Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece, Declassified.

Episode R1, Plato's Republic Book 1, The Hunt for Justice.

Virtues are more important than values.

That line jumped out at me from an audiobook my wife was listening to the other day.

I remember thinking, wow, that simple phrase really sums up a key difference between ancient

Greek and modern approaches to ethics.

Our society today seems obsessed with values.

Just think about how many times you've heard the phrase,

our shared values, or that goes against our values.

Every club, company, corporation, political party, and religious institution today

touts its own list of values up on its website. By contrast, the ancient

Greeks didn't care much for what we call values. For them, it was all about virtues. What's the

difference? Well, values are essentially beliefs. Anyone can claim to have them. But virtues are

behaviors or activities. It's very difficult to claim you have a certain virtue, say courage,

unless you have a track record of behaving courageously.

By contrast, anyone can claim to value courage.

And so, an ancient Greek philosopher, if presented with our modern outlook about values,

would probably say, you know, I think virtues are more important.

Now, you might have guessed that this audiobook was on the history of philosophy.

But actually, it was a book by the famous investor and tech entrepreneur Ben Horowitz

about how company founders can build a healthy culture among their team that helps their

company grow and succeed.

...