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What is a virtue? What virtues do we need in order to live a good life?

Faith ~ Honesty ~ Gratitude ~ Perseverance ~ Forgiveness ~ Patience
Courage ~ Respect ~ Generosity ~ Discipline ~ Compassion ~ Humility

Over the centuries many philosophers have written about happiness being nothing deeper than a sense of pleasure, the absence of pain, uninvolvement in serious affairs. Virtues cross and encompass the boundaries of all nations, cultures, and philosophies. No one has a monopoly on them. They are non-sectarian. They reside equally in all of us.

Which virtues do you see as natural, a neccesity in all human beings?

And which do you find that we learn, or that only some of us are capable of?

each distinctive personality can have various virtues in different amounts. That's what makes a character. they surely do not reside equally in all of us.

No, I think you read it wrong, I meant that each of us has certain virtues, no one person has the "monopoly", as in every virtue at it's best.

ofcourse.. We all have some virtues.....
some more than others.

Empathy is a virtue. Any others are debatable, as far as I'm concerned. For example, I see nothing inately virtuous about bravery, to pick a virtue from your list.

I think empathy is one of the few virtues that set humans aside from other creatures. Understanding, in itself, is a very complex thing, but I believe it's one of the virtues that only human beings possess.

The Virtues were things that the Greeks took very seriously. For example one of my favorite virtues is Justice. I personally feel that justice is in all of us. But because of our desires it is hard to excersise the justice within us. There are times in which we feel guilty about something or about not doing something. Why is that? I think is inner justice in ourselves that makes feel strange when we act unjustful.

To me, patience is a virtue, a great one, that is possesed by a very tiny number of people.

Patience is the virtue that is generally thought of as soon as the word virtue is mentioned. It's a saying in itself.

And yes, only a few people show patience, but I still believe every one of us is capable of all virtues, it just depends on how we are reared, and the opportunities we have to show each virtue.

Honesty is a hard one to have.

See, now I wouldn't classify patience as a virtue. It's a useful quality to have, yes, but it's not an inherently "good" quality, in that the world's most evil man (or the man who most of the world would judge that way--let's not split hairs) is just as capable of it as the world's greatest saint.

So? The world's evillest man cannot have any virtues? Is that what you're saying? At the end of the day, the evillest man in the world is still human, started that way. He couldn't have been born as the world's evillest man, so he probably had virtues somewhere along the way.......

Syren has a point, so im not gonna elaborate on it, because shes totally right, i am however gonna laugh at the

''world's most evil man'' remark!!

No. Reread what I said; the relevant part is the "is just as capable" bit. A virtue should cause people who possess it to act in good ways. If a bad person is as likely to have a quality as a good person, that quality clearly doesn't result in good behavior, and therefore isn't a virtue.

Of coure, the idea that patience is found equally in good and bad people is just based on my personal observations; I can't prove that it's true.

I believe (some) animals possess a sense of empathy. If you really get to know an animal, you know what I'm talking about. It's just not as obvious with an animal because they can't talk to you and tell you that they know how they're feeling.

Patience, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and honesty. I don't think courage is one, nor is faith. They are both rather "overrated"... Courage leads people to do things they would not normally do, and things that may not be right in the first place. Like, for example, a soldier who goes off to war is expected to be brave so that he won't back down in the face of the enemy... And ends up killing a bunch of people. Evil or not, I don't believe that it's ever right for a human to kill another human. Faith is a little ridiculous--it can lead people to be blinded from what may have become the obvious truth. Like the Jews in Europe during WWII never really believed that such a horrible thing would happen to them, because their faith was too strong. (if you've read Night, you know what I'm talking about)

And about the "most evil man" thing... Everyone possesses both good and evil, not necessarily in equal amounts, but nobody is pure good just as nobody is pure evil. Have you ever heard that thing that describes three qualities of three different people, and the first two are Churchill and Roosevelt, the third is Hitler? That's a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

I guess I kinda see all those virtues being as a result of one thing...love. Love for ones self and love for others. I would call that a pure nature. A pure state of being. I wouldn't call any of it a necessity, more a choice. Choose love, freedom and express it or do not and suffer for it. Not suffer because one is right over the other. But the nature of being without love is of pain leading to suffering. Love expands, pain restricts.

The way people express themselves by virtues I believe is a direct reflection of what is inside them. If more pain than love the nature of that being will not express forgiveness, for they cannot forgive themself. They will not express Compassion, for they do not feel it within themself so on and so forth. All a choice. All depending on the reflection of ourself that we see and judge.

Determination and honesty are two very important virtues.

Syren said much the same thing. You are free to read my reply to her, if you wish.

I think everyone has virtues albeit they maintain those virtues at different levels to others and you can maintain a good life by keeping a fair balance of all the virtues or even by maintaining most of the virtues, you do not necessarily need all the virtues and you can learn some of them better, patience is definately something that you learn as you grow, you also develop your virtues better or worse depending on the environment you are bought up in, if you are brought up in an ill disciplined environment you are less likely to maintain discipline yourself until you are shown or taught that, but quite often being given too much discipline can have and adverse affect when people rebel against the authority they are given and then there is a breakdown in their discipline, but in my opinion, discipline is one of the lesser virtues. Love/compassion, humility, honesty, courage and wisdom are the main ones we develop naturally and these are the ones that are most required.

I'd just like to point out that in my first post, the "virtues" listed were just random ones, not necessarily ones I thought to be definite virtues. I simply stated what I have heard people claim to be qualities over the years.

Like you said syren, I believe everyone is born with these virtues, yet people choose not to excercise them.

I think virtues need to be developed and grown. Like patience for example, children are not the most patient of humans so I think they need to be taught to have the virtue expanded, they may be born with it, but like talents, if not practised then they will just be forsaken.

And I think all these are a neccesity in humans, they are what make up human beings no?