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<font face="Times New Roman, Times">Hail to the Vision!<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
For a short essay on this subject see
</font><a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/moscowvirtue.htm" eudora="autourl"><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF"><u>www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/moscowvirtue.htm</a></u></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">,
and excerpts from my book <i>The Virtue of Non-Violence</i> can be found
at
<a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/vnv.htm" eudora="autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/vnv.htm</a>.<br><br>
Yours for a City of Virtues,<br><br>
Nick Gier<br>
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<font size=2>"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in
human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for
it."<br>
--Mohandas Gandhi<br><br>
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