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HUMAN VALUES AND VICES
A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It opposes the evil of vice. Virtue allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God (" be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect " - Matthew 5:48). Our Christian duty is to pursue virtue and avoid vice.
| Theological Virtues Those virtues which adapt man's faculties for participation in the divine nature: [Cf. 2 Peter 1:4] for the theological virtues relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have the One and Triune God for their origin, motive, and object. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and of meriting eternal life. | Faith | Firm belief in God and in all that He has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because He is Truth itself. |
| Hope | Desire for the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. | |
| Charity | Love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbour as ourselves for the love of God. Jesus makes charity the new commandment. | |
| Cardinal Virtues Those virtues which make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. Cardinal virtues, which are rooted in the theological virtues, are acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by a perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts. They are purified and elevated by divine grace. | Prudence | Disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it. Prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience. The prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment. With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid. |
| Justice | Constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. | |
| Fortitude | Firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. | |
| Temperance | Moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. |
In contradistinction to the human values are 'anti-values' or vices. There is a cogent reason for not referring to ill-will, destructiveness, jealousy, covetousness and so on as 'negative values', for they are not really values at all, but denials of values. To every value one can surely find a corresponding negativity, and this fact itself illustrates that we are dealing in such cases with a lack of the value. Falsehood (untruth) is the absence or lack of truth and it can have no eternal validity as does truth. Strictly speaking, falsehood cannot be present, only truth absent. Though this point may seem somewhat philosophical, it is not unimportant, for it can have far-reaching ethical consequences, both in thought and action.
In theological terms, the absolute good exists, there can be no absolute evil or eternal hell. As a shadow is cast by a hindrance to light, bad qualities are the adumbration of good ones.
Feeling and practicising care, seeking peace of mind, holding to truth and desiring justice are somehow intrinsic human aims. Doing bad and hate may be understandable, but good acts and love are preferable by far.
All 'bad' tendencies are therefore here strictly regarded as 'anti-values' or 'vices', not as the expression of divergent or alternative values. Values cannot be without distinguishing between good and bad, for that is what values are about. The assertion that there are universal 'human values' implies what is truly good is the good of all. This is shown clearly in that no human society has lasted long if it has set up as ideals any of the opposites of the human values (i.e falsehood, pride, gluttony, wrongdoing, hate, peacelessness, violence, sloth, envy, lust, covetousness).
A person's values are not self-evident facts for they are developed through experience and gradual self-realisation. The human values are inherently felt and understood by us, making their presence known through conscience and the rationally-discriminating intelligence. All values - as opposed to anti-values - are expressions of the understanding that we can develop and realise. They are part and parcel of our human identity, towards which societies and people strive. Without values, there is nothing worthy of the name of a 'psyche' or soul.
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