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All Virtues

<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Attentiveness?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To be attentive is to be keenly aware of, and interested in knowing for the inherent good that it brings. It is to attempt to understand things in a deep and profound way, and people in their innermost being – their thoughts, needs, desires, hopes and frustrations. This knowledge is not merely disinterested, but attuned to the truth, to the good, and in the case of others, to their well-being.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The virtue of attention requires studiousness, rather than curiosity. In our era where information and novelty are normative, many think of curiosity as a virtue, but when we reflect on it further, it is studiousness that we should strive for. Curiosity denotes a propensity to be interrupted by, and drawn to many things. It means being unfocused, always looking for the next thing to be temporarily invested in, or distracted by. It leaves us miles wide and inches deep in our understanding of things and of people.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In the context of being attentive to reality and to others in our lives, curiosity manifests as a short attention span, aimless flitting about in conversation or interests from topic to topic, perhaps even avoiding a genuine connection in favour of the perpetuation of ‘small talk’, or remaining at the surface level of understanding a subject before moving on to the next when achieving a deeper grasp requires more effort.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To be attentive we must be attuned to the subject matter at hand, or to the other person. This means being wholly preoccupied with the object of study, or in the case of the other person, to their whole being – their expressions, body language, speech, and subtle cues. Often times, we are only half-listening to people when we speak, instead trying to think of the next thing to say.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To be attentive to people is to be lost in care and concern in an attempt to understand what they are saying, and feeling, especially their deeper motivations, and the place that they’re coming from.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">A final dimension of attentiveness to people is entering into the frame of mind of another. Sympathy is understanding the feelings of another, empathy is feeling what the other is feeling, and compassion – literally, to suffer with – is to take on someone else’s feelings and concerns and to become involved in a tangible way with their situation through action that goes beyond recognition.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Like the exercise of all virtues, by being attentive we show that we genuinely care, and are motivated by love.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by Peter Copeland</p>

Attentiveness

Author:

Position:

Company:

Ryan Khurana

Lead, Machine Learning and Advanced

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE)

"Our world no longer hears God because it is constantly speaking, at a devastating speed and volume, in order to say nothing."

  • Robert Cardinal Sarah

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Charity?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Love is an appetite we have for the good in other things. We possess a desire for goods under their sensitive, and intellectual aspects. We can yearn for something for its taste, smell, sight, feel, and physical appearance, or for its intellectual qualities, wherein we desire a person as a friend for their personality traits or virtue, a colleague for their skills, or as a lover for the beauty of their entire person.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">We all know that our desires can lead us to fulfilment, contentment, and deep joy, yet also easily astray into infatuation, addiction, jealousy and resentment. What differentiates the good from the bad is that a healthy desire unites us to a proper vision of the good. Love, however, is much more than right desire, but must lead to action.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Charity (love) is a kind of friendship with the good. It consists in willing, acting, and having affection for the object of one’s love. It is differentiated from lusting, eating gluttonously, merely liking and preferring, feeling pleasure or strong attraction to something or someone, in that love’s objects, its motivations, and the ends in which it is in service of, are <em>connatural</em> – or, ‘fitting’ – with the nature of the lover and the beloved. As human beings, all of our lower sensitive appetites are tempered and perfected by our rational capacities, meaning we do not just eat for sustenance, but to share enjoyment, conversation and care for others over a meal; we do not just have physical sexual desire for procreation, but a desire for complete, total, self-giving union with our opposite in an exclusive, committed fashion.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In the interpersonal context, charity consists in both willing the good of the other, and in being united in affection with them. Think of it this way – sometimes someone will say that they love something or someone with great affection, kindness, and always with a positive attitude, but not with an eye to what the other person really needs. They may neglect to ask whether it is good to affirm certain things others do or say, or they may not truly wish their good, but only insofar as being kind and nice brings them their own enjoyment. On the other hand, those who wish people well, and actively attempt to bring that about in an attentive, considerate way, who nonetheless can stir no emotion in their hearts for the lives of others - this cannot be said to be charitable love in the true sense.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Love, then, is desiring the good of things and others in a way that is conducive to our good, and those of others. What is characteristic of proper love is the connaturality, <em>fittingness</em> between the natures of the lover, and the object and subjects loved. Charitable love requires that we give of ourselves to others, for the sake of the good. It requires both an attentiveness to the needs of others, a knowledge of what is good for us as human beings, and an enduring affection toward those we love, through thick and thin.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Charity (Love)

Author:

Position:

Company:

Robert Lamoureux

Director

Not-for-profit boards

“True love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have.”

  • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.”

