The Virtue in the Debate

I was recently given to think about the word “virtue” while watching the Vice Presidential Debate.  In a great, breath-of-fresh-air moment (as opposed to the nearly 16 years fo Presidential debates we have had), both candidates were cordial, sought areas of agreement, and maintained respect for each other.  About halfway through the debate, I thought to myself: “Wow!  These two are really exhibiting the virtue of decorum, and maybe even seeking solidarity with the other!”  How refreshing it was, and even surprising given the increasingly polarizing rhetoric used by both the left and the right.

Now, the precise wording of this thought might seem strange.  When we talk of virtues, we usually envision one of two classes of virtue.  Firstly, we might thing of the Theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Alternatively, the Greek Philosophical virtues such as Justice, Temperance, Prudence might come to mind.  The word “virtue” is usually used to denote exclusively one or the other of these two categories; as a result, it might seem a bit odd or inappropriate to refer to characteristics such as “decorum” or “solidarity” as virtues.  And yet, Pope Saint John Paul II explicitly uses the word virtue to denote characteristics in this vein, especially solidarity.  

To paraphrase a former tutor of mine, a virtue is a disposition informing action which guides the individual to live according to the Truth and what is Good.  You cannot be virtuous by accident, nor are you virtuous simply because your particular actions do no wrong.  A virtuous man is such not because of what he does but because of who he is.  Thus, a just man will act with a view towards justice because his interior compass directs him always to act thus.  His just act, in turn, further forms his interior compass and makes him more just.  Virtue is a cyclical movement within the person: who you are determines how you act, and how you act forms who you are.

Now, one of the hallmarks of JPII’s pontificate was his immense insights into the anthropology of Man as relates to the Salvation story.  This as much to say, for JPII the individual subjectivity of the human person as an integrated being was the only context within which Man can relate to God.  Man encounters and relates to God through his intellect, but can only experience God through his physical body.  This much is true for all peoples, at all times, and in all places: it can never not be so.  This shared situation in which Man finds himself is such a fundamental character of the human condition, it ought to illicit an interior disposition of unity and shared responsibility for our fellow Man.  “It is above all,” JPII writes, “a question of interdependence, sensed as a system determining relationships in the contemporary world, in its economic, cultural, political and religious elements, and accepted as a moral category. When interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a ‘virtue,’ is solidarity. This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, paragraph 38).”

Solidarity is a virtue because it causes the individual to recognize the personhood of the other.  This recognition is not based on what the person has or how virtuous they are; rather, it is simply a recognition that I am not unlike that person in my humanity.  He needs the same basic things as I do in order to live the life God has called him to live.  To use a cliche, Solidarity witnesses to the fact that we are all in the same boat, and that I am not an island responsible only for myself.  Not only do I have the obligation to do for my neighbor what I can, but I can have the hope and expectation that my neighbor will help me in what they can.  This disposition of a shared humanity was on full display during the Vice Presidential debate; let us hope is was more than just a act on both sides.  More than that: let us use it as an opportunity to increase our own disposition of Solidarity towards our fellow Man.