Too Good To Be Happy? #035

Can we be too virtuous?

Hello and welcome again to Every Dawn to Our Happiness Gym, where every day we will do a little exercise that we can apply to our lives in order to live happier, more satisfying lives. All this is based on classic philosophy; it's not something I make up myself. We started yesterday by talking about virtues, by talking about the ancient Greek philosophy of Aristotle, who said that we should train our virtues and especially observe where we are not virtuous enough, and then try to improve these areas in order to gain happiness because, for him, happiness is necessarily connected with virtue. You cannot be happy if you are not a good person, this is what he believes. If you want to understand more about it, you can go back and watch yesterday's video where this is explained in more depth.

Now, when we talk about virtues, one thing to see is that there is some difficulty with the concept because, in the beginning, the first time you look at the thing, you would think the more virtue I have, the better. So, if I am honest, it's good to be totally honest; if I am kind, it's good to be totally kind, but actually, this is not true and this is perhaps surprising when you encounter this thought for the first time. And what exactly is the problem? Think about somebody who is honest, and now try to think, are there situations where being too honest might cause a problem? Are there situations where perhaps sometimes I need to be a little less honest in order to reach the best outcome for everyone, me and any other people involved? And obviously, this is the case. For example, imagine your friend comes to you with a hairdo that looks like a blue pyramid, and she asks you, "Is this pretty? I just paid $100 to have this done." Then it wouldn't be the best solution to say, "No, you look horrible; go and shave your head so that you look like a human being again." So, this is not the right answer. You are not supposed to be totally honest in such situations; you are supposed to be a little less honest, perhaps, if you can avoid hurting other people.

Similarly, also with other virtues, we can imagine kindness, for example, is a good thing; it's a rare virtue, and most of the time, we would say it is something that people should have, they should develop this virtue. But we can imagine people who are too kind. You know somebody goes and takes their pen, and they say, "Okay, keep it, you know, it's okay." And then they tell them, "In school, perhaps will you do my homework?" and they say, "Yes, of course, I will do your homework, and can I do anything else for you?" Or perhaps you have a relative like this, somebody who is always pampering you, and in the end, if this is overdone, then this is not kind in a positive way anymore, but it becomes exploitation, right? And it becomes a negative trait of character. This willingness to be exploited is not a good thing anymore. You then have these people whom perhaps we can call them doormat, people who are happy for you to step on them. And we see this as a weakness of character; we don't see this as a good thing. If the world was only made up of these people, it would be very tedious and not really kind.

So, kindness also needs to come in a particular dosage, in a particular amount that is good. And how do I know which amount is good? Because it is the amount that benefits everyone: it benefits the agent, the person who acts, and it benefits at the same time also everybody else, the recipient of the kindness or the courage or the honesty, and the rest of society. And with courage, it's the same, right? I mean, courage is a good thing, but too little courage, of course, then you are a coward; this is not good. But too much courage, then you are reckless, somebody who storms into a burning building to save people without even looking if there is anyone in there to save, or without asking themselves if they are qualified to provide this service; perhaps they have never before worked or been in a burning building. And so now, instead of saving anyone, the most likely outcome is that they will need saving themselves, and so they will make the work of the professional helpers, the fire department, even harder. So, this is not really helping, right? And this is what Aristotle means: that we have to examine our virtues and see if we have them to the right amount, which is not always 100%. You cannot also not say that it's always in the middle; this is another misunderstanding, you know, "I have halfway the right amount." This is not true either; it depends on the situation. There are some situations where I need to have the full amount, for example, if I'm a witness in a court case. There, I need to be fully honest; I cannot just be kind of honest. But when I talk to my friend with a horrible hairdo, then it's okay not to be totally honest. So, it depends totally on the situation, and I need a particular skill to develop that will allow me to judge how much virtue I need every time.

And we will talk more about this later, but it is important to see that this is something that I develop over time. Children, for example, can be honest; they can be courageous, but they don't know exactly how much of that virtue they need in every situation. So, children will often get this wrong; they will be too courageous; they will harm themselves because they are too reckless, or they might be too honest, and so on. So, it's only through experience, through living our life and observing how our actions lead to results that slowly we improve in this game, and we become able to judge what the right amount of virtue is. And so, this is something that we should perhaps look at today because yesterday we were looking at what virtues we are lacking. So, perhaps we should also look now whether we have any virtues where we feel that perhaps we are overdoing it. And the measure for this is always: are we benefiting ourselves and others, or are we harming ourselves, or are we perhaps even harming others with our virtue? Are we being a nuisance for somebody else? Right? So, I think we should look at our virtues and try to see: do I have my virtues to the right amount? I know that, for example, I am often very German in a way because, you know, I am German, so I have this feeling of duty or of honesty that is pretty strong, and it's sometimes against common sense, and it is sometimes too much because it doesn't lead to good results. I can sometimes offend my friends by pointing out some duty that they are supposed to be fulfilling, although nobody cares, right? Something like in the middle of the night, you know, stopping at a stop sign in an empty street when you know there is nobody around. I would still stop there, and if my friend does not stop there, I would, you know, I would berate them in some way. I would tell them, "It's not right what you're doing." And they would say, "Who cares? There is nobody around; it's an empty village street. I can see miles in every direction; no cars, why do I have to stop at the stop sign?" And I would say, "You know, because it's a stop sign." But this is too much, right, of this virtue. Obviously, this is too much. So let us today, perhaps, think where we're making this mistake ourselves, where we have this blind spot, where perhaps our virtues are developed too much, and it would be better to have some sense, some common sense, to see things a little looser, to make allowances for the human condition or common sense, and just dial down a little bit the virtue to be truly beneficial to our environment and to ourselves. Thank you, and see you tomorrow.