  • Molière

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Cheerfulness?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Cheerfulness is a virtue that helps us find joy, which we ultimately receive as a gift by loving good things and others. The cheerful person exhibits a becoming disposition toward other people, and in doing so, is able to foster mutual relations characterized by friendliness.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Cheerfulness is not thoughtless positivity, always smiling, ignoring difficulties, or being unfailingly optimistic. When the situation requires other responses, to remain cheerful would simply be inappropriate, and represent a lack of virtue. On the other hand, cheerfulness consists in always endeavouring to control one’s emotions, so as to foster an environment of affability with others.</p> <p class="font_8">What does cheerfulness <em>look like </em>in practice? It is something that is closely related to being joyful. Joy is a deep-seated contentment that we receive when we possess a great good. It is different than experiences of sensory and bodily pleasure in that it involves the cognitive dimension of understanding – it is reflective. We feel <em>bodily pleasure</em> in tasting good food and drink, and <em>joy </em>in contemplating the dimensions of the experience, savouring it in a reflective way.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The curious thing about joy is that it is in response to something we receive, as a gift. It has this kind of lightness to it. We cannot reach out and grasp it with great effort, like some things. We have to put ourselves in a condition to receive it. How are we to do so?</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">One way is to practice taking up our duties in a spirit of detachment and humble enjoyment. Once we give up our attachments to wanting certain things and feeling a certain way, and expecting them with a kind of entitlement, then we can be slowly freed of the weight of our own petty desires, which only draw us down and in on ourselves.</p> <p class="font_8">To refuse to display cheerfulness can be a sign of self-absorption in our own perspectives, problems and desires. On the contrary, we recognize that the goods we experience come and go – they do not last, nor do they satisfy the deepest longings of our heart. Cheerfulness involves renunciation and suffering. To be cheerful in spite of life’s many challenges, we must renounce the fleeting character of our changing wants, desires, and circumstances, ceasing to seek in them the source of all meaning and happiness in our life.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Cheerfulness, then, must be in spite of difficulties and enjoyments. It must be rooted in a higher calling to love and care for others in a transcendent, self-forgetful fashion. Being free to recognize the immense good all around us and in other people, is a great gift – something that when harnessed, takes us out of ourselves and into a state of love.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In summary, to be cheerful is to open one’s self to receive joy, which comes from seeking out and reflecting on the good in all things. Practically, it involves being affable with persistency and constancy, fostering mutual relations characterized by friendliness with others.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Cheerfulness

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Company:

Brendan Steven

Chief Writer

UJA Federation of Greater Toronto

“I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more when he laughs, it adds something to his fragment of life.”

  • Laurence Sterne

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is </strong></em></u><u><strong>Detachment</strong></u><u><em><strong>?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Detachment is about fostering the right level of attachment, to the right kind of things. It is not mere indifference, apathy, or equanimity. Key to fostering a <em>healthy </em>detachment is being abandoned to higher values, and a higher calling – one that can yield genuine fruits.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The detached are free from the shackles of inward-looking self-seeking and preoccupation. If we are locked in the horizon of the present, of our own transient wishes and desires, to responding to this thought or that emotion, seeking praise from someone, or chasing the momentary thrill of success, then we can easily be blown about in the wind, and knocked off course. A key insight lies in recognizing that our feelings, possessions, abilities, even our relationships, are ultimately fleeting. By being detached, we can learn to love things rightly, never to the point of infatuation, or of an exaggerated enthusiasm, which demonstrates a failure to understand proper worth and makes us unable to enjoy things healthily. On the other hand, detachment helps us avoid excessive anger, and fatalistic despair when things don’t go our way or we experience loss. It helps us put everything in its proper place.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To become appropriately detached, we have to practice restraint, actively depriving ourselves when faced with desires. Eating moderately, not giving in to the desire to talk about yourself or make a comment, smiling when we find it difficult, refusing to criticize, offering up our time for a friend or spouse when we want to do something on our own – all of these things help us foster strength of will, and move us away from a compulsive fixation on our own desires. Ultimately, this is liberating, because the more we give in to concerns about our own states of mind, the more anxious and frustrated we become. It is in seeing things from a reflective vantage point that we develop a light bearing, and a peaceful, joyful demeanour.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Internally, detachment requires a poverty of spirit, which is to be content with what we need to live simply. It is not about lacking material things, but to give up our need of, and sense of possession over them. To be able to give freely of one’s time, lend one’s possessions and even forego them, for the sake of others out of generosity, is to be truly rich – not in financial wealth, but in contentment, by developing an expansive heart.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">People can think of detachment as entailing coldness, and an unfeeling indifference to one’s own feelings, and those of others. Indeed, the close impostor of healthy detachment involves not caring appropriately about things, which is in fact motivated by a fear of loss, hurt, or negative emotions. This shunning of suffering is a rejection of reality, and only leaves a person dry, empty, and incapable of all the greatest goods which require deep, childlike faith, hope, and the investment of care and solicitude in and for others.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Counteracting the tendency to fall into such a way of being, requires attending to the positive side of detachment by fostering reflective gratitude. This is an intellectual and emotional exercise that involves appropriately recognizing the value in things, which are good in themselves in their own way, yet never the source of value itself. In seeing everything as a gift that we receive, and as part of a much larger world and story, we can recognize their goodness without seeing any one thing in particular as the key to our happiness.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In summary, through detachment we put things in their proper place, value them appropriately, and gain the freedom from our own self-oriented tunnel vision. In shedding that which keeps us turned in on ourselves and preoccupied with our own problems and desires, we become capable of filling up our hearts with the things that truly matter, and open ourselves up to the love of giving itself.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Detachment

Author:

Position:

Company:

David McKernan

Entrepreneur

David Joseph Inc.

