The Cardinal Virtues | Guiding Principles for Daily Life

While it’s true that “the only constant is change,” as the philosopher Heraclitus put it. It is also true that each of us encounters the perennial choice between virtue and vice. Long ago, this was true in the myth of Hercules, and it is still true today. 

What comes to mind when you hear the word virtue? For some, it can feel outdated or old-fashioned. Virtue (or arete) translates to excellence or moral virtue. The notion of excellence connects with living up to one’s full potential or the highest good (summum bonum). 

Plato identified the four cardinal virtues with the character of a good city as described in The Republic. According to Plato, “Clearly, then, it will be wise, brave, temperate, and just.” The English word cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, which means hinge.

The cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom are four near-universal principles adopted by Christianity and most of Western philosophy. Although the choice between virtue and vice is not an easy one, it never has been, and it never will be (as depicted in the painting below).

Courage

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observed, “Our aim is not to know what courage is but to be courageous; not to know what justice is but to be just.” When thinking of virtue, we must view virtue as action.  

As Seneca stressed in a letter to Lucilius, 

See your philosophy as action — it consists not in words, but action.

Similarly, Holiday writes, “Courage is an honest commitment to noble ideals.” The opposite of courage is not, as some argue, being afraid. It’s apathy. It’s disenchantment. It’s despair. It’s throwing up your hands and saying, “What’s the point anyway?”

The Athenian historian Thucydides called self-control the chief element in self-respect and self-respect the principal element in courage. As we’ll see, the four virtues interconnect with one another. 

Temperance

Think of temperance as moderation or simply self-control. The Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus suggested, “If we were to measure what is good by how much pleasure it brings, nothing would be better than self-control.” 

According to Aristotle, 

Every ethical virtue is an intermediate between two other states. Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency. Therefore, courage lies between the coward, who flees every danger and experiences excessive fear, and the rash person, who judges every danger worth facing and experiences little or no fear.

An important point to highlight is that temperance maintains self-control even amid challenging situations. Epictetus taught, “If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.” For this reason, it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.

The virtue of temperance is a battle with ourselves. “The enemy is within the gates,” stressed Cicero, “it is with our own folly that we have to contend.” By doing so, we have the chance to choose the path of justice.

Justice

The virtue of justice can be described as fairness and kindness. “The prudent person does themselves good; the virtuous person does good to others,” observed Voltaire.

In my interview with Donald Robertson (author of numerous books on Marcus Aurelius), he explained,

I find that mind-boggling that anyone could read Marcus Aurelius and not notice that on virtually every page of the Meditations, he goes on and on obsessively about natural affection, brotherly love, cosmopolitan ethics, social virtue…

The act of kindness is valued across cultures and traditions. The novelist Henry James put it this way, “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.”

Despite the universal agreement on the importance of kindness, it can be challenging to put it into practice consistently. However, it helps to adopt a perspective of interconnectedness. As Marcus Aurelius wrote, “what is good for the bee is good for the hive.”

Musonius Rufus advised, 

To honor equality, to want to do good, and for a person to not want to harm human beings — this is the most honorable lesson and it makes just people out of those who learn it.

Wisdom

My interview with Steven Nadler (author of Think Least of Death) revealed these thoughts on wisdom,

It’s not a matter of being well educated or well-read. If you go way back, I mean way, way back to the point where Homer’s events were taking place in the Iliad, and the Odyssey, the notion of being wise had a very narrow, meaning it meant you had a particular skill. So one character in Homer’s Iliad is called selfless wise in the art of archery because he’s an excellent Archer.

It came to Socrates to transform our understanding of wisdom, explained Nadler. It is not just a matter of having a skill or technical know-how. And it’s not just a matter of being smart, knowing facts, or having a long life of experience. It is primarily, and this was not just Socrates, knowing something about yourself.

The philosopher Epicurus advised: “Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when they are young nor weary in search of it when they have grown old.” Similarly, a famous Chinese proverb says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” 

The same is true for choosing virtue over vice — the best time and all that is within your control is the here and now.

Final Thoughts

In the classic After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre writes the exercise of the virtues is a crucial component of the good life. However, the good life is not just about ourselves. “Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings,” stressed Epictetus to his students. 

To conclude, this quote from Marcus Aurelius sums up the point, 

If you discover in human life something better than justice, truth, self-control, courage — in short, something better than the self-sufficiency of your own mind which keeps you acting in accord with true reason and accepts your inheritance of fate in all outside your choice: if, as I say, you can see something better than this, then turn to it with all your heart and enjoy this prime good you have found.

Image: Hercules as Heroic Virtue Over Discord by Peter Paul Rubens (1632–33)

Image: Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma, The Choice Between Virtue and Vice by Frans Francken the Younger (1633)

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