The Virtue Signal

In September Rhonda was invited to talk about The Virtue Signal at the Women's Evening of Encouragement at Westminster Presbyterian Church. The event was recorded and is presented in this Special Bonus episode.

The most underrated (and rarely discussed) aspect of fortitude is the component virtue of magnanimity, or greatness of soul or heart. This greatness of spirit motivates us to attempt great things, but also gives the gentler strength to rise above petty insults or the jealousy of others in order to maintain an even temper and keep the peace.

In Episode 14, Fortitude and Love of Country, Rhonda looks at the partiotic courage that inspirde Francis Scott Key to write "The Star Spangled Banner." Justice requires that citizens recognize both successes and failures to live up to our national ideals, and true patriotic love for country demands the fortitude to face both old and new challenges to the striving to become a more virtuo...

Rhonda begins Episode 13, Keep Your Head, with a look at the Two Minutes Hate in George Orwell's novel, 1984, in order to discuss the tendency to dehumanize the opposition and how the virtue of fortitude joins with the virtues of prudence and justice to address this tendency.

Episode 12 Everyday Justice begins the exploration of the virtue of justice at the most basic level of how we treat each other by examining the role of manners in building a respecting and just society. At the individual level, manners communicate respect for those around us by treating with the dignity and the tolerance that is their due as fellow human beings.

In America we always want to know the numbers, the statistics behind whatever claims people make, and so we have also devised a myriad of demographic categories to identify what cross-section of society we are measuring and discussing at any given time. One of the demographic categories we use is generations--Baby boomers, Baby Busters, Generation X, Millennials, and currently, Generation Z. Dr. A...

Jury duty forms one of the two critical duties of citizenship in a self-governing society. (The other duty is informing oneself and voting in elections.) In this episode, Rhonda refers to the Lindsay Clancy trial as a springboard to discuss how the virtue of justice may operate in the civic duty of jury service, touching upon John Adams's defense of the British soldiers involved in the Boston...

Episode 10 draws upon the observations of Plato's Republic , Cicero's On Obligations , and Marcus Aurelius's Meditations to examine what it means to respect oneself and to behave justly toward one's body and towards one's mind and soul. Reflecting on how to treat oneself justly then leads in future episodes to the larger consideration of how to exercise the virtue of justice to...

Rhonda begins the exploration of the virtue of justice by considering the difference between what is legal and what is just, or morally right, as illustrated in passages from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" and Sophocles' Antigone. The virtue of justice concerns moral excellence in the ways we live with and treat each other, not just compliance with lega...

In Episode 8, the focus of discussion shifts from honesty as a component of prudence to the foundation of justice in the dignity of our shared humanity across race, gender, political views, and more. Drawing upon sources as various as Hesiod, Cicero, George Washington, and the legendary poem Beowulf , Rhonda argues that respect for our common humanity has formed the root of the virtue of justice a...

The last aspect of honesty as a component of prudence that we will consider in this episode is honesty to a higher power or God. Rhonda brings comments by Marcus Aurelius and prayers by Benjamin Franklin and George Washington into the discussion to show that it is this kind of honesty in particular that becomes the measure and the source of all virtuous action, both in individuals and in nations.

Depictions of prudence frequently show the virtue as a woman carrying a mirror and a serpent, signifying knowledge of oneself and the skillful use of knowledge. In this episode, Rhonda takes a close look at moments from the lives of two figures known for their prudence--modern civil rights leader Robert L. Woodson, Sr. and founding father Benjamin Franklin--when each learned something about himsel...

Humanity is only beginning to measure the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on every aspect of modern life. Willy-nilly we are forced by our engagement with the world around us to engage also with AI. Rhonda focuses in this episode on one article from The Chronicle of Higher Education that highlights the need for prudence and honesty in the use of AI: education.

Everyone has heard the story of little George Washington chopping down his father's cherry tree with his hatchet. In this episode, Rhonda takes a deep dive into this story, exploring what its simpllicity reveals about the virtues of honesty, courage, prudence, and...parenting.

We don’t hear people refer to prudence very muchnowadays, but the virtue of prudence is needed perhaps more now than ever. Using examples from The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Odyssey ,Rhonda provides an overview of the virtue of prudence and its relationship totruth, and then begins consideration of the component virtues that contributeto the exercise of prudence.

The trailer provides a quick overview of The Virtue Signal.

Virtue is something that people don’t seem totalk about much anymore. Many students never learn about it in schools, and yetvirtue was the main goal of education from ancient times up into the 20thcentury. In this episode, McDaniel looks into the relationship between virtueand freedom and provides her rational for the show.

We commonly use the phrase “virtue signaling” torefer to an outward gesture of “virtue” that is meant to win approval from anaudience as opposed to an act arising out of authentic personal integrity. InEpisode 1: The Pursuit of Happiness, host Rhonda McDaniel takes a close look atwhat was meant by the phrase “pursuit of happiness” and its connection tovirtue for citizens in a self-governing societ...