“Detachment is not indifference. it is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachments to our opinions. We want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others needs and understand how to serve them.”

  • Mahatma Gandhi

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Diligence?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8"><em>Diligence </em>is careful and persistent work or effort.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Through its connection to effort, it involves the will and the virtue of fortitude, which helps us both attack and endure difficulties. To work diligently, we must persist in our work over time, through the ups and downs of our mood, setbacks and roadblocks, and do so with constancy.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">It is closely connected to being earnest, which is being sincere and showing conviction through actions. Being diligent also means being concerned with the quality of the work or task one is engaged with. In this way, it is closely connected to prudence, which entails reasoning well about our actions so that we know what to do, when to do it, and in what manner. We can easily work begrudgingly, or on auto-pilot, with little desire to do it well, or with regard for those who are affected by it. When we work diligently, we are sincere in our care and concern for what we are doing, and those who may be affected by and through it.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">We do not say that work has been done diligently when it is done in a shoddy way, or it seems incomplete. Diligence means being attuned to what working well would look like in the context of our task, so it essentially involves being thorough and attentive to completeness.</p> <p class="font_8">When we lack diligence, we can be said to be acting negligently. Negligence involves the lack of the proper care and concern due to someone or something. Ultimately, it is a failure to recognize something’s importance, and give it one’s proper attention.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Lastly, to work diligently, we must have affective care for our work. If we see work or effort merely as something to get done as quickly as possible, or that we do for the sake of an accomplishment, accolade, or outcome, we will never be fulfilled by it. Working this way will always end up being tiring, frustrating, and draining. If, on the other hand, we see work as a means of doing good, we will be inspired, and energized by it. By focusing on growing in virtue and skill, and serving others through our work, we will be able to work with a spirit of love.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Diligence

Author:

Position:

Company:

Maria Lucas

Lawyer, Aboriginal Law

Goldblatt Partners LLP.

“The person who decides to go to bed late, already decides to waste the next day.”

  • Anonymous

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Fortitude?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Life is full of difficulties and challenges. As St Paul said long ago, “I do not know my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.” It is one thing to know what we ought to do, but another to do it. To persist against our own inclinations to laziness, indulgence, and our weakness of will, we need the virtue of fortitude.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Fortitude is the virtue that moderates our fears. It pertains to the will – the faculty that enables us to decide and act upon an intention. It keeps us moving toward a good that we seek, in spite of difficulties that inhibit us from following right reason. Like all virtues, it is a mean between two extremes, those of cowardliness and rashness. There are two different ways of exhibiting courage: through endurance, wherein we temper our fears so as not to be controlled by them, and the ability to attack challenges, wherein we confront and withstand impediments to our will, head on.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In seeking to live the virtue of fortitude, we must be aware of the related vices of vanity, and impatience. Properly understood, the magnanimous person is one who seeks to do great things in service of others. It is therefore grounded in humility. When our primary motivations for action are the pursuit of praise, glory and recognition from others, it is a sure sign of vainglory – literally the pursuit of unworthy praise, which is ‘empty, fickle, and off the mark.’ The patient person sits with things over time and in spite of ups and downs along the way; on the other hand, the impatient person is someone who lacks the capacity to endure difficulties on the path to a goal.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Virtues related to courage that guard against these vices include magnanimity, which is related to attacking difficulties, and those of patience, perseverance, and constancy, which help us endure setbacks.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Magnanimity is ‘greatness of soul’, where we strive to do great and noble things for others. St Thomas Aquinas calls it, the “stretching forth of the mind to great things”, and seeking to do “great acts deserving of honour.” It is what we need in order to seek the goods that will truly fulfill us, warding off the temptations to laziness, and mediocrity, which ultimately make things dull and boring – a reality in which we float along in life, numb to the needs and emotions of others, and to the deep joys that await us when we open our hearts to the pursuit of the truth, and to self-giving love.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">When it comes to the act of endurance, we require patience, perseverance and constancy. These three work together to see a set of actions through to completion. It is all too easy to start something, then get derailed when faced with setbacks and difficulties: we need perseverance to enable us to persist in the pursuit of good things. Another common challenge is the temptation to abandon a task for the sake of lesser goods that come across our path as we’re trying to achieve something. It is easy to be derailed from a project by focusing on little ones that are easier and quicker to achieve. We need constancy to help us stay the course. Lastly, it takes time and effort to achieve anything truly worthwhile. We need patience to maintain our attention and focus in the pursuit of a goal as time passes, and we face many opportunities to divert our course.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In summary, the virtue of courage moderates our fears and enables us to act by attacking difficulties, and enduring anxiety. It is found in every virtue, in that it gives us the strength of will to undertake and maintain our efforts in all that we do.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Fortitude (Courage)

