For the same reason, no vice can be defined as an excess in the
practice of certain actions beyond what is proper (e.g.,
Prodigalitas est excessus in consumendis opibus); or, as a less
exercise of them than is fitting (Avaritia est defectus, etc.). For
since in this way the degree is left quite undefined, and the question
whether conduct accords with duty or not, turns wholly on this, such
an account is of no use as a definition.
Thirdly. Ethical virtue must not be estimated by the power we
attribute to man of fulfilling the law; but, conversely, the moral
power must be estimated by the law, which commands categorically; not,
therefore, by the empirical knowledge that we have of men as they are,
but by the rational knowledge how, according to the ideas of humanity,
they ought to be. These three maxims of the scientific treatment of
ethics are opposed to the older apophthegms:
1. There is only one virtue and only one vice.
2. Virtue is the observance of the mean path between two opposite
vices.
3. Virtue (like prudence) must be learned from experience.
XIV. Of Virtue in General
Virtue signifies a moral strength of will. But this does not exhaust
the notion; for such strength might also belong to a holy (superhuman)
being, in whom no opposing impulse counteracts the law of his rational
will; who therefore willingly does everything in accordance with the
law. Virtue then is the moral strength of a man's will in his
obedience to duty; and this is a moral necessitation by his own law
giving reason, inasmuch as this constitutes itself a power executing
the law.
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