This first chapter takes a quick tour of vocation and virtue and some other related concepts.
Vocation
The first of the concepts is vocation. Vocation means calling, and the word originates in the idea that we can feel a desire to live unique and responsible lives. We can contrast vocation to the idea of a career:
One builds a successful career:
• By a series of achievements
• Gained by your own efforts and genius
• Rewarded by wealth and fame
On the other hand, you discover a fruitful vocation:
• By identifying and developing your values and strengths
• In relationships where you give and take
• Serving the community, economically and socially
To exaggerate the differences: a career may progress, but it has no aim or meaning. There are material rewards but little satisfaction, and it is likely to be lonely. A vocation has meaning and has an intrinsic satisfaction. The vocation is focused not just on the work but also on its contribution to the wider community. Economist Mancur Olson writes about the anarchistic fallacy (1965, 130), which is the illusion that mutually useful relationships and structures will spontaneously evolve. A vocation intentionally builds these useful relationships in families, businesses, and government.
Finding our vocation begins by asking the question, “What do I want to be remembered for?” Peter Drucker1 quotes St. Augustine as saying that asking this question is the beginning of adulthood. Drucker goes on to say that if you have an answer before you are 25 years old, you have not understood the question, while if you cannot answer it by the time you are 50 you have wasted your life. His advice is:
Developing yourself begins by serving, by striving toward an idea outside of yourself—not by leading. Leaders are not born, nor are they made—they are self-made. To do this a person needs focus (2012, 174).
For those in the window between 25 and 50, I hope that this book will help develop the focus he speaks about.
Virtues
The virtues, the second main concept, are the personal characteristics (strengths and attitudes) that we need to develop to fulfill our vocation. They can be thought of as the equivalent of the physical virtues (such as strength, speed, and agility) that we need to develop to be better at sport. They are inherent in that we all possess them in some measure, but need training and development to be fully developed.
The four cardinal virtues are justice, courage, self-control, and prudence (or practical wisdom). Very briefly, they can be described as follows:
1. Justice means giving other people their due, and treating them fairly.
2. Courage is what is required to protect ourselves.
3. Self-control both curbs our inclinations to excess and cultivates, by practice, the habits of a good life.
4. Practical wisdom is making good decisions in the face of uncertainty, and sometimes opposition.
Figure 1.1 The Cardinal Virtues
We have inherited this distillation of the cardinal virtues from the ancient Greeks, Plato and Aristotle. Recent work from the field of positive psychology confirms that, while their interpretation and application varies across cultures, they are universally recognized. Katherine Dahlsgaard and her colleagues corroborate that they are found in all religious and cultural traditions, and Robert McGrath (2014) confirms it with his analysis of over a million answers from 75 countries to an online survey of values. When he uses cluster analysis on a slightly smaller sample (Table 5), he finds five clusters that can be identified with the four cardinal virtues and integrity.
Figure 1.1 represents how the virtues can help us answer the questions of who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
There is an overlap of meaning in these terms, and the words have been used in so many different contexts for so long that common agreement on definitions is impossible. The shading in the diagram recognizes this blurring of meaning. We can, however, see that the two virtues on the left (courage and self-control) are more related to influences on who we are, while those on the right (justice and prudence) relate to what we do. The top two (courage and justice) relate to relationship with others, while the bottom two (self-control and prudence) are more personal.
Illustrated by the line around the diagram, holding everything together, is integrity, the fundamental virtue. Integrity ties the four cardinal virtues together into our character (who we are), our vocation (what we do), and our motivation (why we do what we do). In particular, to work just for money falls short of integrity, in the same way as marrying or studying for money. The extrinsic motivation of money also drives out the real satisfaction of working, marrying, or studying!
The arrow on the right indicates an aspiration to building communities that encourage the development of the virtues, and allow all their members to flourish in the widest sense. The need to build community is generally recognized to be at the heart of ethical theories, and even to explain why they are necessary. The ongoing existence of the human race requires it! The idea of vocation adds the consideration that we grow ourselves as we build—so that it is not merely out of obligation that we do so.2
How we determine what is good is one of the main objectives of the academic discipline of philosophy, yet, for reasons I cannot explain, the virtue ethics underlying Figure 1.1 has been out of fashion in academic philosophy for a century or more. There are, however, many academics who now accept it, and I am particularly indebted to Alisdair McIntyre and David Carr’s interpretation of the traditional views. Another contemporary advocate is Michael Sandel, whose book, Justice, introduces the topic in an accessible way. Even easier are the TED.com recordings of Sandel’s Harvard lectures.3
The box at the bottom left of the diagram raises some other differences between virtue ethics and other theories of ethics. Virtue ethics are principles based. They are aspirational rather than a set of rules. Detailed regulations have too many exceptions, too much detail to remember, and are too prone to rationalization. They can also be used to dominate others and foster resentment and resistance. Following virtue means working at the pursuit of a fruitful vocation rather than feeling guilty for failing ethical rules. We return in Part 4 of this book to a more detailed consideration of the virtues and how to cultivate them.
