Virtues

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The virtues are the qualities the moral traditions name as worth cultivating. This category holds the Western scheme: the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), which come from Greek philosophy and were absorbed into Christian teaching; the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity; and the contrary or heavenly virtues, seven of which are each set against one of the seven deadly sins. Each entry records the class the virtue belongs to and, where the tradition draws the pairing, the vice it is set against.

Facts

Overview

Entries in the Atlas: 82
What Defines This Grouping: Named qualities a tradition holds worth cultivating, given in that tradition's own list and with the reason it offers. Comparison across traditions is an established field, but the lists are not translations of one another: a quality grouped as one virtue in one scheme is divided, ranked differently or absent in another. 1
Size of the Traditional Set: Seven in the Latin Christian scheme: four cardinal virtues and three theological 2

Origins

Whose Classification This Is: The Western set of seven is composite: four cardinal virtues - prudence, justice, temperance, courage - from Greek philosophy through Cicero and Ambrose, and three theological virtues of faith, hope and love from 1 Corinthians 13. Thomas Aquinas fixed the sevenfold arrangement in the Summa Theologiae. It is a Latin Christian scheme and not a universal one. 2

Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), 2024, s.v. Virtue Ethics
Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas, 1274, IaIIae qq. 61-62

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Qualities Worth Cultivating

This category holds the virtues, the qualities that moral and spiritual traditions name as worth cultivating. The best-known Western set is the seven: the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, inherited from Greek philosophy, and the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love (charity) from Christian teaching. Alongside them stand the contrary or heavenly virtues, each paired against one of the seven deadly sins: humility against pride, charity against greed, chastity against lust, kindness against envy, temperance against gluttony, patience against wrath and diligence against sloth.

Each entry gives a virtue in the terms of the tradition that names it, the reason offered for cultivating it, and its place in that tradition's moral scheme.

Comparing the Schemes

The Western scheme groups the virtues in three ways at once: the four cardinal virtues of classical philosophy, the three theological virtues of Christian teaching, and the seven heavenly virtues set against the deadly sins. Some virtues belong to more than one grouping, temperance is both cardinal and a counter to gluttony, charity both theological and a counter to greed, and the entries note where a virtue sits in each.

Each virtue is given with the vice it is set against, where the tradition draws that pairing. The vices themselves are treated in their own category.