ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an attempt to translate the Jungian model of psychological development as expressed in the notion of transcendent function into a language of virtues. It proposes to adopt an aretaic language to refer to the identified sub-processes that favour the transcendent function, in order to highlight their implicitly prescriptive use. The chapter introduces the virtues of vulnerability and incorruptibility as the normative equivalents of the naturalistic mechanisms of integration and differentiation, respectively. In order to better understand these virtues, it uses a method that is specific to virtue ethics and not new to Jungians: not only defining things conceptually, but also pointing at concrete, virtuous, or vicious individuals. The chapter exemplifies the need for incorruptibility with the novel Damage, already a focus of ethical and psychoanalytic interest. Stephen Fleming is a successful politician, completely absorbed by his social role and responsibilities: in Jung’s view, the typical victim of Anima.
