greek-ethicsfeatured in 30 works

The Cardinal Virtues

Four pillars of good character — wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice — that became the West's basic moral vocabulary.

The cardinal virtues are the foundational quartet of practical wisdom (phronēsis), courage (andreia), temperance or self-control (sōphrosynē), and justice (dikaiosynē). Plato gave them their classic structure in the Republic (4th century BCE), mapping each onto a part of the soul and of the well-ordered city. The Stoics and Cicero carried them into Roman thought, and they were later absorbed into Christian ethics — named 'cardinal' from the Latin cardo, 'hinge,' because the moral life turns on them.

How it traveled

Protagoras
Athens · -385
explains
Republic
Athens · -375
explains
Laws
Athens · -348
explains
Panathenaicus
Athens · -339
explains
Rhetoric
Chalcis · -335
explains
Nicomachean Ethics
Chalcis · -322
explains
Eudemian Ethics
Chalcis · -322
explains
Politics
Chalcis · -322
explains
Topica
Chalcis · -322
explains
Divisiones Aristoteleae
Chalcis · -322
explains
De Inventione
Formiae · -84
explains
Pro L. Murena
Formiae · -63
explains
de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum
Formiae · -43
explains
Tusculanae Disputationes
Formiae · -43
explains
Institutio Oratoria
Rome · 95
explains
De Stoicorum repugnantiis
Chaeronea · 120
explains
Ad Se Ipsum
Vindobona (Vienna) · 170
explains
Avot DeRabbi Natan
Yavneh · 220
Vitae philosophorum
— · 240
explains
Enneades
Rome · 270
explains
Res Gestae
Rome · 400
explains
Sanhedrin
Sura (Babylonia) · 500
Berakhot
Sura (Babylonia) · 500
Makkot
Sura (Babylonia) · 500
Midrash Tanchuma
Tiberias · 600
Shemot Rabbah
Tiberias · 600
Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah
Babylonia (region) · 900
Mivchar HaPeninim
Granada · 950
Midrash Tehillim
Eretz Yisrael (travels) · 1050
Duties of the Heart
Zaragoza (Saragossa) · 1080

Key passages(20)

Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 25.4.1↗explains

Res Gestae · Ammianus Marcellinus