Character, Virtues, and Actions

The language of ‘Virtue,’ by historical standards, has lost its currency. Why this is the case is a complicated matter, though perhaps the simplest reason is that we have lost a sense of ‘formal’ causation in the modern era. That history has, however, already been unpacked – far better than I ever could – by Alasdair MacIntyre in his seminal After Virtue, so I need not retread those steps. Instead, I think it pertinent to provide an overview of where Virtues fit into the scheme of human experience, and how they are important for understanding volition. Virtues are a middle term that bridges our individuated, daily Actions and the encompassing vision of ourselves that we can call our Characters. What is confusing about this scheme is that it is experienced in the opposing order that it is made intelligible, but I believe that we become clearer to ourselves once our experience is filtered through this complex dynamic in both directions. To aid in this pursuit, I first define these three key terms before explaining the inverted relationship between experiencing Action to Character and thinking through Character to Action and concluding by describing how Virtue mediates the tension between acts and thought.

We have three concepts in need of unpacking: Character, Virtue, and Action. Character is, however imperfectly perceived, the totality of a person and what makes them who they are; as noted by Aristotle and Hannah Arendt, who someone is can only ultimately be known once the person in question dies, but intimations of that identity can be made known within his or her life. Moreover, this complex can be understood as a variety of Roles: ‘John’ may be composed of ‘son,’ ‘brother,’ ‘husband,’ ‘father,’ ‘architect,’ ‘Baptist,’ ‘American,’ ‘Georgian,’ etc. The synthesis of these, when well balanced, is what we call ‘John.’ Each Role will have various necessary attributes that are required for fulfilling it well, and there are also certain attributes necessary for ‘John’ as such in the manner that he balances his many Roles.

These attributes are what we call Virtues: they are specific manners of conducting oneself that are conducive to the fulfillment of these many Roles. To take a few examples: a ‘father’ and ‘husband’ must be ‘caring,’ an ‘architect’ ‘diligent,’ a ‘Baptist’ ‘faithful.’ Without these Virtues, Characters and their many Roles can only be said to exist in a denuded sense: they are mere ghosts of the true identities that are said to be present. Critically, however, one cannot be said to perform, in a direct sense, any virtue. One cannot perform ‘caring,’ ‘diligent,’ or ‘faithful.’ Rather, Virtues describe the disposition in which a given agent is conducting himself or herself. The difference between a disposition and a Virtue is that the former is merely a settled manner of conducting oneself, what we might call a habit (good or bad); thus, both Virtues and Vices can be understood as dispositions, and the way in which they are distinguishable is by reference to the sorts of Character that they are conducive toward and how we evaluate the Characters. For example, the Role of Criminal has the Vice of being ‘deceptive’ whereas the Upstanding Citizen has the Virtue of ‘honesty.’

To discern someone’s Virtues (or Vices), then, is only possible by observing them across a series of Actions. Actions are simply the minute, daily decisions that we perform in particular. For a father, this may be the changing of his son’s diaper; for an architect, it is the drawing of a floorplan; for a Baptist, the listening to a Sunday Sermon. In perceiving such Actions just once, it may be difficult to discern whether the agent is doing so Virtuously or Viciously, but the iteration of these Actions makes perceiving a person’s Virtues and Vices much easier. We might also notice that a specific instance does not necessarily give us a good perception of someone’s Virtues and Vices or their overall Character. To see a father muttering complaints while changing a rather vile diaper is hardly to undermine that he is usually rather caring, self-sacrificing, and humble or even, more grandly, a good father – though complaints perceived on every occasion may suggest something about his failure to be a proper father.

In summary, then, human beings are Characters who balance a number of Roles. These Characters and their Roles are composed of Virtues and Actions; Virtues are the positive dispositions in which the variety of specifically undertaken Actions are performed, and the synthesis of these done well make the Character come more fully into existence. What must be noticed, however, is the tension between viewing this scale in, what I call, an Existential (or experiential) and an Ontological (or intelligible) manner. In its simplest form, the Existential perspective views these terms in an ascending scheme: Actions undertaken result in Virtues (or Vices) which eventually compose a Character; conversely, the Ontological perspective thinks in a descending scheme: a Character must be known to perceive what is and is not a Virtue and that Virtues must themselves be understood in order for Actions to be explained in terms of their conduciveness to those good dispositions. We thus live in a schematic tension: our activity moves from the micro to the macro, whereas we can only think about ourselves by moving from the macro back to our micro circumstances.

Having laid out this framework, I wish to return to my central concern: why are the Virtues here important to understand? I contend that they allow for a greater sense of how to move from our Actions to our Character. To understand how the action ‘writing a blog post’ is connected to the Character of ‘Quinton’ can be rather daunting; of course, this is not impossible, but the Virtues and their flexibility help to bridge this gap. Virtues can be applicable across the many Roles that make up our Characters: for example, ‘husband,’ ‘father,’ ‘teacher,’ and ‘blogger’ all equally benefit from the Virtue of ‘honesty,’ and thus ‘Quinton’ can come into clearer view by adhering to the idea that ‘honesty’ peaks through to that Character through the inculcation of that Virtue. Those various Roles and their needed Virtues are also somewhat closer to specific Actions to be undertaken, and they also surely preclude certain Actions from being undertaken. The action ‘Drinking ten beers’ being performed on a regular basis is rather intemperate, and this is surely a Vice that has little part in ‘husband,’ ‘father,’ ‘teacher,’ or ‘blogger,’ and it is surely an impossibility if those Roles are to be held together in the Character of ‘Quinton.’ This, however, may be considered too one-sided, focused too much on how Character informs our Actions.

Of course, as noted above, I do not believe we ever really know the full extent of our Characters until death, when (obviously) thinking about this ceases to be relevant. If this is the case, we are not living in a blueprint-like fashion where our fully-understood Character is simply being stamped upon our Actions over time. Rather, we can only conjecture about our Characters through being informed by our Actions already undertaken and Virtues (or Vices) as yet developed. Thus, just as our conjectured Characters inform the Virtues we seek to develop and the Actions we choose to undertake, so too are the visions of our Characters informed by the minuteness of our Actions and Virtues already in motion. For example, ‘Quinton’ has never been thought to be a prominent Japanese tech-designer and philanthropist nor have any Virtues been pursued in light of those Roles; this has nothing to do with my specific choices but is an aspect of my contingent reality. My Character is a conjectured end informed by my present reality, which is a situation that can only be described as an admixture of my choices and fortunes (much more reliant, in all likelihood, upon the latter).

In reviewing this scheme of Character, Virtue, and Action, I hoped to have clarified – in limited fashion – the manner in which we think about and make real these things we call ourselves. In an era riddled with concern about our identities – who we are, our Characters – I find it peculiar how we simultaneously have little sense of the Virtues and our need of them. Curiously, our identities have seemingly become attached more with our reflexive reactions and inclinations that we may or may not feel from moment to moment. Perhaps this is because we have lost a sense of Character, the fact that we become someone, but this can never be fully lost in light of our continued perception of one another’s person. Our current manner of speaking still permits us to say, “She’s a delightful woman,” or “He’s a shady guy,” and this remnant suggests that we still vaguely perceive the need of knowing our Characters and that this is impossible without an evaluation of their Virtues and Vices.