But this is not the Aristotelian concept. Despite a few awkward exceptions (friendship, gratitude), a virtue is generally held to be a character trait, a state of one’s character. If you have the virtues of, say, generosity, honesty, and justice, generous, honest, and just is the sort of person you are. Clearly, one can give the appearance of being a generous, honest, and just person without being one, by making sure one acts in certain ways. And that is enough to show that there is more to the possession of a virtue than being disposed to act in certain ways; at the very least, one has to act in those ways for certain sorts of reasons. But, in fact, we think of such character traits as involving much more than tendencies or dispositions to act, even for certain reasons.
For example, we think of honest people as people who tend to avoid the dishonest deeds and do the honest ones in a certain manner-readily, eagerly, unhesitatingly, scrupulously, as appropriate. They hasten to correct a false impression their words have led you into which would be to their advantage; they own up immediately without waiting to see if they are going to be found out; they give voice to the truth everyone else fears to utter; they are concerned to make sure you understand what you are singing or agreeing to do for them.
We expect a reliability in the actions that reflect their attitude to honest, too. We expect them to disapprove of, to dislike, and to deplore dishonesty, to approve of, like, and admire honesty, and so we expect them in conversation to praise or defend people, real or fictitious, for their honesty, to avoid consorting with the dishonest, to choose, where possible, to work with honest people and have honest friends, to be brining up their children to be honest. Where relevant, we expect them to uphold the ideals of truth and honesty in their jobs; if they are academics, to be resistant to fashion and scrupulous in their research; if they are teachers, to resist pressure to teach what they do not believe, or if doctors to defend the importance of trust between doctor and patient, or if in business, to resist sharp practice and argue for honesty as the best policy.
And this spills over into the emotions we expect from them. We expect them to be distressed when those near and dear to them are dishonest, to be unresentful of honest criticism, to be surprised, shocked, angered (as appropriate) by flagrant acts of dishonesty, not to be amused by certain tales of chicanery, to despise rather than to envy those who succeed by dishonest means, to be unsurprised, or pleased, or delighted (as appropriate) when honesty triumphs.
Finally, we may not actually expect, but may notice, if we are fortunate enough to come across someone thoroughly honest, that they are particularly acute about occasions when honesty is at issue. If we are less than thoroughly honest ourselves, they put us to shame, noticing, as we have failed to do, that someone is obviously not to be trusted, or that we are all about to connive at dishonesty, or that we are all allowing someone to be misled. As Stephen Hudson has rightly remarked: ‘The unity of character is extremely labyrinthine. It couples systematically a person's values, choices, desires, strength or weakness of will, emotions, feelings, perceptions, interests, expectations and sensibilities.’