Human beings live by a social code that encourages positive habits toward others and their environment to avoid negative outcomes and potential adversities. However, virtue ethicists believe that human dispositions, experiences, and the quality of their environment play a role in their standards of morality. The founding father of virtue ethics philosophies, Aristotle, categorizes individuals’ operative habits into moral and intellectual virtues. Subsequently, he clarifies that individuals may possess intellectual virtues such as wisdom and understanding; these traits are not necessarily used to do good deeds. Nevertheless, moral virtues facilitate action by leveraging reason to determine what needs to be done.
Moral virtue is associated with individuals’ practical lives rather than their thinking. According to Aristotle, moral virtue is the inherent quality of behaving appropriately or in the right manner to strike a balance between the extreme ends of deficiency and excess when considering attributes classified as vices. For example, the philosopher suggests that an individual who fears everything and runs from trouble is a coward, while a person who does not fear anything and rushes into uncertainty is rash, which is both undesirable attributes. However, a person who applies the appropriate reason to action is considered courageous. Thus, developing and understanding virtuous principles builds an individual’s morality.
Moral virtues hold the utmost importance in human society because they allow individuals to act rationally and apply the correct judgment when faced with issues. Over the course of human history, people have been exposed to ideals including compassion, courage, fidelity, self-control, honesty, prudence, and fairness, and encouraged to practice these habits. Thus, moral virtues serve to reconcile individuals’ knowledge of right and wrong with their actions and ways of living. In other words, moral virtues allow people to pursue societally-constructed ideals and achieve higher standards of self-awareness and self-actualization. Hence, moral virtues prevent society from becoming chaotic due to the adverse influences of self-serving individuals. In addition, they prevent the escalation of vices such as unfairness, corruption, and injustice.
Moral virtues are critical in mending human relations, enhancing cohesion, and encouraging collaboration toward positive developments. Humans live in a dynamic world characterized by unprecedented factors. Therefore, moral virtues allow individuals to offer a hand to others who are suffering or lack basic facilities to advance. Moreover, they allow people, governments, and nations to reconcile after conflict and disagreements, which are inevitable attributes of socialization since people have different preferences and opinions. Without moral virtues, humans would be living in turmoil and misunderstanding would come in the way of justice and development. Thus, moral virtues allow society to advance toward positive outcomes by encouraging beneficial values and good human relations.
Moral virtues are habits that people acquire as they continuously interact with their environment, socialize, and increase their knowledge. Nevertheless, the urge to do good things is an intrinsic feature of people as they strive to achieve actualization. Moral virtues bridge the gap between knowing what is right and acting appropriately. Therefore, they play a major role in society since they influence individuals to value integrity, compassion, honesty, and truthfulness when interacting with others. Moreover, it allows for mending broken relationships and reconciliation after disagreements and conflicts. Therefore, moral virtues allow people to live in peace and assist each other to advance while sustaining the environment for future generations.