[Vision2020] Thanks for the response

[Nick Gier]

Hail to the Vision!

Thanks to those who responded to my post "The Virtues Come First."  I did 
not want to give the impression that I'm not for full funding of medical 
and housing subsidies for those who need them.

In response to Donovan, I used the example of drug addicts only because it 
was the problem that my colleague was addressing, not because I thought it 
was our main problem here in Moscow, although meth might indeed be a 
problem in Latah County.

In response to Les Falen, I would not use the term "intuitive" for the 
virtues; rather, following Aristotle, the virtues are developed using 
practical reason, which is the same as Dan Carscallen's "common sense," or 
"horse sense,"as my grandmother called it.

In response to Dan, I fully agree that teaching the virtues is the parents' 
job, but some of them are doing a very poor job of it these days.  Linda 
and Dan Popov, those behind the Virtues Project, give the mistaken 
impression that we are all born with the virtues, and that they do not need 
to be taught or developed.  We might have, as the Confucian Mencius 
proposed, "seeds" of virtue, but they have to be carefully nurtured or they 
wither away.

Returning to my example of the drug addict who cannot overcome the 
temptation to get high, please note that reminding him of certain rules of 
behavior does not help either.  This is yet another way to demonstrate that 
the virtues come first, because, if they are not in place, then rules have 
to enforced externally and coercively. Moral rules are abstractions from 
witnessing the good consequences of the virtues, just as moral prohibitions 
are abstractions from experiencing the bad results of the vices.  In my 
book I argue that Neanderthals, while probably never thinking of moral 
rules, definitely had a full complement of the virtues.

Finally, with regard to public funding of the Virtues Project, the budget 
is being scaled back. For the next year Moscow has committed itself to "The 
New Cities Initiative," which actually dovetails quite nicely with the 
Virtues Project, and the City Council should be able to propose some funds 
for it in FY07.

For a short essay on this subject see 
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/moscowvirtue.htm, and excerpts from my book The 
Virtue of Non-Violence can be found at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/vnv.htm.

Yours for a City of Virtues,

Nick Gier

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

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