Virtues: Difference between revisions

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[[Integrity]] is honesty in action.
[[Integrity]] is honesty in action.
[[
[[Productivity]] means working to create value.
Productivity]] means working to create value.


[[Independence]] means using one's own reason to think, value, judge and act.
[[Independence]] means using one's own reason to think, value, judge and act.

Revision as of 14:12, 31 March 2005

Rationality - this is the cardinal virtue, which leads to all other virtues. Rationality means using reason (and rejecting emotions) to identify reality.

Honesty means keeping one's words true to reality.

Integrity is honesty in action. Productivity means working to create value.

Independence means using one's own reason to think, value, judge and act.

Pride is the belief that one is capable of gaining and keeping one's values--and that one deserves it.

Justice is the principle of seeking that people get what they deserve; productive men keep the products of their labor, violators of others' rights get punished.


The virtues on which the primary values depend are rationality, productivity, and independence. The man who is successful in living is able to derive the values necessary for his life and to translate them into the virtues necessary to gain and keep them. Some skeptics might say that this is a “cold, unemotional, and rationalistic” way to go about life, but nothing can be further from the truth. The man who confidently acts to achieve the values necessary for his life knows that it is his life he is acting to further, and that it is his values that he is achieving. The emotional state of knowing that one is an effectual, capable, productive individual who is master of his own destiny is self-esteem. Self-esteem is the confidence one has in his own worth as a human being and his ability to achieve his values. When a man makes the achievement of his values a way of life, happiness is that state of consciousness that results. Thus, the rational, productive, and self-confident man and woman know the value of their life and takes pride in their achievements.