Patience counts as a virtue only when practiced independent of circumstance

Evidence

Virtue ethics is essentially a dispositional trait theory of morality. Theories that invest dispositions with overruling power predict higher consistency in moral behavior across situations and areas of life than is observed (Bandura, 1999). In practice, virtuous individuals can behave harmfully under social inducements and even enlist their virtues in the service of violent means for ideological and religious purposes. When bad means are used for good ends, virtues conflict. Inflicting harm is morally reprehensible but improving peoples’ well-being is morally laudatory. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 202 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The marshmallow test, in other words, was not measuring character. It was measuring prefrontal development. The children who waited were not more virtuous. They were more prefrontally mature. Their inhibitory-control hardware was further along. — , The Rod and the Child, 5900 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Here too it is useless to allocate excuses and criticism: justice can never be created within injustice. It is impossible for a colonial administrator to conduct himself well with the indigenous population, or a general with his soldiers; the only solution is to be neither colonialist nor military leader; but a man cannot prevent himself from being a man. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1974 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Renunciation has meaning only when serving a genuine human aim — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 495; Woman’s resignation to suffering produces the patience society admires as feminine virtue. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1744; Urging patience on others for injustice one does not endure is immoral — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 743 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Virtuous character does not yield consistent moral behavior across situations #complicates (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 202
• Delay of gratification reflects prefrontal maturity, not moral character #complicates (0.76) — , The Rod and the Child, 5900
• Personal virtue cannot remedy injustice embedded in the situation itself #complicates (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1974