ABSTRACT
America’s law enforcement agencies need people of good virtue to lead and man them. Herodotus’s commentary “to ride well, shoot straight, and speak the truth”* recognizes that there are absolute truths and an internal moral compass that warriors should follow. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, as well as the court of popular opinion, are constantly militating for us to “leave our fond medieval illusions behind and join the existentially-ambiguous, every-man-a-magisterium chaos of our liberal, individualistic, postmodern world.”† This must not happen if we want to keep our society in proper balance. Any person or group that lacks in one or more of the cardinal virtues is doomed to failure. As William Penn, the founder and namesake of Pennsylvania, said:
It is time to reexamine the importance of the cardinal virtues, specifically as they relate to law enforcement, and to defend them against a vocal minority attempting to extinguish their eternal guiding flames. In his outstanding books, Virtuous Leadership and Created for Greatness: The Power of Magnanimity, ethicist and author Alexandre Havard sets forth the foundations of what makes a leader magnanimous instead of pusillanimous. Books well worth reading in their totality, Havard’s key concepts derive from the cardinal virtues: courage, justice, competence, and self-control. Police leaders should then strive to cement these virtues within their agencies with an organizational sense of unit humility and magnanimity. Once an organization’s culture adopts such an ethos, it can survive life’s vicissitudes much more harmoniously.
