The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

312 chapter 26mastering above all. They can be paired off by social class, pride being thecharacteristic sin of the rich, such as the Florida woman in her mink whoon TV in 2004 while clinging to her husband said about the poor, “We aren’tlosers.” Acedia is the corresponding sin of the poor and hopeless. Avaricegluttonyare again sins of the rich and envy-anger of the poor, similarlypaired. And lust, after the Fall, is ubiquitous.Sin or vice, I have argued, is the notable lack of any one or more of thevirtues, and so the seven virtues lead to seven single lacks, imprudence,injustice, intemperance, and so forth. But as Hursthouse notes, “Althoughour list of generally recognized virtue terms is, I think, quite short, our listof vice terms is remarkably—and usefully—long.” 21 She notes that the listfar exceeds the number of rules that Kantians imagine might be formulatedto summarize ethical ideas. The list of vices shows how we actually reasonethically. We call people names. Hursthouse instances “irresponsible, feckless,lazy, inconsiderate, uncooperative, harsh, intolerant, indiscreet, incautious,unenterprising, pusillanimous, feeble, hypocritical, self-indulgent,materialistic, grasping, short-sighted,...and on and on.”Take down your Roget’s International Thesaurus, the third edition of 1962,for example. Virtue itself (category number 978) takes up about half a columnof words; the two opposites that follow, vice (979) and wrongdoing (980) takeup two full columns. Asceticism (989), temperance (990), fasting (993), andsobriety (995) fit handily into about two columns, interlarded with sevenand a half columns on intemperance, gluttony, and intoxication (which lastby itself accounts for five and a half columns). Respect (962) has a column ofwords, followed by two and half columns on disrespect, contempt, andridicule. Courage (891), in two columns, is surrounded by anxiety, fear, cowardice(888–889) and rashness, totaling six and a half columns. Cut the six anda half in half to allow for Roget’s habit of alternating opposites and it stillworks out to 3.25 pusillanimous vices to every two virtues of courage.The richness of our vocabulary of abuse comes from the stories andimages that ground ethical thinking. We remember Billy in kindergartenwho would not lovingly and justly cooperate, and he becomes our exemplarfor the lack of those qualities. Judas Iscariot becomes the exemplar ofintemperance and faithlessness.If there are seven virtues and if the lack of any combination constitutesa vice, then the combinatorial mathematics implies that there would be . . .let me see, 7 items taken 6 at a time plus 7 taken 5 at a time plus 7 taken 4 at