Author:

Position:

Company:

Charles Lewis

Managing Editor (Retired)

Financial Post

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

  • Winston Churchill

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<p class="font_8"><u><strong>What is Humility?</strong></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Humility is a virtue that tempers our desires for good things, so that we aim at the right ends with noble and pure motivation shorn of egoism and self-seeking. It comes from the root word ‘humus’, which means to be low to the ground. The humble person is ‘bent to the ground’, having a proper understanding of their own failings, limitations, wayward desires and impulses. The humble do not seek to exalt, or think too highly of themselves, but have a profound awareness of their need for assistance and guidance. That is why we say that humble people are down to earth, for they see things clearly with common sense, and have made themselves low, so as to love and serve.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The pursuit of good things is challenging. We desire good things, and at the same time, recoil at the challenges, difficulty and suffering that it will require to obtain them. For this reason, we need the twin virtues of: humility, to moderate our desires so that they are purified of self-seeking and all egoism; and magnanimity to give us the strength to overcome the despair and reluctance we feel when faced with the difficulties of pursuing good things.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Instead of genuine humility, we often find false humility, which is the performance of outward signs and pretense. It can be seen when people make a showy display of giving, of being nice, of making long-winded speeches in praise of others. It is only for the sake of being seen and thought to be something that they in fact are not. On the other extreme lie attempts at humility that are in fact cowardice, reluctance, or diffidence. They have at their root a lack of healthy self-confidence that leads to inaction, or mediocrity. It is either this false motivation or excessively timid disposition that distinguishes humility from its impostors.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Humility is the counterbalance to magnanimity, which is the desire to do great things. The humble person is a teacher, who instructs by listening and nurturing. Humility allows us to act for the right reasons, not being consumed by motivations of seeking self-aggrandizement, praise, fame, power, or money, but out of the desire to serve and love others, for the sake of the good.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Humility

Author:

Position:

Company:

Elmar Kremer

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy

University of Toronto

“A virtue by which a man knowing himself as he truly is, abases himself.”

  • St. Bernard

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Industriousness?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Work is something we all do, every day of our lives. In some way, shape, or form, we labour to produce things to serve one another, create, and find satisfaction therein. Any productive action for the sake of a goal requires motivation, and an impetus from the person. The virtue most closely associated with this is fortitude (courage), comprised of the acts of resisting and undertaking. Industriousness is the virtue that helps directly with the latter.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Colloquially, industriousness suggests ‘productivity’ and ‘work ethic’, yet it is much more – it entails diligent, hard work put toward a given task, done in the spirit of love. Industriousness is something we bring to bear on both our leisure time and various types of work because purposeful, goal-directed activity is a type of labour that should be offered up as a gift to others.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To labour diligently, we must do our work well. This refers to both the effort we expend and the quality of the ensuing product. Too often, we think we can separate the two, but this is incomplete. The essence of work is equally about the outcome as it is what goes into it. Not only does the product suffer at the end of the day if done with lacklustre effort, but the worker and others involved as well. In a desire for expediency or disdain for trivial or tedious work, there is a failure to love oneself and others through the work performed.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To work well, we have to know what we are doing. This requires practice: an investment of time and effort into the acquisition of the proper skills to perform the work. It is not about dominance and showiness but rather a mastery of skill that is attuned to creating out of love. To love well, one must know the good, as the product we are trying to create, and develop the know-how required to create it.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Furthermore, work involves the reasons and mindset we bring to it. Working well requires motivation and dedication to the creation of something of high quality, which involves two aims: doing something with originality so that it is human rather than mechanical, as well as appropriate evaluative standards. Our work cannot be done mindlessly or without an eye to what makes for good work in the domain we’re working in.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Two vices detract from industriousness – laziness and frenetic, non-stop activity. Laziness is not necessarily lack of activity but is more an attitude resulting in depression caused by an inability to summon enough energy to achieve any spiritual good. Our actions are barren when done out of laziness. In contrast, industriousness leads one diligently to complete one’s own duties.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The seeming opposite of laziness is frenetic activity, but it is in fact concealed laziness. Frenetic activity<em> assumes the appearance </em>of industriousness, but it is the attitude and connection to one’s duties that distinguishes it. In frenetic activity, one is fleeing from the diligent pursuit of one’s other duties. Every spurt of activity needs to be balanced by rest and play and flow from a right inner disposition. Ultimately, all fruitful activity must flow from an inner peace. Therefore, it must be rooted in love, which can only be cultivated through rest and contemplation, so that the fruits of our labour are ripe, rather than rotten.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Lastly, work isn’t something done for oneself or for the praise of others, to satisfy one’s ego – it is a service of others. We all know what it is like to labour with a grimace, as though our task were the last thing in the world we’d like to be doing. Work is impoverished if not done in the spirit of <em>generosity.</em> Work as a giver is the ultimate liberation.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Industriousness

Author:

Position:

Company:

Peter Copeland

Director of Policy & Stakeholder Relations

Ontario’s Solicitor General

“Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.”

