Ideal and Virtue
Given the complexity of putting ideals into practice, and resolving conflicts between them, it is not uncommon to see them reduced to dogma. One way to avoid this, according to Bernard Crick, is to have ideals that themselves are descriptive of a process, rather than an outcome. His political virtues try to raise the practical habits useful in resolving disputes into ideals of their own. A virtue, in general, is an ideal that one can make a habit.
Read more about this topic: Ideal (ethics)
Famous quotes containing the words ideal and/or virtue:
“Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued,
And cries reproachful: “Was it then my praise,
And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth;
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth.””
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)