ABSTRACT
Human beings are admired for many different qualities. Often we do not clearly grasp the nature of a quality we admire, but we recognize it when we see it expressed in a particularly vivid way in a person who is an exemplar of the quality. This chapter suggests that there is more than one kind of admiration, and that admiration for natural talents differs in the way it feels and in its typical behavioral response from admiration for acquired traits. It looks at how we can use admiration to identify the components of character traits as well as in identifying individual virtues. The chapter proposes that we admire a person more when the behavior expresses a psychological disposition that endures over time, and when the disposition is a deep part of her psychology. It argues that acquired intellectual excellences are importantly similar in their structure to acquired moral excellences and importantly different from natural intellectual excellences.
