Virtues and virtutes

Virtues come from Latin "virtutes", the "man-like properties" that were useful and recognised by society. In the past, many attempts have been made to list the different virtues exhaustively or to classify them into categories. Usually Character, Courage, Humility and Generosity played some role. In ancient and Middle Age history, the virtues were often related to martial arts and knighthood.

Benjamin Franklin promoted 13 virtues to his fellow countrymen and today Tom Peters teaches us how to apply virtues in modern business life. The fact that I mention two North-American reference philosophers is not a coincidence.

Today, we have become anxious, even of mentioning virtues. We ignore them. We don't look at them and don't talk about them. We tend to surrender even before any ideal is put forward. Yet the virtues are there, even if you ignore them. Should I apologise for dedicating a blog to virtues? They could prove to be the only way out of the recession. I also refer to Anständig Wirtschaften, Generosity and Rip van Winkle.