e.g. good judgment and sagacity.

To gentleness belongs the power to bear with moderation accusations and slights, not to rush hastily to vengeance, not to be easily stirred to anger, to be without bitterness or contentiousness in one's character, to have in one's soul quietude and steadfastness.

To bravery belongs slowness to be scared by apprehensions of death, to be of good courage in dangers and bold in facing risks, and to choose a noble death rather than preservation in some base way, and to be the cause of victory. Also it belongs to bravery to labor, to endure, and to choose to play the man. And there accompanies it readiness to dare, high spirits, and confidence; and further, fondness for toil and endurance.

To temperance belongs absence of admiration for the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, absence of desire for all base sensual enjoyment, fear of just ill-repute, an ordered course of life, alike in small things and in great. And temperance is accompanied by discipline, orderliness, shame, caution.

5. To continence belongs the power to restrain by reason the appetite when rushing to base enjoyment of pleasures, endurance, steadfastness under natural want and pain.

To justice belongs the capacity to distribute to each his deserts, to preserve ancestral customs and laws and also the written law, to be truthful in matters of importance, to observe one's agreements. First among acts of justice come those towards the gods, then those to deified spirits, then those towards one's country and parents, then those towards the departed: amongst these comes piety, which is either a part of justice or an accompaniment of it. Also justice is accompanied by purity, truth, trust, and hatred of wickedness.

To liberality it belongs to be profuse of money on praiseworthy objects, to be extravagant in spending on a proper purpose, to be helpful and kind in disputed matters, and not to take from improper sources. The liberal man is also clean in his dress and house, ready to provide himself with what is not strictly necessary but beautiful and enjoyable without profit, inclined to keep all animals that have anything peculiar or marvellous about them. Liberality is accompanied by a suppleness and ductility of disposition, by kindness, by pitifulness, by love for friends, for foreign intimates, for what is noble.

It belongs to magnanimity to bear nobly and bravely alike good and bad fortune, honor and dishonor; not to admire luxury or attention or power or victory in contests, but to have a sort of depth and greatness of soul. The magnanimous is one who neither values living highly nor is fond of life, but is in disposition simple and noble, one who can be injured and is not prompt to avenge himself. The accompaniments of magnanimity are simpleness, nobleness, and truth.

6. To folly it belongs to judge things badly, to decide badly, to be bad in social intercourse, to use badly present goods, to think erroneously about what is good and noble as regards life. Folly is accompanied by ignorance, inexperience, incontinence, tactlessness, shortness of memory.

Of irascibility there are three species—promptness to anger, peevishness, sullenness. It is the mark of the angry man to be unable to bear small slights or defeats, to be ready to punish, prompt at revenge, easily moved to anger by any chance word or deed. The accompaniments of irascibility are a disposition easily excited, ready changes of feeling, attention to small matters, vexation at small things, and all these rapid and on slight occasion.

To cowardice it belongs to be easily moved by unimportant apprehensions, especially if relating to death or maiming of the body, and to suppose preservation in any manner to be better than a noble death. Its accompaniments are softness, unmanliness, despair, love of life. Beneath it, however, is a sort of caution of disposition and slowness to quarrel.

To intemperance it belongs to choose the enjoyments of hurtful and base pleasures, to suppose that those living in such pleasures are in the highest sense happy, to love laughter, jeering, wit, and levity in word and deed. Its accompaniments are disarrangement, shamelessness, disorder, luxury, ease, negligence, contempt, dissipation.

To incontinence it belongs to choose the enjoyment of pleasures though reason forbids, to partake of them none the less though believing it to be better not to partake of them, and while thinking one ought to do what is noble and profitable still to abstain from these for the sake of pleasures. The accompaniments of incontinence are effeminacy, negligence, and generally the same as those of intemperance.

7. Of injustice there are three species—impiety, greed, outrage. Impiety is wrong-doing towards gods, deified spirits, the departed, one's parents, and one's country. Greed is wrong-doing in regard to agreements, claiming a share of the object in dispute beyond one's deserts. Outrage occurs when in providing pleasure for oneself one brings shame on others, whence Evenus says of it 'That which while gaining nothing still wrongs another'. It belongs to injustice to violate ancestral customs and laws, to disobey enactments and rulers, to lie, to commit perjury, to violate agreements and pledges. The accompaniments of injustice are quibbling, charlatanry, unamlability, pretense, malignity, unscrupulousness.

Of illiberality there are three species, pursuit of disgraceful gain, parsimony, stinginess: pursuit of disgraceful gain, in so far as such men seek gain from all sources and think more of the profit than of the shame; parsimony, in so far as they are unready to spend money on a suitable purpose; stinginess, in so far as, while spending, they spend in small sums and badly, and are more hurt than profited from not spending in season. It belongs to illiberality to value money above everything, and to think no reproach can ever attach to what yields a profit. The life of the illiberal is servile, suited to a slave, and sordid, remote from ambition and liberality. The accompaniments of illiberality are attention to small matters, sullenness, small-mindedness, self-humiliation, lack of measure, ignobility, misanthropy.

It belongs to small-mindedness to be able to bear neither honor nor dishonor, neither good nor ill fortune, but to grow braggart when honored, to be elated at small prosperities, to be unable to bear even the smallest deprivation of honor, to regard any ill-success whatever as a great misfortune, to bewail oneself and to be impatient over everything. Further, the small-minded man is such as to call every slight an outrage and a dishonor, even such as are inflicted through ignorance or forgetfulness. The accompaniments of small-mindedness are attention to small things, grumbling, hopelessness, self-humiliation.

8. In general it belongs to virtue to make the condition of the soul good, using quiet and ordered motions and in agreement with itself throughout all its parts: whence the condition of a good soul seems a pattern of a good political constitution. It belongs also to virtue to do good to the worthy, to love the good and to hate the bad; not to be prompt either to chastise or seek vengeance, but to be placable, kindly, and forgiving. Its accompaniments are worth, equity, indulgence, good hope, good memory, and further all such qualities as love of home, love of friends, love of comrades, love of one's foreign intimates, love of men, love of the noble: all these qualities are among the laudable. The marks of vice are the opposites, and its accompaniments the opposites; and all these marks and accompaniments of vice belong to the class of the blameable.