Nothing is more appealing in another person than virtue, for nothing draws us more to love and admire someone.
Marcus Cicero, Laelius de Amicitia
This is a very genuine piece of a quote, and I find myself saying it under my breath all the time. The quote resonates with me because it contradicts what most people want to see in others and provides a good moral reference.
In my teenage-hood, I used to believe what attracted me to someone was his unique attributes: extraordinary intelligence, or manifesting a kind of idiosyncrasy. This idea was soon expunged from my value system at the point when I reached adulthood, as I realised that what come with those qualities are often unlikable downsides that tingles my values and cause me to ruminate over my judgment of people bitterly. From my own experience, smartness brings narcissism and arrogance, and quirkiness is translated into moral inconsistency and over-spontaneity.
What I question here, though, is not the correlation and the causation between the good and the less desirable. I retain an appreciation for intelligence and quirkiness. It is rather the kind of criteria we adopt in search of a companion and friendships. My answer to this concern is virtue.
Virtue is a different concept from personality strengths or merits. It is a baseline that distinguishes the decent from the corrupted, the just from the unjust, and the good from the decadent, for it only concerns the matter of morality. Virtue entails the fundamental things that define ‘the ethical good’: compassion, honesty, altruism, generosity, bravery, and justice, while good personality traits do not make someone necessarily a virtuous person. Generally, good personality traits could be and are not confined in being intelligent, having the skill to paint, knowing how to argue, or being good at building a house. They are acquired or learned, either naturally or purposely, to fulfil certain practical ends, and are not needed to resolve ethical concerns. Therefore, a person cannot be called good or virtuous if he possesses only positive traits and admirable skills.
Often times, people confuse virtues and strengths and therefore undermine the value of the former, which leads to distress in relationships. A skilled, talented businessman can manipulate his customers and cheat on his partners. An eloquent, hard-working politician can spread lies and use his power to obtain his selfish interests. However, a virtuous man will always tell the truth and treat others with utmost respect and integrity.
Siming Lan 