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:
“The whole point about the true unconscious is that it is all the time moving forward, beyond the range of its own fixed laws or habits. It is no good trying to superimpose an ideal nature upon the unconscious.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“To be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)