Virtuous Living (3 of 13): Active vs. Passive Virtues
by Joseph Rowlands
It's time to get to the meat and potatoes of this talk. I said there are two different approaches to understanding virtues, and we have the tools now to see what they are. I differentiate the two by calling one Passive Virtues and calling the other Active Virtues.
By Passive virtues, I refer to the common view that virtues are a limitation on your action. They sit in the background of your decision making process, vetoing actions that violate them. An example is the view of honesty as never telling a lie. In this sense, the virtue limits the kinds of things you are allowed to say to people. When you think of something to say, you check it against the moral rule that you shouldn't lie, and then act if everything checks out okay.
The problem with an ethical system that tells you what not to do, is that it doesn't actually give you any guidance to what you should do. It closes off a lot of possibilities, but it is of no help when trying to decide among the rest of the possibilities. How do you then decide what to do? Well, you have to have some other ethical system as a back-up. The problem here, as with any implicit aspect of philosophy, is that you can't check your premises. By remaining implicit, you abandon your life to whatever accidental thoughts or ideas you've picked up over a lifetime.
Now, what about Active virtues? By Active virtues, I refer to a very different view of virtues. In this new sense, virtues are guides to your actions. They don't just tell you what is acceptable behavior. They show you what actions to perform in order to achieve a broad range of values. Active virtues suggest a course of action, not just limit it. Taking the example of honesty, an Active virtue of honesty does more than tell you not to lie. It tells you to nurture the truth. It tells you to trust reality, and make it your friend. I'll get into this more later.
You can think of these two kinds of virtues as street signs. Passive virtues are like stop signs, or one-way street signs. They limit your action, and you follow them regardless of the goal. The Active virtues are more like direction signs. "This way to the hospital". "McDonald's up ahead". They provide guidance for achieving the goals.
Form of the Virtue
An interesting difference between Active and Passive virtues is the form in which they're put. The Passive virtues are always in the form of "Thou shalt not...whatever". This stems from their nature as limitations on actions. It doesn't help to try to put these Passive virtues into a positive form, because ultimately they are limitations. For instance, you can't say that honesty is the virtue of always telling the truth. It's meaningless. Are you going to babble all day long saying obviously true things? No. You're going to do exactly the same thing as if you said honesty was not telling lies. You'll limit your actions.
Active virtues are radically different both in meaning, and in form. They are in the form of "These values require these means, so act accordingly.." Instead of saying what you shouldn't do, they are an emphasis on a wide-set of values, and positioning yourself to achieve them. They are useful in taking many different actions you could perform, and selecting which satisfies your goals the best.
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