  • Charles Spurgeon

“To do good work a man should no doubt be industrious. To do great work he must certainly be idle as well.”

  • Henry Ward Beecher


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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Justice?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Justice is giving others their due, where that ‘due’ is what is owed to them in virtue of their nature.</p> <p class="font_8">In the most general sense, justice involves equalizing a situation of owing between people or groups of people. What is owed is defined in reference to the nature of the parties in a relationship of owing. We are ‘rational animals’ whose fulfillment consists in the attainment of happiness by living well. Our rationality gives us the capacity to <em>know</em> through cognitive and emotional understanding, and to <em>choose</em> on the basis of that knowledge. We owe things to others and are owed them in turn; our happiness turns on this mutual relationship of owing.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The different contexts of justice are distributive, commutative and social. Distributive justice pertains to the divvying up and distribution of wholes, commutative to rendering others their due in numerous contexts where there is a direct situation of owing, and social justice to the equalizing of situations of owing that arise from broader social circumstances.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Like other virtues, justice is found when the action strikes a mean between excess and deficiency. Whereas virtues such as temperance and fortitude pertain to rectifying the emotions and their standard is therefore measuring a person’s action against their own inner state, justice is about action owed to others, and therefore pertains to the will. It is something that is objectively measurable because it is about equalizing a situation of owing in external matters, which is a kind of proportion between an external thing owed and the person to whom it is owed. For example, if we owe someone money for having lent it, paying it back in the terms agreed upon equalizes the situation of owing.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">As a virtue of a person, justice is the steady, habitual disposition to give what is due to others. To act justly, we must act knowingly, by choice and for a correct end, and with constancy and to completion. In its full sense, the external act must reflect the inner disposition of intending to do right. Justice is both about fulfilling our responsibility to others in the personal sense, and in the sense of what we owe our larger community.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Justice is unique in that all acts of virtue pertain to it. Since virtues are conducive to happiness for each person, and personal happiness depends upon our relationship with others, living virtuously is something good for individuals and the ‘common good’ of the community to which they belong. For this reason, “the good of any virtue is referable to the common good, to which justice directs: so that all acts of virtue pertain to justice, in so far as justice directs man to the common good.”</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">It is common to see justice conceived without regard for the state of knowledge and intention of the agent, or without a connection to an objective understanding of what’s good for people. For example, many think that the obligations of justice are fulfilled by giving people the ability to live their own lives as they please so long as they do not harm others in a direct and concrete way. Others, that it is just to prevent serious harm by permitting and actively encouraging lesser harms, such as by allowing the supervised use of lethal drugs in lieu of unsupervised use of more dangerous substances. While it is a precondition of moral action to guard the sphere of freedom and enable people to choose of their own volition, failing to properly prevent the negative effects of disordered action or failing to properly assist those suffering is a failure to render justice to both the individual and community – duties are left unfulfilled, and the common good suffers as a result.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">A proper understanding of justice takes into account the natures of all parties involved. What is owed to them flows from the mutual dependencies that arise therefrom. It is therefore important to act justly for the sake of the debtor as well as the creditor. In summary, justice is the stable disposition to render another their due, where that which is owed is according to the equality of proportion in a situation of owing.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Justice

Author:

Position:

Company:

Brendan Scott

Lawyer

Civil Litigation

“A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight."

- Book of Proverbs, 11:1

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Leadership?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Leadership is the art of governing, influencing, and guiding a person or group of people toward goals. Leaders are people who have the responsibility for guiding people towards a task, and authority over them in the circumstances, or organizational framework in which their leadership is exercised. To effectively lead, a leader must mold their temperament and raw abilities into skills and character traits that will enable them to understand the domain in which they operate, define objectives that are good and true, and pursue them with prudence.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Leaders are effective when they act on the basis of the virtues, or stable character traits that they have developed and honed over time. If a leader acts on the basis of raw power, manipulation, deceit, or for selfish and immoral objectives, they will poison the environment in which they operate. A good leader commands respect, and derives their authority from their abilities, the way they treat those around them, and the worthiness of the goals that they seek. Rather than striving to achieve simple concrete objectives, good leaders see their goals as part of a greater effort to serve others, help them grow into better people, and ultimately, pursue what is true, good and beautiful.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In order to<em> lead</em> and <em>serve</em> simultaneously, leaders must cultivate the twin, complementary virtues of magnanimity and humility. Magnanimity is the habit of striving for great things. The magnanimous leader has a positive vision, a sense of mission and the ability to instill those things in others by inspiration and example. Humility, on the other hand, is about service. The humble leader guides, teaches, and inspires, rather than acting in a manner characterized by forcefulness.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Effective leaders must have a proper understanding of the goals they pursue. This means having the appropriate technical, domain specific knowledge and understanding in the field within which they operate, but also a sense of the general good that is proper to human beings, and how that good is made manifest in the particular circumstances in which they find themselves. This understanding is not a purely intellectual affair, but involves the exercise of the heart, will, and mind working together. Through the heart, we contemplate the virtuous way of acting in order to perceive its beauty and desire it as the end we seek; we slowly learn to act virtuously by means of our will, which is formed through a combination of restraint and persistence; lastly, to act well we must use our minds to behave prudently, learning to be reflective enough to assess the right way to act in each circumstance.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In summary, leadership is about developing a good character, which is accomplished by cultivating the virtues. Key to leadership are the twin virtues of magnanimity and humility – striving for greatness, and the service of others. Lastly, leaders cannot lead if they do not understand the good that they seek – a task that involves the heart, the will and the mind in unison.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by Peter Copeland</p>

Leadership

Author:

Position:

Company:

Ash Andrews

Director

Management Consulting

‘The greatest among you will be a servant. Those who exalt themselves, will be humbled. Those who humble themselves will be exalted.’

  • Matthew 23: 11-12

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Loyalty?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To be loyal is to persist in a valued relationship over time, through difficulties and challenges, ups and downs. Loyalty is a relational virtue, involving a subject or subjects, who exhibit it to individuals, or groups of people.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The cardinal virtue most closely related to loyalty is fortitude, or courage, which moderates our fear and our daring, enabling us to overcome difficulties we face in seeking to act rightly. It is a mean between cowardliness and rashness. To be courageous, we must both be able to actively confront difficulties through magnanimity – the capacity to know, love and seek out great things, worthy of honour – and endure them through patience, perseverance and constancy.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">It is these qualities of <em>endurance</em> that are most characteristic of loyalty. To be properly loyal to our friends, family, associates, colleagues, and various organizations we may be affiliated with, we must be patient with them as they undergo challenges, we must persevere in our commitment to them, which requires time and investment, and we must do so with constancy – our loyalty cannot be switched on and off, but persist through thick and thin.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">All of this must be done within the ambit of fostering good through the relationship. With that goal in mind, it is important to remember that loyalty is not blind, but involves a prudential judgment, wherein the relationship is maintained and fostered insofar as there is the potential for greater good to be realized through it. This involves wisdom, good judgment, and sound practical reasoning.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Loyalty

Author:

Position:

Company:

Paul Tomory

Senior Manager (Retired)

Construction Projects

“Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable, than loyalty.”

  • Cicero, attributed, Day's Collacon

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Magnanimity?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Magnanimity (magna-anima) is to be ‘great-souled’. It is the opposite of pusillanimity, or ‘small-souledness’, which is to cower and shrink from great goods. It is part of the virtue of courage, which both moderates our fears and propels us forward toward goods that we seek. St. Thomas Aquinas defines magnanimity as a “stretching forth of the mind to great things, and seeking to do great acts deserving of honour.”</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">As a virtue, magnanimity consists in the stable disposition to do great things, for the right reasons. Chiefly, this consists in seeking glory – the resplendent brilliance we recognize in great and virtuous actions, which are themselves full of goodness, truth, and beauty. The magnanimous person ultimately pursues glory and the honour that is attendant to it not for themselves, but because these things are intrinsically good.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Humility prepares the way for love because it breaks us away from self-infatuation by acknowledging our debt and gratitude for all that we have, rendering our hearts tender and receptive and able to enter into blissful self-surrender to the pursuit of the objectively good. Humility instils in us the virtue of meekness, which is neither spinelessness nor servility, but a great love for and deference to the good above all else, marked by a charitable demeanour.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The opposite of magnanimity is small-souledness – it arises when we ignore our own qualifications and gifts, refusing to cultivate them and utilize them for ends that are truly good and helpful to others, or when fear of failure paralyzes us and leads us to shy away from pursuing noble and great ends.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Magnanimity is false when it is confused with vainglory – seeking renown because of something not really worthy; seeking the esteem of those whose judgment is false, unrefined or frivolous; or when glory is desired apart from its connection to righteousness.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To combat the deficiencies of small-souledness, we need a strong desire to attack difficulties on the path of a goal, and a yearning, burning aspiration for noble and great things. To avoid vainglory, we need magnanimity’s close collaborator, humility. It is essential to genuine magnanimity that we are deeply humble. Humility means dissolving all pride – the root of all sin – and ridding oneself of self-sufficiency, self-glorification and a disordered desire for sensual pleasures: all things which enclose us in a private world of lower passions and an obsession with control.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To conclude, magnanimity is what propels us toward great things, properly conceived. It crowns the other virtues, because it is what seeks their perfection. It is the supreme form of human hope because it is imbued with trust in the capacity of humankind to rise above its challenges and deficiencies to become capable of the greatest things and the fullest manifestation of human virtue and capacity, chief of which is love.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Magnanimity

Author:

Position:

Company:

Dr Nadia Al-Banna

Senior Director of Product and Business Development

Allarta Life Sciences

“It is the characteristic of the magnanimous man to ask no favour, but to be ready to do kindness to others.”

