In the foregoing analysis of the five most frequently used ethical concepts we have had to feel our way rather carefully, inasmuch as a completely new path was being cut through the tangle of human experience; henceforth, however, our task will be somewhat easier, since we shall now be able to apply the truth we have already discovered in the remainder of our investigations. Directly, then, we shall proceed to ask what another pair of ethical antonyms, namely, virtue and vice, signify in terms of our physiological functions.
It will be recalled that our first five ethical concepts were rather largely employed to point out objects and relationships in the external environment. It is common to speak of good and bad automobile tires, of the right golf club to use near a bunker, of the wrong side of a sheet of drawing paper, and of the evil that men do which lives after them. When, however, we take up the study, first of “virtue” and “vice,” and later on, that of “conscience,” “duty,” and “freedom,” we are no longer to be primarily concerned with things outside of the organism, but rather with processes going on within it. Significantly enough, this deepening of our absorption into the field of ethics involves a further penetration into the realm of physiology. Thus in a curious and unforeseen way our fundamental thesis with regard to the close relationship between physiology and ethics obtains additional support. Consequently, we are not to turn suddenly from objective to subjective ethics, as has usually been the case when the five concepts we are forthwith to analyse have been discussed; on the contrary, just as we began by defining ethical values in terms of human activities, so shall we continue until we have made an end. And although it is commonly asserted that the deepest meanings are inner meanings, yet in a universe that has neither an inside, nor an outside, nor an edge, such a figure of speech simply betokens an introversive tendency on the part of him who uses it.
Herewith, also, the need to combat another equally stultifying tendency is manifest. I refer to the proclivity of all second-rate minds to reify abstract terms. “Virtue” and “vice” have been so reified, as have likewise “conscience,” “duty,” and “freedom” to such an extent as to make it almost impossible to get a fair hearing for any one who wishes to discover the sources from which these concepts have been derived. It is admitted, of course, that the evolution of man has been greatly hastened by his ability to make and use abstract terms; but when a man uses an abstract term without knowing or caring from what sources it has been derived, he is manifesting little more than a desire to escape from reality.[19] Indeed, it might be said that unless the use of abstractions assists us in dealing more effectively with concrete persons and things, it is time to regret that language has been universally acquired.
The terms “virtue” and “vice,” therefore, instead of being treated as abstract entities which existed even prior to man’s advent on the planet, and which will survive his leave-taking of it, will be here regarded simply as words by which a man describes the behavior of himself and of his fellows. And, as was the case five times previously, our definitions of these particular concepts will be the result of a search for the greatest common divisors of all the particular virtues and vices respectively.
Strangely enough, however, no complete catalogue of either the virtues or the vices exists. Moreover, every list which the different philosophies and religions furnish reflects a different bias or determining tendency. One need only to scan the Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the Christian inventories[20] in order to verify this remark. The determining tendency thus revealed turns out upon analysis to contain two elements:—first, the desire to reduce the essential virtues to the smallest number possible, and second, the inclination to rank them from the highest, or supreme virtue, to the lowest. Such a procedure as the latter,—that of building the edifice of virtue down from the top,—is, in our estimation, no part of a scientific method in ethics. Neither does it tell us what a virtue is. Besides, as might be expected from such biased and provincial system-making, what one philosophy or religion calls a virtue, may be classified by another as a vice. Witness the ambiguous status of humility as treated now by the followers of Nietzsche, and again by the early Christians. Perhaps, however, such ambiguities may be traced to the fact that the term “vice” is of uncertain etymology, while no such perplexity arises concerning the origin of the word “virtue.”
This lack of unanimity or completeness in the various invoices of virtue is not in any way fatal to our purpose. In spite of special emphases philosophies and religions may exhibit or insist upon, every particular virtue is undeniably some quality, trait, or performance which is admired or esteemed. Taking this description as our point of departure, let us first consider what sort of traits and performances have been thus commended, after which we shall be able to discover to what an extent virtue and vice are contradictory. For it is by no means obvious at the start that they are true antonyms.
Let it be recognized, then, that the original signification of virtue refers to the so-called manly or noble qualities of bravery, valor, daring, courage, and the like. From this it is inferable that just as might and right were found to have much in common, so do virtue and physical power. Perhaps the biologist would call this phase of virtue a manifestation of positive thigmotaxis, that is, the tendency to face and fight against physical obstacles. We might also call these manly or noble qualities the spectacular virtues, since he who displays them is always subject-matter for the dramatist, whether a man exhibit his valor in the midst of a crowd on Broadway, or alone in the fastnesses of the Yukon. How far this sort of virtue can be attributed to the dumb animals has not yet become part of ethical inquiry. In Plato’s Dialogue “Laches” Socrates argues that the virtue that is strength, in so far as it pertains to human beings, contains an intellectual element that is wanting in the lower animals, however pluckily they may defend their young against an intruder. Nevertheless, sympathetic and careful observers of animal behavior are becoming more and more convinced that the defence which such a bird as the penguin makes against the egg-eating skua-gulls is just as courageous an act, and therewith just as virtuous, as that of a weak nation against a mighty invader. Reduced to its lowest terms, every act of bravery is the same: it is only the interests involved which make the sacrifices of Regulus and Andreas Hofer seem fundamentally different from those of dumb animals at bay before the merciless hunter. But evidences of a growing doubt on this point are manifest today in the fact of our awarding hero-medals to dogs and horses in the same manner as we award them to men.
A second class of traits which have been traditionally commended includes such things as caution, probity, temperance, sobriety, honesty, and the like. These virtues are at once seen to lack the theatrical or spectacular quality which attaches to displays of physical courage or intrepidity. They might, therefore, perhaps be called the unobtrusive virtues. It is not to be understood, however, that these unobtrusive virtues require any less physical energy than do those with which they have just been contrasted. To be sure, the energy expended is on the whole less suddenly released, for it may involve far more work to acquire the habitual trait of honesty than to be gallant for an hour or so on the field of battle. Perhaps it is due to the recognition of this fact that today raw physical fortitude is not the first association which the mention of “virtue” calls up in our minds.
A third use of the term “virtue” signifies any inherent property capable of producing certain effects, in which connection it particularly refers to the medicinal efficacy of drugs distilled from plants. This sort of virtue is good for something, and is usually regarded as life-enhancing.
Finally, this concept appears in certain familiar phrases, such as “by virtue of,” “in virtue of,” and the like, where it usually connotes strength, or efficacy, or even reason, and right. Thus we see that the word “virtue,” like the other ethical concepts we have analysed, loses almost all of its specificity when it enters into idiomatic phrases.