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The Virtue of Laughing

“When one is considering the universe it is important, sensible even, to try and find some balance between laughter and uncontrollable weeping.”

- Ella Frances Sanders


Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.

I practically trained a friend of mine who worked next to me on the building site to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation. He was a surgeon and had been an assistant on the staff of a large hospital. So I once tried to get him to smile by describing to him how he would be unable to lose the habits of camp life when he returned to his former work. On the building site (especially when the supervisor made his tour of inspection) the foreman encouraged us to work faster by shouting: “Action! Action!” I told my friend, “One day you will be back in the operating room, performing a big abdominal operation. Suddenly an orderly will rush in announcing the arrival of the senior surgeon by shouting, ‘Action! Action!’”

- Victor Frankl

Faith, Hope, and Laughter

A Note on Process and Virtue

You may or may not have your favorite list of virtues: kindness, courage, honesty, humility, spunkiness, a good night's sleep. And you may or may not know that, for the Greeks, there were four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, temperance. And for the Christians, three theological virtues: faith, hope, charity. It is possible that you, like me, were never given a list of the cardinal and theological virtues, even as you were moved by people who embodied some of them: wisdom, for example, or courage, or love.

Indeed, you may or may not use or even like the word "virtue," because it carries with it what (for you) is a hint of moralism: too much ought and not enough joy. This is not to say that a sense of obligation, of ought, of duty, is not a healthy part of life, I think it is. It seems to me that the lure of God within the human heart can be, among other things, a lure to accept our obligations to other people, to the natural world, to God. Still, humans cannot live by obligation alone. We need playfulness, a sense of mystery, imagination, and beauty. An overemphasis on moral virtue can forget this.

Still, the basic idea of virtue is unavoidable, practically and theoretically. I suspect there is a politician or two, often in the news, whom you wish were kinder, more honest, and more temperate in his or her approach to others. You wish that this politician were more virtuous. You may wish the same of your boss, or your neighbor, or yourself. 

Let virtue mean moral virtue and life virtue. By moral virtue I have in mind love: love of others, love of yourself, love of the natural world, love of wisdom from the past, love of future generations, and love of God. By life virtue I have in mind virtues such as playfulness, imagination, laughter, spunkiness, and a sense of beauty. Let virtue mean 'living well' in cooperation with the rest of the world and in cooperation with the grace of God, itself a lure within each and every human heart. The divine lure within each of us is a lure toward richness of experience, toward what the Greeks would call eudaimonia or 'flourishing,' toward moral virtue and life virtue combined. It includes faith, hope, and laughter.

On this page, I offer some process thoughts on virtue, building upon the discussion of the history of the concept offered by the BBC's In Our Time and the table of contents of a book called Virtues and the Vices edited by  Kevin Timpe and Craig A. Boyd. Scroll down for the BBC podcast and the publisher's description of the book, along with the list of virtues treated in the book. My reflections are but springboards for your own.

​- Jay McDaniel

Process and Virtue
​

What might a process or Whiteheadian theory of virtue look like?

It will draw inspiration from Whitehead's notion that our existence unfolds within a universe replete with value. The universe, for process philosophers, is not merely a collection of objects; it is, to borrow from Thomas Berry, a community of subjects. Value resides within the subjectivity of each entity as its own lived experience, as well as in transcendent ideals like truth, goodness, and beauty, nestled within the mind of God, the living unity of the universe.

To live virtuously within this context is to live in harmony with a universe suffused with value. Virtue is not about assigning value to the universe; it is about awakening to that value and living accordingly. 

A Whiteheadian theory of virtue extends to the non-human world, embracing hills, rivers, trees, and stars, recognizing their inherent virtue in simply being what they are. In this sense, the entire universe partakes in virtuous existence. As the Chinese put it, "the rocks, too, are sincere."

Still, a Whiteheadian theory of virtue is responsive to the rights of individuals and the public duty of responsible citizenship. Given Whitehead's own sense that value is the self-enjoyment of individuals in society, a Whiteheadian theory of virtue extends special consideration to the vulnerable: the elderly, the young, and those marginalized by prevailing societal norms. It encompasses civic and political virtue.