  • Aristotle

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Patience?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Patience is a virtue, so the saying goes. It is a part of courage, which involves both the active confronting of challenge, and the endurance of difficulties associated with it. Patience moderates our appetites, particularly irritation and sorrow that arise when our aims are frustrated by a challenge. It belongs to the ‘enduring’ aspect of courage, involving, as Tully said, “the&nbsp;voluntary&nbsp;and prolonged enduran</p> <p class="font_8">ce of arduous and difficult things for the sake of&nbsp;virtue&nbsp;or profit."</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">To be patient is to be circumspect. It is to persevere through time, difficulty, and emotional ups and downs to stay on course toward higher order aims. Being blown about by one’s own constantly changing flux of emotions, desires, cravings and yearnings leaves a person anxious and unstable. Impatience is marked by giving in to frustration when beset by challenge or suffering. Instead of seeing impediments to one’s aims as obstacles to be overcome, the impatient person lets the difficulty get the better of them, becoming dominated by a ruminating sorrow, anger or frustration that keeps one mired in negativity.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">The close impostors of patience are apathy, excessive timidity, and laziness. All involve waiting, but in ways that either involve a lack of care, concern, devotion of energy, or excessive fear. Neither is someone rightly called patient who unthinkingly waits, or does so without prudence. It would not be a mark of patience to simply wait inactively for something to come along the way, if there are no reasonable prospects of it occurring. Characteristic, then, of the exhibition of patience is that there are some external circumstances – either internal or external to a person’s own state of mind or body – that present a challenge to be overcome.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">What is distinctive of genuine patience is both the disposition of the person exhibiting it, and the extent to which its practice is conducive to greater virtue. ‘Virtue is its own reward’ because means can never be truly divorced from ends. A person cannot achieve the end of richer, fulsome happiness for one’s self or others, without trying to evince it in the process of getting there. It is necessary therefore to have a disposition suffused with virtue to be properly patient. This is found in a reflective, judicious consciousness, and a peaceful and calm demeanour. When patience is marked by reflection and an interior sense of calm, the mind develops capaciousness and receptivity, unlike when it is in the mode of distracted, busy-bodied activity. When the passions are stilled, and the mind focused and reflective, we are able to receive and use our reason more freely to apprehend and be guided by insight.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Patience is especially fruitful to cultivate because it is a counterbalance to the source of what most keeps us turned in on ourselves and incapable of love – pride. Alongside humility, patience keeps us grounded, aware of our failings, those of others, and of our smallness in light of the great complexity of the world. In practicing patience, we see issues, tasks, and circumstances from a broader perspective, wherein we can see the profound and expansive interconnections between things, and the benefit of greater time and understanding to allow for our perspective to develop and mature.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">“To achieve true interior freedom we must train ourselves to accept, peacefully and willingly, plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom. This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, this or that situation that life imposes on us, and so on. We find it difficult to do this, because we feel a natural revulsion for situations we cannot control. But the fact is that the situations that really make us grow are precisely those we do not control.”</p> <ul class="font_8"> <li><p class="font_8"><em>Interior Freedom </em>– Jacques Philippe</p></li> </ul> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Patience

Author:

Position:

Company:

Rachelle Ezechiels

Operations Manager

Newman Centre Catholic Mission

"Patience is one of the humble, workaday virtues; but it is, in a real sense, the root and guardian of all virtues, not causing them, but removing obstacles to their operation. Do away with patience and the gates are open for a flood of discontent and sin."

  • St. Thomas Aquinas, comp. to Summa, III, 394

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Studiousness?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">All people have a natural desire for knowledge. <em>Studiousness </em>is the virtue that moderates our appetite for knowledge so that it is directed toward good and noble ends.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Colloquially, studiousness is thought of as simply having a strong work ethic with respect to study. Commonly, it is not necessarily seen as a virtue, or as connected to wisdom, but as spending a lot of time and effort to learn technical and descriptive facts about a subject matter.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">On the contrary, studiousness is a way of pursuing knowledge that is characterized by diligence, discipline, and a sense of order. It falls under the virtue of temperance because it controls our appetite for knowledge, directing it away from distractedness, idle and flitting curiosity, and toward the constant, consistent, prolonged, and deeper engagement with an object of study, so that we may come to know it with depth and fullness, and therefore in truth.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Studiousness must be distinguished from curiosity, which is a quality of being interested in many different things. We often think that curiosity is good in itself, and give pride of place to trying new foods and pursuits, travelling, and learning about a multitude of topics. However, when we look more closely, it can be good or bad, depending upon how we engage in it, and what uses we put it towards. Curiosity is healthy when we are curious about things that pertain to our well-being, and in a way that is conducive to our ability to know and understand. It is misguided when it is freewheeling and aimed at knowing things that harm us. We can easily trick ourselves into thinking that we are learning a great deal by going an inch deep into a wide range of subjects, or that we are people who are very open and cultured by being indiscriminate about the things we watch, or try to experience. Yet, if our desire to know is animated by either this desire to <em>seem</em> to be knowledgeable by knowing very little about many things, or the desire to <em>appear</em> to be open to things by having an attitude of laissez faire indifference, then we are in fact not edifying ourselves, becoming more open or wise, but more vain, shallow, and ignorant.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">On the other hand, we have many examples of being overly studious. There are people who spend too much time studying, become consumed and obsessed with their object of study, and have no time for friends or family. We can easily become awkward in conversation because they think so much about their field of interest that it colours all of their thoughts. We can develop a kind of tunnel vision, where we end up applying the language and logic of this perspective to other domains of knowledge or aspects of life, to which they do not readily apply.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Ultimately, knowledge is a good and to desire it for its own sake is a great source of freedom, because it liberates us from our lower desires that seek to enslave us to the pursuit of knowledge as a tool to control, or for the sake of prestige. True happiness and the height of sagacity comes through engaging in diligent, disciplined, and ordered study characterized by an ardent love to seek and know the truth, for it is good in itself. This love of wisdom (<em>philo-sophia</em>) and the contemplation of the truth is where the desiring heart, mind and soul come to rest in peace and joy.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by: Peter Copeland</p>

