When we think of the virtues in general, or ‘virtue’ tout court, it seems that we think is the Aristotelian way. The concept of a virtue is the concept of something that makes its possessor good; a virtuous person is a morally good, excellent, or admirable person who acts and reacts well, rightly, as she should-she gets things right. These seem obvious truisms. But when we think of particular examples of virtues, we sometimes give these truisms up. We may say of someone that he is too generous or honest ‘to a fault’. It is commonly asserted that someone’s benevolence might lead them to act wrongly, to break a promise they should have kept, for example, in their desire to prevent someone else’s hurt feelings. Or we may think of the ‘virtue’ of courage as something that, is a desperado, enables them to do far more wicked things than they would be able to do if they were timid. So, it would appear, being generous, honest, benevolent, or courageous, despite their being virtues, can also be faults; or they are not always virtues, but sometimes faults. Someone who is generous, honest, benevolent, or courageous might not be morally good, admirable person-or, if it is still a truism that they are, then morally good people may be led or enabled by what makes them morally good to act wrongly! Which all sounds very odd.
Odd as it is, it would be futile to insist that it was wrong. As far as my own linguistic intuitions go, the only virtue term we have which is guaranteed to operate as a virtue term-that is, to pick out something that always makes its possessor good-is ‘wisdom’. (Perhaps also ‘just’-I am not certain.) People can be ‘too clever by half’ but not too wise. But all the other candidates seem to accept ‘too’ or ‘what a pity he is so…’. However, we do not have to talk this way, and we have various circumlocutions that enable us to hang on to the truisms that a virtue is a good way to be; that it makes its possessor good and enables her to act well. We can make sense of the claim that it is impossible to be too generous or too honest. Someone initially described that way can be redescribed as not quite having the virtue of generosity but a misguided form of it, as not so much honest as candid or outspoken. Instead of saying, without qualification, that someone’s benevolence led them to act wrongly on a particular occasion, we might say, again, that they had, not the virtue, but a misguided form of it, or (depending on the nature of the case) a perverted form of it, or that they were on the right path but did not possess the virtue yet, or possessed it to a very imperfect degree. And we may say that the desperado is daring but does not possess the virtue of courage.
The third thing I import from Aristotle is a pair of interrelated distinctions.
(I) There is a distinction between acting from reason, which we, typically, do, and what the other animals and small children do when they ‘act’.
(II) There is a distinction between rational wanting or desire, which we, typically, have and the mere passion or desire that impels the other animals and small children.