Crucially, a Whiteheadian theory of virtue avoids the misconception that virtue must either be innate or solely acquired from external sources, proposing instead that it arises from both origins. Every human being carries inherent potential for virtue from birth, possibly encoded in their genes, but these potentials find actualization through their interactions with others. Virtue is not merely an innate possession; it is learned through the examples set by others and by active practice. Aristotle underscores this point, and a Whiteheadian theory of virtue concurs. In this light, a process approach includes some forms of virtue, of wellness, that are sometimes underappreciated:

1. The virtue of attentive listening and a willingness to learn from others, nurturing open-mindedness and receptivity. In Whitehead's language, "feeling the feelings" of others in a sympathetic way.
2. The virtue of laughter and uncontrollable weeping, of being able to feel the presence of the world in its tragic beauty.
3. The virtue of getting a good night's sleep: of being able to "let go" of the pressures of the day.
4. The virtue of being present to what is happening in the present moment, of being attentive to others, not being distracted by mental clutter.
5. The virtue of being responsible for the future: of accepting the fact that all actions have consequences for others.
6. The virtue of being grateful for the past, for what is nourishing and guiding, for wisdom of elders, human and more than human.
7. The virtue of accepting life's impermanence, acknowledging that virtue involves a readiness to let go when circumstances necessitate.
8. The virtue of faith and hope: trusting in the availability of fresh possibilities from God, which are creative and hopeful. but which can only be actualized by our response.
9. The virtue of humility, acknowledging that truth exceeds our conceptualization of it, and virtue transcends our understanding and attainment of it.
10. The virtue of being moved by beauty: beauty in nature, beauty in the moral courage of others, beauty in the arts, and the sometimes tragic beauty of life itself.
11. The virtue of self-respect, which involves loving oneself as well as one's neighbor.
12. The virtue of being open to new ideas and questioning old ones, even if it causes discomfort.
13. The virtue of relinquishing self-preoccupations with being or appearing virtuous when they become idolatrous.
14. The virtue of loving the living unity within whose life the universe lives and moves and has its being: the virtue of loving God. 

Needless to say, these fourteen virtues are not the whole of it. Let none of what I've said negate the fact that a Whiteheadian approach to virtue has much to learn from rich philosophical traditions such as those explored. There is no need for a Whiteheadian approach to pretend that it has the depth and richness of the whole of philosophical discussions. The process voice is but one among many.

​- Jay McDaniel

​Virtues and Their Vices  
Kevin Timpe (ed.) and Craig A. Boyd (ed.)

'Virtues and their Vices is the only extant contemporary, comprehensive treatment of specific virtues and, where applicable, their competing vices. Each of the essays not only locates discussion of that virtue in its historical context, but also advances the discussion and debate concerning the understanding and role of the virtues. Each of the first four sections focuses on a particular historically important class of virtues: the cardinal virtues, the capital vices (or ‘seven deadly sins’) and the corrective virtues, intellectual virtues, and the theological virtues. The final section discusses the role virtue theory and the virtues themselves play in a number of cognate disciplines, ranging from theology and political theory to neurobiology and feminism. The treatment of the virtues in this present volume is sensitive to the historical heritage of the virtues, including their theological heritage, drawing on, e.g. Aristotle, Aquinas, and MacIntyre. However, it is not only focused on those historical and theological issues. Virtues and their Vices is unique for the way it engages contemporary philosophical scholarship as well as relevant scholarship from related disciplines throughout. It is a compelling addition to the philosophical treatment of the virtues as well as their import in a wide spectrum of disciplines."

Cardinal Virtues:

1. Courage
2. Temperance
3. Wisdom
4. Justice

Capital Vices and Corrective Virtues:

1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Wrath
4. Sloth
5. Greed
6. Gluttony
7. Lust

Intellectual Virtues:

1. Wisdom
2. Knowledge
3. Understanding
4. Prudence

Theological Virtues:

1. Faith
2. Hope
3. Love (Charity)

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The History of the
​Idea of Virtue

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of virtue. When Socrates asked the question ‘How should man live?’ Plato and Aristotle answered that man should live a life of virtue. Plato claimed there were four great virtues - Temperance, Justice, Prudence and Courage and the Christian Church added three more - Faith, Hope and Love.

​But where does the motivation for virtue come from? Do we need rules to tell us how to behave or can we rely on our feelings of compassion and empathy towards other human beings? Shakespeare’s Iago says “Virtue! A fig! ‘tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners. ” So is virtue a character trait possessed by some but not others? Is it derived from reason? Or does it flow from the innate sympathies of the human heart?

For the last two thousand years philosophers have grappled with these ideas, but now in the twenty first century a modern reappraisal of virtue is taking the argument back to basics with Aristotle. With Galen Strawson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading; Miranda Fricker, Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London; Roger Crisp, Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford.