WHAT IS VIRTUE?

• The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines virtue as a habitual and firm disposition to do good.
• Virtue further refers to the positive attitudes, character or behaviours that are generally accepted in human society as good and moral.
• A virtue is a moral character that a person needs to live well.
• Virtues are also characteristics valued as promoting collective and individual growth.

 

Morally excellent people have a character made-up of virtues valued as good such as honesty, respectful, courageous, forgiveness and kindness.

 

• Virtue is an excellent trait of character, it is a disposition well entrenched in the possessor, a moral obligation to do what is moral.
• Virtue can also be seen as an expected standard of individual behaviour that are dictated by divine command, or imposed on an individual by the human community.

 In line with the description of virtue given above, the Encyclopaedia Britannica puts it succinctly:

Virtue means conformity of life and conduct with the principles of morality. The virtues are thus the practical attitudes and habits adopted in obedience to those principles.

  There are two basic categories of virtue namely personal and societal or group virtues.

 

• Personal or individual virtues are a freely cultivated character or principle that guides the conduct of an individual's action.
• Individual virtues develop in a person out of personal conviction, influenced by the environment or religious or cultural world-views.
• Group or societal virtues on the other hand are the moral standards guiding the actions of a group of people, and to which the group members are expected to conform. These sometimes emanate from scriptural injunctions, religious and sacred traditions or the guidelines of religious leaders, in the light of divine revelation.