The three virtues we need « Viikkosanomat

The three virtues we need

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Series: Citizen ethics

The three virtues we need

Courage, modesty and intellectual curiosity can go a long way in cultivating delight in daily life, and protecting our liberties

Comments (34)

Philip Pullman guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 February 2010 14.00 GMT

At first sight, of course, vice is more attractive. She is sexier, she promises to be better company than her plain sister virtue. Every novelist, and every reader too, has more fun with the villains than with the good guys. Goodness is staunch and patient, but wickedness is vivid and dynamic; we admire the first, but we thrill to the second.

Nevertheless, I want to say a word in praise of virtue: the quality or qualities that enable a nation and its citizens to live well, by which I mean morally well.

…

But I seem to be describing delight. Is that a virtue too? Well, it’s like the canary in a coal mine: while it continues to sing, we know the great public virtue of liberty is still alive. A nation whose laws express fear and suspicion and hostility cannot sustain delight for very long. If joy goes, freedom is in danger.

So I would say that to sustain the virtue of a nation, we need to remember how the private connects with the public, the poetic with the political. We need to praise and cherish every example we can find of imaginative play, of the energy of creation, of the enchantment of art and the wonder of science. A nation that was brave, and modest, and curious sounds to me like one that understood that if it told its children stories, they might grow up to feel that virtue was in fact as interesting as vice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/21/three-virtues-delight-liberty

• Read the Citizen Ethics pamphlet in full here

Citizen Ethics in a Time of Crisis

A pamphlet of prominent thinkers exploring key questions about ethics today

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 20 February 2010 06.00 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/20/citizen-ethics-time-of-crisis

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Viikkosanomat sunnuntaina 2010-02-22 klo 00:46. /pm

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