For millennia, scholars have debated what virtues should be part of the moral life. While the seven deadly sins might be more interesting, the virtues\u201d\u201dsuch as prudence, justice and fortitude\u201d\u201dhave inspired a good deal of deliberation. Which are most important? Who embodies them, who doesn\u2019t and what challenges do they present to mere mortals?<\/p>\n
Into this eternal genre steps a team of right-of-center writers known to be more clever or ironical than your average talk-radio listener. (Think \u201cSouth Park\u201d\u009d conservatives, not the sort who hang out at the American Legion hall.) The stated thesis of \u201cThe Seven Deadly Virtues,\u201d\u009d as editor Jonathan V. Last writes, is that modern Americans do still value virtue. \u201cThe problem is that we have organized ourselves around the wrong virtues.\u201d\u009d Or at least our moral system has some serious problems. We\u2019re appalled by Donald Sterling \u2019s racism but skim over his habit of bringing his mistress to basketball games. We like health and authenticity more than temperance and charity. Nonjudgmentalism seems to trump nearly everything, including courage.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an engaging premise, and it is investigated occasionally in \u201cThe Seven Deadly Virtues.\u201d\u009d But the book is better read for what it is: an excuse to bring more than a dozen talented writers together, give them fussy-sounding concepts such as \u201cForbearance\u201d\u009d and \u201cChastity,\u201d\u009d and see what happens.<\/p>\n