Virtue is a good moral quality in a person, or the general quality of being morally good while social virtue is simply, a means by which people demonstrate their respect for one another and are therefore, a manifestation of inner refinement.
Social virtues find their culmination in our increased capacity for friendship with a wide variety of people. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could call everyone in our workday world friends! Not just neighbours, colleagues or acquaintances, but friends.” Social virtue leads us to overcome our inclination to irritability, rash judgements and actions, basically, to live as though other people didn’t matter- (In Conversation with God. -Volume 5-pg.446).
We cannot allow ourselves to be cut off from any of our neighbors and colleagues. Through the practice of social virtues, we can open up many doors. The social virtues help make our daily life pleasant and they position our soul to a closer union with God.
According to Aristotle, the social virtues is the virtue of Friendliness. And talking about friendliness, it’s about treating everyone equally, becoming more sensitive and grateful to other people. Being orderly and neat particularly, at our workplace and most importantly, making life pleasant for others without being self – centered but with the thought of good in mind, when it comes to friends, enemies, old acquaintances and family.
Social virtues help us to be cheerful and happy and passing this happiness to the people we meet. In fact, one of the most powerful thoughts that one must possess when dealing with others basically emanates from the almighty Golden Rule which says” Do to others as you want others to do to you”. Trust me, the Golden Rule is a very important weapon in everyone’s life and if we are able to keep the Golden Rule at the back of our mind, there is no way that we will not gather the virtues we need to live a good life. Some of these virtues are, Friendliness, Truth, Honesty and trust. When we possess them, they will help us to make good ethical decisions that will better our life, the lives of others around us and also make us a social able person.
Possessing good virtues are very important in everyone’s life and as St. Peter said, we need virtues to put us right with ourselves, to establish the control of reason over the animal in us and to be good rational animal. Remember that it is said that every human being has some animalistic disposition in him so, we need to imbibe good virtues such as, self- control, Chasity, temperance, courage, patience, cordiality, love for truth and so on for us to be persons of good character and behaviour. In other words, we need social virtues to put us right with God, to establish control over our reasoning and make us partakers of the divine nature. Often times, we see or come across people whom we like or admire and we say that the person has good character, this is because that person possess good virtue and that virtue is what guides the behaviour or mannerism of that person. And when one has good social virtues, the person performs good acts and lives a decent life. I mean just like the adage that says,” You can’t give what You don’t have.”
So, as we talk about exhibiting social virtues in holiness, we also need to exhibit social virtues in our workplace or business. We need to obey the principle of fairness in our dealings. Baron Neville once said that “social virtues make reference to the active role of all members within the society and encourages that we obey the principle of moral fairness in relation with all matters of the economy, such as commerce. He said that such a measure entails that every individual should be ethically bounded so much so to be able to control and discipline themselves within the society and also refrain from partaking in the excessive pursuit of the accumulating materialistic wealth which is an attribute of greed”.
We sometimes come across business men and women who are not ethical, l mean who do not possess social values consequently, they exhibit some questionable character such as, cheating, over pricing or over charging their customers/clients for the essential products and goods and even services. This is synonymous to corruption which if care is not taken, may lead to unavoidable hunger and poverty within the society. We need to understand that good virtue or social virtue as the case may be is an important attribute and element of the moral and ideal economics. We should not allow greed or selfishness to destroy our relationships with our customers or clients.
Friendliness, Truth, and trust are some of the basic virtues that every business person should possess if they want to be ethical and sociable. In fact, if you ask me, honesty, trustworthiness, integrity and reliability should be part of the core values of any good enterprise or company. But sometimes we allow self -centeredness to jeopardize the cordial relationship that could have existed between our customers and us. It is worthy to note that a business transaction or discussion built on trust and honesty, will survive the test of time and will also gain the loyalty of the customers / clients and encourage business sustainability. Therefore, when we talk about possessing good social virtues we should look at it holistically because whether spiritually or commercially, we need social virtues to succeed in life. Think about it. God bless you All.
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