1. Introduction. The word “virtue” (and its counter-
parts in most other languages) is used to attribute some
kind of value to conduct or action. Its meanings are
therefore potentially as various as the bases on which
men value their acts. The predominant meaning in
English has become moral virtue; a virtuous man is
one who lives in accord with certain moral standards.
Even in our language, however, other senses of the
word survive. When we speak of the virtue of a partic-
ular course of action, we mean its power to achieve
certain results. We also speak (slightly archaically,
perhaps) of the virtue of a drug, meaning its inherent
potency or efficacy. These latter senses have in com-
mon their attribution of value to action (or to the
potential for it) on the basis of power or efficacy,
whereas the concept of moral virtue derives value from
intent or result. This is the fundamental division among
meanings of virtue: on the one hand, a “moral” sense
which focuses on the conformity of actions to approved
standards or ends, on the other a “non-moral” sense
concerned with the power of an action (or an actor)
to be effective or to achieve a desired end.
The history of the idea of virtue is the history of
both these senses of the word, and of the relations
between them. Often the two senses have existed side
by side, and men have not been troubled by the differ-
ences between them. In times of moral crisis, however,
the contradictions potentially present in “virtue” have
come to the surface and have been employed by
thinkers to criticize old values and aid in the devel-
opment of new ones. The ambivalence of “virtue”
provides a means to challenge dominant moral values
through an emphasis on other values also inherent—
while perhaps submerged—in existing language. This
is what occurred during the Italian Renaissance. After
a period in which the idea of virtue came increasingly
into men's minds, Machiavelli set out a critique of
traditional moral virtue through a reemphasis on virtue
in the purely active sense.
