Virtue is Amoral

If to sin is to “miss the mark” why isn’t there a more secular equivalence for virtue?

It’s interesting how we can decouple “sin” but struggle with “virtue”. One could suppose Virtue comes further entrenched in whatever moral system.

Well, let’s be clear: if Morality is defined as distinguishing “right” from “wrong” from first principles (often derived from one’s background and religion, of social origin or of divine), then the “secular” version is “right” and “wrong” according to actual outcome, in tow with our fundamental truth of Nature.

Our fundamental truth of Nature is survival — and from that river so self-interest springs. If given a Natural system and you litter it with lifeforms that do not look out for themselves and instead look toward other ends, whether pleasure or righteousness-in-of-itself or tickling some feeling of justness, so they will not persist into the next generation, nor find much bounty in their strayed path of destruction. They may even have shorter lifespans, filled with much suffering. Remember, individuals do not exist in Nature: one is only a placeholder for a more abstract fourth-dimensional entity.

It is from the above truth we can come to understand virtue, and infuse its underlying amorality: virtue is that which lends toward stable, secure, steady and bountiful living. Gulliver’s Travels captures this absurdity of virtue often dismissed:

But the Houyhnhnms, who live under the government of reason, are no more proud of the good qualities they possess, than I should be for not wanting a leg or an arm; which no man in his wits would boast of, although he must be miserable without them.

When we abandoned God one can then question what was the use of all of these distinctions, sins and punishments since there’s no promise of heaven or damnation? A more secular interpretation is this is the path to heaven, today. If you do not seek virtue, you will instead suffer from shortsightedness and all of the vices of the world.

Because you can surely walk a river red down into debauchery. It’s not at all difficult to begin. But misery comes the same, however delayed. One will struggle and lose sight of themselves without virtue in an amoral world.

Thus, we can really simplify the discussion here: secular sin is what, over a lifespan, destroys you and secular virtue is what, over a lifespan, elevates you. One can measure against health & wealth, amount of ambient happiness. The ability to live with yourself, the ability to sit along quiet in a room, the ability to enjoy the breeze, the ability to avoid much drama and suffering, the ability to aim for the highest pleasure rather than second-takes with hard-hitting comedowns.

Though virtue was usually taught in an appeal to some higher being, or some higher one on a social ladder, one can snatch the term and claim simply: virtue is any quality which, viewed over a lifespan and infused into a fourth dimensional reflection, yields benefits to one’s survival and thriving, deters from needless suffering.

From these definitions we can inform the path forward. Even if it means walking on skulls.