Since the soul is important, we need to keep it in a good environment. To begin with, to interact on the earth, a body is needed. Virtue in context, is the best use of a thing. The virtue of the body is to be alive and well as long as possible to house the soul. Although a person can be happy despite physical discomfort, the ideal is to be healthy so everything can be enjoyed at it’s fullest. This body has needs and therefore has appetites to fill these needs. If we don’t control them, virtue is affected and appetites, in the name of bringing enjoyment, can cause damage to the body. To little of an appetite can also starve a person. The goal is to temper them so our body can have a long painless life. Our soul can then enjoy each experience all the more.

After the appetites, we have passions and then after that is our reasoning faculties. Each of these areas build on each other and the boundaries are obscure. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate exactly where one stops and the other begins. Our passions contain our ambitions. In order to get what we want at times we have to temper appetites. This is true especially in sports. The virtue of our passions is to give our soul enjoyment. They have to be tempered with patience. Passions vary so people shouldn’t judge others if they don’t have like passions. Reasoning faculties exist to help us keep the body healthy and to direct our passions. There are various areas it pulls on to make decisions. Some things we learn along the way and put into memory to use later and other things we figure out on the spot. This is only a vague summary as numerous books have been written on the subject.

When involved in politics, the same patterns are followed. The citizen’s physical safety is the foundation. As physical needs are met, people become free to use their faculties for things other than survival. The physical actions that are out of bounds and cause harm to citizens must be tempered with law and enforcement. In the same way an individual doesn’t want to become a slave to another person’s pressing needs, a republic shouldn’t stifle it’s citizen’s passions in order to appease a group. The virtue of the form of friendship we call government is to keep those who participate as citizens safe and in order. This is so each citizen can be free to pursue their own passions. There is a certain satisfaction when one exercises each area of his soul and body. Exercise only comes with resistance. As each person overcomes their own obstacles, they make the best use of their faculties and have the satisfaction that comes with things working at their peak performance. A secure environment is necessary for this but removing obstacles should be done by individuals.

Aristotle quoted an actor that said he wanted to be on the stage first since people always love the first person the most. This applies to our passions and how we raise children too. That will be our next subject. See you in a few!