(Originally written November 29, 2006 in Book 12)
Virtues of the Mind continued...
2.5 Virtue and habit: the transformation machine
A virtue is an acquired excellence. A vice is an acquired defect.
A virtue or a vice becomes a second nature of a person.
A virtue/vice is relatively permanent and gradually acquired.
Virtues and vices form a part of who a person is.
Virtue is a kind of habit, but virtue is not identical with habit.
Virtues are acquired through a process of repetition over time.
Aristotle did not hold moral strength or continence as the same as virtue.
A virtuous person has a better form of moral knowledge than a continent person.
"Aristotle claims that moral virtue is logically connected with phronesis and phronesis involves an insight into particulars that may not be fully capture by any general rule" (Zagzebski, 119).
A person's moral identity is intrinsically connected with experience of the world.
Virtue is not a virtue if it is not acquired gradually.
A single act of will is causally insufficient to transform oneself.
David Brown argues that it is impossible for a person to be transformed into a state of moral perfection of death. If there is a heaven, there must be a purgatory.
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