ABSTRACT
Virtues are simply praiseworthy traits of human character. Although much of biomedical ethics in the past generation has focused on the principles of action rather than the character traits of the one doing the acting, traditional health professional ethics was concerned as much or more with the character of the health professional. The virtue of benevolence corresponds to the principle of beneficence. The Hippocratic Oath, reflecting its origins in a Greek mystery religion, affirms two virtues, both of which have unmistakable religious overtones: purity and holiness. The four classical Greek virtues are justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom. By contrast, early Christianity, as exemplified in the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians, lists faith, hope, and love. Roman Catholics tend to affirm both the Greek and Christian virtues. In addition to the difficulty in identifying exactly which virtues should be on one's list, virtue theory poses other problems: the wrong virtue problem and the naked virtue problem.
