Middle Class Values, Whose Virtues:
What are we doing to our Youth?
By Rev. John J. Raphael, SSJ
(Article: Page 1 of 6)
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Value and Virtue, what are they? The following definitions are taken from Webster's Online Dictionary:

Value

• (n) An ideal accepted by some individual or group; "he has old-fashioned values".
• (v) Regard highly; think much of

Virtue

• (n) The quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.
• (n) A particular moral excellence.

I thought that it would be good to begin this reflection about values, virtues, and youth with a solid definition of terms. By doing this we might be able to gain more clarity by the time we reach the conclusion!

We often hear the term "value" used in public discourse. Politicians are particularly prone to couch their various programs in terms of one set of values or another, i.e. family, environmental, social, liberal, conservative, afrocentric, eurocentric, etc.

Contrarily, we rarely hear much talk about "virtue" in the same spheres. Perhaps some think that values and virtues are the same, hence to talk about one is to talk about the other. However, the definitions above and certainly the history of these terms as they have been used by philosophers and theologians show us that their meanings are quite different, albeit related to each other. Let us examine them a little more closely.

Values are values simply because someone values them! Did I really say something meaningful just now? Another way of putting this is that values are ultimately subjective-totally determined by the individual or group that esteems something. To say that something is a value is not to say that it is necessarily good or bad, it is simply to say that someone holds it in high regard. Tragically, some very bad things can be values. For instance, those who champion so-called "reproductive freedom" hold the current constitutionally sanctioned legality of abortion (Roe v. Wade) as a value!

Virtue, on the other hand, has a definitive connection to that which is good, moral, and true. A virtue can never be used to do something bad. We have another term for the quality of doing that which is bad, namely, vice. So virtues are not ultimately subjective-determined only by the individual-rather, virtues have an objective character which is determined by the end result, the good thing done as a result of the virtue.

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