Forgiveness
Of course, we often feel remorse. I am continually astounded at my failure to do the right thing. At the age I am now, I had hoped to be more in control of my actions. I know there are others over 50 who read the Drucker quote above and feel, like me, a bit of a failure! The third main concept, therefore, is the ability to forgive: the grace to continue to try after failing. It is a difficult tension: we ought not treat our faults too lightly, but have to find a way to live with them.
Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, apparently said, “Consciousness of our errors is the first step to salvation.” If he is right about the first step, the second step is to find forgiveness—from those we have wronged, if possible, from ourselves and, if we are believers, from God. Books on ethics—even by virtue theorists—often do not address this question, perhaps because the religious element makes it difficult in a pluralist society. We are being unrealistic, however, if we avoid addressing failure.
Forgiveness is seldom easy and some crimes may seem impossible to forgive. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and others like it, have, however, shown that people can forgive unspeakable crimes. Such reconciliation requires the right environment and an ability to forgive, which is a virtue beyond the cardinal four.
Empathy
There is a close link between how we treat our own faults and how we respond to faults in others. The fourth and final main concept is empathy—using your imagination to put yourself into another person’s shoes.
Empathy starts with recognizing our own feelings and prejudices, and realizing how we tend to deny them. Denying our feelings could be described as a lack of emotional integrity, causing us to miss hidden drivers of our beliefs and actions, and making it difficult to control them. Observing our own motivations, on the other hand, is a lens that helps us see and understand what others are thinking and doing. A virtuous spiral is set in motion as we strive to understand others better, and begin to understand ourselves better. Empathy leads to community, and supports tolerance and forgiveness.
Heroes and Heroics
While I would like to share some of my indignation at injustice, let me caution against heroics. Allowing anger to become all-absorbing is unhelpful and taking controversial stands can be costly—financially and physically. Philip Jos and his colleagues have catalogued some of the costs of whistle-blowing. Patience is not the same as compromise; it can give you time to discover more creative solutions to issues that concern you deeply—that may well be more effective, as well as safer.
In trying to think of examples of the heroes who have made finance their vocation, I had some difficulty thinking of anyone who had made a huge difference. So many of the well-known figures have feet of clay. But our modern world could not have been built without the bankers and investment managers who have helped mobilize capital, and many more people would have ended their lives in poverty without insurance and pension arrangements. These institutions have been built and are maintained largely by groups of people who have done good work throughout their lives. It would be an exaggeration to call them all heroes, but many are professionals who are working out their vocations—virtuously.
If you are tempted to heroics, remember that none of us has the obligation to save the world, and it is a little arrogant to think you can. Vocation is for the long haul. Jesus was 30 when he began his public activities; Moses, Mohammed, and Gandhi somewhat older before making their unique contributions. The older and more experienced you are, the more likely your stand will bear fruit. In my 20s, I was influenced by a quote from Theodore Roszak (1972, 61), “Nothing counts more heavily against the technocracy than a successful desertion, for there is no underestimating the influence of an authentically happy disaffiliate …”. I still like the quote, even if I rather wrested it out of context and cannot really recommend the book. It suggests you have to have participated in a system to understand it, before you can really transform it.
There are those who are called to be heroes, but it is beyond me to make the call. If there are older readers of this book who are financially secure, there may well be places to be brave, and even radical. It is the responsibility of older men and women to take the uncomfortable stands—and to preserve the young from untenable pressures, such as being sent into the trenches or on suicide missions.
Chapter summary: The virtues include the self-control and courage that make us who we aspire to be; and the justice and wisdom that would direct our actions in ways that we would want as members of flourishing communities. Integrity holds the virtuous character together with a meaningful vocation. But, as we will fall short, we need to be ready to forgive ourselves and others. We do not have to be heroes.
1This is from Part 5, Chapter 2 of Drucker (2012). Drucker has been called the “father of management theory,” and has written widely on management development.
2MacIntyre develops these ideas in Dependant Rational Animals.
3Stan van Hooft’s book gives more extensive coverage, showing also that there is a wide range of interpretations of virtue ethics. The structure shown in Figure 1.1 is my way of thinking about the virtues—and linking them to ethical behavior (deontological theories) and outcomes (teleological theories). Following what I understand of McIntyre (and Christian tradition), virtuous people want to, and often do, good things and achieve good objectives. It is not possible to determine which comes first, or to prove anything is good or virtuous from first principles. Ultimately we seek views that are reconcilable to each other.