Studiousness

Author:

Position:

Company:

Geoffrey Woollard

PhD student in Computer science

University of British Columbia

“Studiositas [diligence] means especially this: that a person resists the nearly inescapable temptation to indiscipline with all the power of selfless self-protection, that he radically closes off the inner space of his life against the pressingly unruly pseudo-reality of empty sounds and sights - in order that, through and only through this asceticism of perception, he might safeguard or recoup that which truly constitutes man's living existence: to perceive the reality of God and of creation and to shape himself and the world by the truth that discloses itself only in silence.”

  • Josef Pieper, A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart

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<p class="font_8"><u><em><strong>What is Temperance?</strong></em></u></p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Temperance is the virtue that moderates our appetite for pleasures. Its purpose is not to deprive us of pleasure, but to give us the freedom and ability to enjoy life’s greater goods.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Temperance applies to all of our desires. Gluttony in food and drink, lust in sexual desire, vociferousness or an unbridled tongue in speech, rashness in action, and immoderate anger are all examples of immoderation. Intemperance leads us down a hole, where we become more and more self-willed, and beholden to our wants, desires and impulses. On the other hand, the more we exercise our faculties of self-control, the more moderate and well-ordered our desires, the stronger our willpower, and more disciplined as people we become. Characteristic of human nature is our faculty of reason – the choice and understanding afforded by it and the capacity it gives us for greater forms of delight beyond the merely sensible and animalistic. When we are intemperate, we are effectively neglecting our rational capacity, listening instead to the impulses, instincts and raw desires, which make us childish and out of control.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Many have a hard time with the practice of temperance because it seems like saying ‘no’ to good things. Yet, we can see its fruits clearly in context. When we eat, we can easily ruin our meal by eating too much of the appetizer before the main course. In romantic relations, genuine intimacy with another person is spoiled if we give in to sexual desires before a deep emotional connection and exclusive commitment is formed; in speech and action, we can make hasty and rash decisions when we act on our first impulses, without reflection.</p> <p class="font_8">When we lack temperance in speech and with our opinions, we run the risk of harming others, of upsetting social situations, and of developing an unhealthy attachment to our own views. Furthermore, we risk damaging our own reputation, and becoming difficult to be around, and repulsive to others, enshrouded in a cloud of our own self-centredness.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Our words have a tremendous impact on people. We can use them to edify and uplift, or to tear things and others down. Gossip involves speaking about another person’s private affairs or in spreading rumours about people; detraction involves speaking of another’s faults without good reason, without them knowing, and in public; and backbiting is more subtle, aimed at undermining a person’s reputation in a clandestine manner, through private conversation. Calumny, libel and slander all involve telling lies about another’s character, so as to bring them harm.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Humility is the antidote to intemperance, which is rooted in the pride of not wanting to wait, to listen, and use reason. It moderates our appetites, through the adoption of a modest and meek disposition. From the root word <em>humus, </em>it literally means being low to the ground. Humility can be incredibly difficult to foster, but we may do so over time by accepting humiliations, obeying our legitimate superiors and those in our life to whom we are responsible and owe our time and concern, fostering a healthy distrust of our immediate response to things, acknowledging that we are each of us, but one of many people in this world; and by calling to mind the virtues and gifts of others.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">In summary, the fruits of temperance are many. Temperance gives us a kind of freedom from an enslavement to our raw instincts that when harnessed, lead to higher forms of enjoyment and fulfillment, in all spheres of life.</p> <p class="font_8"><br></p> <p class="font_8">Written by Peter Copeland</p>

Temperance

Author:

Position:

Company:

David Marshall

Advisory, Consulting

JKM Financial Corp

“Temperance is a tree which has for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace.”

  • Gautama Buddha

“The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge ... falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.”

  • Agnes Repplier

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