The Practical Wisdom of Living Virtuously

I recently ran outside in the middle of the night with a baseball bat to chase away an intruder who was obviously trying to do mischief.My neighbors are torn over whether I was courageous or foolhardy.Several have expressed the feeling that I was "lucky." The man might have been armed. He might have overwhelmed me with superior quickness and strength. I might have actually hit him with the bat, then faced legal liability for using "excessive force." On the other hand, one older neighbor insisted that if anything like that happened again, I was to call him and he'd join me with a "steel bar." He insisted that he would be "fierce." A woman, inspired, immediately ordered her own baseball bat. Many have thanked me for protecting "our community."As I grow older, I find myself thinking more and more about the Ancient Greek concept of "virtue," and specifically about Aristotle's idea that all virtues exist on a continuum, one that is different for each individual.Courage, for instance, lies…