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Why Liberty Requires Virtue

A farmer can’t make his plants grow, but he can create the conditions that lead to their flourishing. A society can’t make its citizens virtuous, but it can nurture the institutions that lead to virtuous citizens.

Great thinkers in Western civilization have long noted the importance of virtue. In “Politics,” Aristotle declared, “The best life, both for individuals and states, is the life of virtue, when virtue has external goods enough for the performance of good actions.”

“Virtue then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it,” Aristotle wrote in “Nicomachean Ethics.” Practically, that means “virtue in a man will be the disposition which renders him a good man and also which will cause him to perform his function well.”

Contained in that clunky English is a key insight. Virtue requires ascertaining truth and moving toward it with actions. This presupposes that truth is objective, not a personal possession.

This fits in with an observation the great Roman statesman Cicero once made. He contrasted virtuous citizens with those who cared “more for........

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