Virtue

Virtue is "a habitual and firm disposition to do good" (CCC #1833).

Buddha (~500 BC in India), Confucius (~500 BC in China), Aristotle (~350 BC in Greece), and the classic Christian tradition all hold that "Virtue is the mean between extremes."

"But not every action...admits of a mean; for some have names that already imply badness...adultery, theft, murder; for all of these are themselves bad, and not the excess or deficiencies of them. It is not possible then ever to be right with regard to them; one must always be wrong. ... However they are done they are wrong" (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics). Catholic philosophy calls such actions "intrinsically evil." The evil of the action cannot be remedied by good intentions nor justified by circumstances. The prohibition of such evildoing is absolute: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not lie, do not steal.

Flip Side	Positive Value	Seven Deadly Sins
Depression, Despair, Suicide	Self-esteem	Pride
Dissolution	Productivity	Greed
Apathy, Frigidity, Impotence	Intimacy	Lust
Victim Mentality, Passive Aggression	Self-defense, Assertiveness	Anger
Anorexia	Survival, Pleasure	Gluttony
Antipathy, Isolation	Admiration	Envy
Obsessive-compulsion	Rest	Sloth

Too Little	Four Cardinal Virtues	Too Much
Imprudence	Prudence practical wisdom	Over-caution
Immorality	Justice equal rights, due process	Scrupulosity
Self-indulgence	Temperance moderation	Puritanism/Jansenism
Cowardice	Fortitude courage, endurance	Presumption, arrogance, rage