a man not to be niggard in his acknowledgment of other people’s right conduct; whereas, self-praise being objectionable, only the other point of view is deemed proper when he passes a judgment upon himself. He may say, without incurring censure, “I have done my duty, I have done what is right,” but hardly, “I have done a good deed”; and it would be particularly obnoxious to say, “I am a good man.” The best man even refuses to be called good by others:—“Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.”25
25 St. Matthew, xix. 17.
Whilst “goodness” is the general expression for moral praise, virtue denotes a disposition of mind which is characterised by some special kind of goodness. He who is habitually temperate possesses the virtue of temperance, he who is habitually just the virtue of justice. And even when a man is simply said to be “virtuous,” this epithet is given to him, more or less distinctly, with reference to some branch of goodness which constitutes his virtue. A Supreme Being, to whom is attributed perfect goodness, is not called virtuous, but good.
It was the opinion of Aristotle that virtue is imperfect so long as the agent cannot do the virtuous action without a conflict of impulses. Others maintain, on the contrary, that virtue essentially expresses effort, resistance, and conquest. It has been represented as “mediation through pain”;26 according to Kant, it is “the moral disposition in struggle.”27 But I do not see that virtue presupposes struggle, nor that it is lessened by being exercised with little or no effort. A virtue consists in the disposition to will or not to will acts of a certain kind, and is by no means reduced by the fact that no rival impulses make themselves felt. It is true that by struggle and conquest a man may display more virtue, namely, the virtue of self-restraint in addition to the virtue gained by it. The vigorous and successful contest against temptation constitutes a virtue by itself. For instance, the quality of mind which is exhibited in a habitual and victorious effort to conquer strong sexual passions is a virtue distinguishable from that of chastity. But even this virtue of resisting seductive impulses is not greater, ceteris paribus, in proportion as the victory is more difficult. Take two men with equally strong passions and equally exposed to temptations, who earnestly endeavour to lead a chaste life. He who succeeds with less struggle, thanks to his greater power of will, is surely inferior neither in chastity nor in self-restraint. Suppose, again, that the two men were exposed to different degrees of temptation. He who overcomes the greater temptation displays more self-restraint; yet the other man may possess this virtue in an equal degree, and his chastity is certainly not made greater thereby. He may have more merit, but merit is not necessarily proportionate to virtue.
26 Laurie, Ethica, p. 253 sqq.
27 Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, i. 1. 3 (Sämmtliche Werke, v. 89).
The virtues are broad generalisations of mental dispositions which, on the whole, are regarded as laudable. Owing to their stereotyped character, it easily happens, in individual cases, that the possession of a virtue confers no merit upon the possessor; and, at least from the point of view of the enlightened moral consciousness, a man’s virtues are no exact gauge of his moral worth. In order to form a just opinion of the value of a person’s character, we must take into account the strength of his instinctive desires and the motives of his conduct. There are virtues that pay no regard to this. A sober man, who has no taste for intoxicants, possesses the virtue of sobriety in no less degree than a man whose sobriety is the result of a difficult conquest over a strong desire. He who is brave with a view to be applauded is not, as regards the virtue of courage, inferior to him who faces dangers merely from a feeling of duty. The only thing that the possession of a virtue presupposes is that it should have been tried and tested. We cannot say that people unacquainted with intoxicants possess the virtue of sobriety, and that a man who never had anything to spend distinguishes himself for frugality. For to attribute a virtue to somebody is always to bestow upon him some degree of praise, and it is no praise, only irony, to say of a man that he “makes a virtue of necessity.”
Attempts have been made to reconcile the Aristotelian and the Kantian views of the relation between virtue and effort, by saying that virtue is the harmony won and merit is the winning of it.28 This presupposes that a man to whom virtue is natural has had his fights. But, surely, it is not always so. Who could affirm that every temperate, or charitable, or just man has acquired the virtue only as a result of inward struggle? There are people to whom some virtues at least are natural from the beginning, and others who acquire them with a minimum of effort.
28 Dewey, Study of Ethics, p. 133 sq. Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, i. 228. Cf. also Shaftesbury ‘Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit,’ i. 2. 4, in Characteristicks, ii. 36 sqq.
There has been much discussion about the relation between virtue and duty. It has been said that “they are co-extensive, the former describing conduct by the quality of the agent’s mind, the latter by the nature of the act performed”;29 that they express the same ideal, virtue subjectively, duty objectively;30 or that virtue, in its proper sense, is “the quality of character that fits for the discharge of duty,” and that it “only lives in the performance of duty.”31 At the same time it is admitted that “the distinctive mark of virtue seems to lie in what is beyond duty,” and that “though every virtue is a duty, and every duty a virtue, there are certain actions to which it is more natural to apply the term virtuous.”32 Prof. Sidgwick, again, in his elaborate chapter on ‘Virtue and Duty,’ remarks that he has “thought it best to employ the terms so that virtuous conduct may include the performance of duty as well as whatever good actions may be commonly thought to go beyond duty; though recognising that virtue in its ordinary use is most conspicuously manifested in the latter.”33
29 Alexander, op. cit. p. 244.
30 Grote, Treatise on the Moral Ideals, p. 22. Cf. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles, p. 239.
31 Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, p. 190 n.*
32 Alexander, op. cit. p. 243 sq.
33 Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 221.
It can be no matter of surprise that those who regard the notion of “duty” as incapable of being analysed, or who fail to recognise its true import, are embarrassed by its relation to virtue. We do not call it a virtue if a man habitually abstains from killing or robbing, or pays his debts, or performs a great number of other duties. We do call chastity and temperance and justice virtues, although we regard it as obligatory on a man to be chaste, temperate, just. We also call hospitality, generosity, and charity virtues in cases where they go beyond the strict limits of duty. “The relation of virtue and duty is complicated,” says Professor Alexander.34