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Living a Virtuous Life

Ethical Standards and the Virtues of Life

BY: T. Franklin Murphy | August 2015 (edited January 23, 2022)

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Living a virtuous life is never accomplished in perfection; we make ethical improvements, continually watching, correcting, and forgiving.

Some appear to be innately good—virtuous. My father’s this way, at least he appears to be. I never seen him struggle over doing the right thing, he just does it. Perhaps, he struggles just like me. Previous generations stoically faced life with grace and secrecy. Being raised during the age of expression, we see what emotional wrecks we all are. For me, and I suppose for many others, doing the right thing is tremendously demanding; just determining what the right thing is can be challenging—and then doing it. Living virtuously requires effort.

Often the devil whispers louder than the angel. Our bodies often signal a different opinion on how to act than society, leaving us struggling to discover exactly what the right thing is, inner urges pushing to act in opposition to widely accepted virtues. We often choose to listen to the pangs of desire and aimlessly drift from ethical principles that keep others in focus.

In Hebrew, the word for virtue (ma’a lot) refers to steps. Being virtuous, therefore, was not an all-or-nothing task but comprised of a series of smaller steps—subtle interior shifts. We never actually achieve a state where we can honestly declare, “I’m living a virtuous life.” There is always more work to be done. Those most maligned by selfish desires tend to see themselves as the most virtuous, using their self-righteous valuations to persecute others. This is not virtuous living.

Key Definition: Virtuous Living

Virtuous Living is holding to high moral standards, mostly in regards to interactions with others.

Virtuous Living is a Process

Benjamin Franklin devised a plan to achieve personal perfection, working on one virtue at a time. He kept a daily journal of his progress. Once he perfected one virtue, he would move to another. He meticulously kept notes of successes and failures. His conscientious work propelled him to new heights. He even declared perfection of several single virtues and then moved to the next on his list. But when he moved attention to the next virtue, the previously “perfected” virtue would slip. He constantly bounced back and forth, learning, growing and changing; but never fully attaining the virtuous life he desired (Baumeister and Tierney, 2012, location 930-950).

Stacey Porto, wellness coach and founder of Virtues for Life, wrote, "like anything else we want to master, to become morally excellent or more virtuous takes practice" (2022).

Virtuous living is a never-ending process.

Lao-Tzu's Four Cardinal Virtues

Lao-Tzu named four cardinal virtues:

Reverence for all life
Natural Sincerity
Gentleness
Supportiveness

These virtues identified over 2500 years ago, still offer guidance for a comprehensive a personal virtue inventory today.

Are You Living a Virtuous Life?

Reverence for Life

Do you have reverence for life? Quietly taking in the complexity and beauty? Life, when viewed with reverence, evokes ‘awe.’ The simpleness of our subjective view never fully understands the beauty and complexity of life. A reverence for life reminds of our inability to effective judge value, withdrawing from our sloppy slapping of judgmental labels on others.

Natural Sincerity

Do you have a Natural Sincerity? Are you honest? Trustworthy? Loyal to commitments? If honesty doesn’t smoothly flow, we have work to do. Like Benjamin Franklin, we need to focus attention on our lack and consciously work for improvement. The deepening gulf of partisanship in politics has succumb to end based values. Honesty no longer impresses. We vote for representatives that support the issue most important to us and excuse any improprieties they willfully embrace.

"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
Frederick Douglass

Gentleness

Are you gentle, not a push-over but considerate and kind? We live surrounded by crassness; too many people in a rush, focused on their own needs, ignorant of personal actions that impact others. Mean words and impulsive retaliations color the lives of too many. Social media posts are maligned with callous and malicious comments, not gentleness. Politics have always had some mean-spirited attacks; but the last presidential election was marred with a new level of hatefulness. Have we forgotten how to build self-confidence through achievement, resorting to vicious bashing as the only means to elevate the self?

The world needs more gentleness.

See Gentleness for more on this topic

Supportiveness

Are you Supportive? We must escape the confining shells of our own lives, transcending selfish competitiveness and embracing the wholeness of the world. We need to give back, not just selfishly receive, reaching out to assist both intimates and strangers in this complicated task of living.

"A mark of stupidity is a belief that one party is totally virtuous and correct on the issues while the other is evil and always wrong."
Steve Schmidt

Virtues moderate self-focused drives that are blind to the larger whole. Virtues build a community, not an individual. This is healthy living. For most, we are reliant on a paycheck, society protections, and the numerous benefits of group effort; but the benefits of being past of the larger whole is more salient. A few can cheat and not give while still drawing from the resources of the masses. But too many cheaters, withdrawing and not giving, destroys. The fabric of society begins to unravel forcing more and more to become self protected, stingily hoarding resources.

We can’t continue down this path of selfishness. We need each other. The world needs virtuous individuals and groups, focusing on the benefits of all.

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T. Franklin Murphy

Wellness. Writer. Researcher.
T. Franklin Murphy has a degree in psychology. He tirelessly researches scientific findings contributing to wellness. In 2010, he began publishing his findings.