The return of the word “virtue” to the lexicon means we can at least talk about what it means to act with moral excellence

What is this Thing called Virtue?

by Bruce Frohnen

Believe it or not, in at least one specific area public discourse in the United States is a bit better than it was a few decades ago. How so? Today we occasionally hear the word “virtue” used—and not always in sarcasm. This is good news because the return of the word “virtue” to the lexicon means we can at least talk about what it means to act with moral excellence, conforming to a standard of right conduct, to “be good” in a meaningful way. And this makes it less difficult for us to talk about what we are supposed to be like as human beings, for what we ought to strive, and how.

For many decades, the general view seems to have been that “virtue” was what suckers called their own lack of sophistication. This too often remains the view. But today there at least is a debate. Partly this is a self-interested response to certain natural facts. A society that shuns virtue and decency descends into a war of all against all. As that war has gotten ever more violent and destructive, even liberals—at least those with property, status, and wealth to preserve (think Ivy League professors and members of various professional-managerial elites) have come to see the value in calling people to some form of good conduct. Partly, however, the return to discussions of virtue stems from more intellectual sources.

In 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue shocked academia and that sector of journalism with intellectual pretensions by pointing out the utter failure of the modern moral project—the attempt to build a coherent moral structure on the basis of Enlightenment philosophy. That project, MacIntyre showed, was doomed to fail because it was empty at its core. The central, missing element? Teleology or the understanding that we all have a natural end or goal that we must strive to achieve if we are to have any chance for true happiness.

Enlightenment thinkers (Voltaire might serve as a useful model, here) dismissed teleology as the product of superstition and self-interested myth making. Peasants are ordered to be “good” by obeying their masters, the argument went, lest they betray their mythically proper end—salvation—and be condemned to Hell. Hell, then, was the creation of priests intent on protecting their own privileges and the power and wealth of their patrons. Virtue, on this reading, meant foolishly acting in accordance with the prevailing myths of (Christian) superstitions.................
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