Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are pleasant for such men as well as in their own nature. Their life, therefore, has no further need of pleasure as a sort of adventitious charm, but has its pleasure in itself.29
In the world of business, virtue in and of itself will not console someone whose 401(k) has been ravaged by the economic downturn, or who has been terminated from his or her employment or driven into bankruptcy. On the other hand, virtuous people will possess sufficient fortitude to ride out turns of misfortune. As Aristotle explains:
Now many events happen by chance, and events differing in importance; small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite clearly do not weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, but a multitude of great events if they turn out well will make life happier (for not only are they themselves such as to add beauty to life, but the way a man deals with them may be noble and good), while if they turn out ill they crush and maim happiness; for they both bring pain with them and hinder many activities. Yet even in these nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul.30
But, as Aristotle notes, “Many changes occur in life, and all manner of chances, and the most prosperous may fall into great misfortunes in old age.”31 So if our hardship is substantial, or sustained, or turns up at a point in life where it's hard to bounce back, a person's fortitude is tested: “For neither will he be moved from his happy state easily or by any ordinary misadventures, but only by many great ones, nor, if he has had many great misadventures, will he recover his happiness in a short time, but if at all, only in a long and complete one in which he has attained many splendid successes.”32 Living the ethical life does not necessarily equate to business success. But Aristotle suggests that due to its durability, virtue lends sustainability to a person's life:
No function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities (these are thought to be more durable even than knowledge of the sciences), and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because those who are happy spend their life most readily and most continuously in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them. The attribute in question, [durability] then, will belong to the happy man, and he will be happy throughout his life; for always, or by preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action and contemplation, and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and altogether decorously, if he is ‘truly good’ and ‘foursquare beyond reproach.’33
A message that can be gleaned from this—particularly in these times of postfinancial crisis anxiety—is that no matter how bad it seems, it's best to keep to the virtuous route, cling to the hope that the link between good actions and happiness will reappear, bringing an upturn in fortune that will help you spring back.34
Virtues
Cardinal Virtues
The cardinal virtues are courage, justice, temperance, and practical wisdom (phronsis) or prudence.35 What do we mean when we say these characteristics are virtues? A musician might claim that her violin possesses the virtue of keeping in tune. In this way, she is describing her violin in terms of its usefulness to her. (She doesn't have to retune it often.) Keeping in tune is a useful characteristic of a musical instrument that players have an interest in. But in talking about a person having virtue, we don't mean that she is useful. First and foremost, we are pointing out that she possesses dispositions conducive to the pursuit of human well-being, in particular to her own flourishing. To be sure, all of us keep our eyes on one another's character. However, your dominant interest looks toward developing your own character, and the sorts of things that you set out to accomplish in your life and career on the basis of it. You discriminate between your vices and virtues, knowing that your moral habits impact the nature of your private and cherished understanding of who you are. At the same time, not only do your first-rate inclinations draw you closer to achievements, but also they accord you inner harmony and serenity.
Aristotle reckoned this way too. Granted, the archaic world of the Greek city-state out of which Aristotle's thinking emerged was in some respects a far cry from the world inhabited by today's global business enterprises. The oikonomia of the ancient world was centered on home management and agriculture and the political sphere involved persistent threats of Athenian invasion from Persian neighbors. Yet Aristotle's line of reasoning touches what is unchanging about our essential nature as human beings. His philosophy is directed at uncovering what we need in order to live well today, at illuminating the moral features we draw upon in all facets of life that enable us to attain the excellence and state of flourishing for which we are destined by our design. As we saw in our earlier discussion of Aristotle, virtues are dispositions, acquired in part through emulation and practice, yet ultimately engaging the whole person in a dynamic deeper than just a Pavlovian stimulus-response mechanism.
As a person of virtue, not only are you developing greater discipline, but also you are cultivating better and more satisfying moral motives. What makes you a courageous person is not a developed ability to simply mimic the conduct of a courageous individual. Imitating some virtuous person's actions doesn't cut it because you cannot possibly know beforehand what any such person's actions would require you to do. When you are a genuinely courageous individual, your soul is stirred by the yearning for honor and excellence, irrespective of the toll to personal comfort and security. One of the things that is so striking about virtue is the dependability it carries. In large part, what makes you a person that others can place their trust in is that you have the right sorts of motivations and dispositions to act in certain ways. When dangerous circumstances arise, others will turn to you—the person of courage—because they place confidence in your deep disposition to elevate concern for the common good over narrow worries about self-protection.
Moral Virtues
Reason carries an intellectual part together with a component governing the appetites. Hence, Aristotle differentiates two kinds of virtue. On the one hand are intellectual virtues, connected to the ways the soul arrives at the truth through activity that uses reason's apprehensive strength. On the other hand are moral virtues associated with regulating desire.
Virtue…is distinguished into kinds…for we say that some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in speaking about a man's character we do not say that he is wise or has understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we praise the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of states of mind we call those which merit praise virtues.36
Among the moral virtues are courage, temperance, self-discipline, moderation, modesty, generosity, friendliness, truthfulness, honesty, and justice. Rather than just learning the moral virtues, Aristotle says that we acquire them from persistent practice. Laying stress on the requirement of relentless rehearsal to produce virtuosity brings to mind the gag about the disoriented Manhattan visitor who asks how to get to Carnegie Hall and is bluntly admonished “practice, practice, practice!” “The virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g., men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”37 It is optimal if such practice is started when young, continuing to the point of becoming habitual and second nature. As Aristotle puts it, “It makes no small difference then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.”38 Because there are persistent temptations toward vice, however, Aristotle claims that laws are needed to buttress what was instilled through youthful instruction. In his words:
It is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially