Overall review

I quite enjoyed this book. The first thing it has done is expanded my reading list. But more deeply than that, I think it will change the way I read in the future.

Karen Swallow Prior takes us through 12 virtues, accompanied by 12 works of literature. She analyses the virtues through the characters and themes on display in these books, as well as brings in a wide array of philosophers and authors who have things to say on each particular virtue. The result is a fresh clarity on each of the virtues, an appreciation for each individual work of literature, and a wider appreciation of the value of literature as a whole.

I don’t know that I have been attentive enough to the moral lessons being conveyed in literature. Sure, there are starkly obvious ones, such as in Crime and Punishment, where the morality of the characters are the focus of the book, but I think I have been missing the more subtle expressions, for example in Austen. I never really twigged that different writers have a style with regard to the moral content they are trying to convey. So Dostoevsky differs from Austen differs from Steinbeck, not only in literary style and storytelling, but in how their moral lessons are conveyed. I will be much more attentive to these in the future.

This is the overall upshot of the book for me, but I also greatly enjoyed the discussion of the virtues. They were presented to me in rather fresh ways, and I found myself learning new things about them, or at least reflecting on them in fresh ways, even though they could be considered trite or commonly understood concepts. Below are some reflections on each of the virtues, as well as some overall reflections on the nature of virtue.

Reflections on virtues

Prudence (wisdom)

Right reason directed to the excellent life. It is to be prized in and of itself, not for the blessing it brings us. Life is not a gum-ball machine we can predictably play. Input 🡪 output. Prudence brings its own reward in general, but not as a rule. But how often we slip into religion=reward mindset and get bitter when things aren’t working out for us!

Temperance – Shaping one’s appetites such that one’s very desires are in proper order and proportion.

The virtue that helps us rise above our animal nature. It is truly liberation (counterintuitively), both personally and societally. When virtue diminishes, rules must abound. Freedom can only exist where there is virtue – and temperance is the most important virtue in this calculus.

Justice – ‘the whole of virtue’, the mean between selfishness and selflessness.

The law should be just, and is so only when it agrees with God’s moral law. Aquinas and Augustine both thought about what happens when the two are not in agreement. I’d like to look into this more.

Anger distorts justice, turning it into vengeance.
The world is broken. Making what is wrong right is costly. This is a call to personal sacrifice in your life’s pursuit of justice.

Courage – Fortitude. The habit that enables a person to face difficulty well.

Courage must entail personal risk or cost for doing what is right. One cannot be courageous in pursuit of something wrong.

Prior makes and interesting aside about malformed consciences. We can grow up with our sense of right and wrong shaped by our culture, which distorts our view of courage too. We can think it courageous to do something that is actually wrong, and we can think it cowardly to do something that is actually right. As an aside, it is a powerful reminder here of the role and responsibility in parent, educator, and community to properly form the conscience of the child. This is crucial.

Faith – Three elements: Belief, trust, obedience.

A complex thing. God given, but able to be built up by our habits. What is it exactly? Comes down to dependence on God. Christ is all.

Hope – Regards something good in the future that is difficult but possible to obtain.

Despair and disappointment is rooted in unrealistic expectations, bad idealism. It is a failure of vision.
Watchfulness is the key activity of hope.
Hope is the habit of aiming for the arduous good, even in earthly matters, which translate into spiritual ones.

Prior engages in a very insightful discussion of progress on pg 136. Progress does not equal hope. The modern idea of progress relies on a worldview of human perfectibility. It is utopian and ultimately unrealistic. “Human nature does not change, let alone progress”.

Love – Must be rooted in truth. Pure tenderness, absent faith, logically results in terror. The mere avoidance of pain. We need love that aims at the good.

Chastity – Not just celibacy. Lust is excess desire. Starts with envy of the things we lack.

Lust is rooted in loneliness. Likewise chastity is nurtured in community.

Diligence – Time and effort to accomplish the good.

Requires whetting our appetite for the good. Apathy is the opposite vice. Not the same as being busy. Being busy is easier than being good. Effort is like a muscle – getting easier and stronger with use. This applies to our salvation – our call is to work diligently on our holiness. Get working! This is not emphasised enough in the modern church.

Patience – Suffering well

Holding course on the good path. Willing to suffer for doing good. Rejecting bitterness in suffering.

Kindness – Treating someone like family – aiming for their good. It means the most raw, human of things. The process of death. We draw near to each other in our suffering. Kindness is key to the deepest human relationships.

Humility – the mother of all virtues. The beginning and the end of virtue. The accurate assessment of oneself in light of reality and God’s truth.

Pride is the original sin.

General reflections on virtue

Firstly, that virtue is the key to a free society, and indeed a free personal life. See page 56. When people are not virtuous, rules must abound in order to stem the flow of chaos. People must be externally controlled. But a virtuous man is liberated – mainly from himself and the tynranny of sin. A society of virtuous men is able to be liberated from tyrannical power.

Secondly, that virtue (and indeed holiness) is much under-emphasised in modern Christianity. The idea that my salvation involves work is anathema to us. Further, the idea that my effort might result in personal moral progress is something that we are uncomfortable with. This is fascinating because both of these notions are obviously true. The entire Christian tradition affirms the first, and even the reformation does not abolish it. Only our modern demented Protestantism has fallen into the trap of diminishing personal responsibility. The second is affirmed by every ethical thinker in history, and indeed by the bible, if read properly. Of course it’s the Holy Spirit bringing about my sanctification. But how on earth do you suppose he does this?

Thirdly, the value of community in a virtuous life. We cannot be virtuous alone. We must form our consciences in community, and we must set standards and hold each other to account in community. We remove blind spots and point out flaws in community. It is essential. The church must be more intentional about cultivating virtue together.

Fourthly, the fact that virtue is a habit at the end of the day. We are what we repeatedly do. So we practice virtue in all of the tiny decisions we make every day, not in the grand moments. In doing so, we become virtuous and by doing, we shape our desires., attitudes, beliefs and loves. It’s a virtuous cycle.