Is Spontaneity a Virtue?

Imagine a young woman being pursued by two suitors. The first is staid and predictable. He’s consistent, punctual, and perhaps a bit boring. The second is spontaneous. He tends towards the unexpected and adventurous.

Our young woman considers a life with each of these men. She imagines that the first is a safe choice. He won’t quit his job on a whim to become a skydiving instructor. [Note: this example intends no offense towards the skydiving instructors upon whom our nation depends.] However, the safety he offers isn’t likely to be exciting. The second guy, on the other hand, may be more whimsical than trustworthy. He might be more fun, but will he bail on his vows in a fit of spontaneity?

All else being equal, which guy should she pick? Or, to put it more broadly: is spontaneity a virtue? Is it a characteristic we should value in others and attempt to cultivate in ourselves? Virtue ethics offers some clarity to this question.

The school of thought known as virtue ethics was developed in ancient Greece and has been a subject of renewed interest in recent decades. It recognizes four cardinal virtues which, taken together, represent an ideal of human development. The four virtues – Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance – don’t appear to contain anything having to do with spontaneity. If anything, the virtue of temperance would seem to suggest against it. Temperance is about resisting temptation, after all, and the spontaneous person seems to be giving in to temptation.

But take a closer look at courage. Courage is the ability to overcome fear or difficulty in service of the good. Historically, courage is most closely associated with the warrior who must endure hardship and danger, long marches and fierce opponents, to complete a mission. Courage has two faces. It entails both endurance and attack.

The brave man not only knows how to bear inevitable evil with equanimity; he will also not hesitate to ‘pounce upon’ evil and to bar its way, if this can reasonably be done. – Josef Pieper

Endurance, or fortitude, is the ability to withstand difficulty. The mountaineer trudging up the peak and the shift worker dragging himself out of bed in the morning are both exhibiting courage. They are actively sticking with a difficult thing because it is what needs to be done. Endurance is the persevering, unchanging, even stoic face of courage.

The willingness and ability to attack is an aspect of courage that looks very different from endurance. Unlike endurance, attack presents itself suddenly, in a decisive moment. A courageous man who sees a woman being abused in a parking lot will intervene.

And, pertinent to our question, virtue ethics calls on him to act this way without deliberation. Courage should be second nature. This differs from the modern tendency of thinking that ethical questions pertain to what we do. Virtue ethics is more interested in what kind of people we are.  Through long habituation, courage becomes automatic. As Aristotle said, “we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

Paradoxically, courage may cause a person to seem both steady and spontaneous. Life often calls for faithful repetition. It is an act of fortitude to clean the same dishes every day, to exercise regularly, and to consistently report to work on time. However, there are those times when one must become critical of an established routine; when the path of safety and familiarity should be questioned and rejected. There is a time to endure and a time to attack.

Our imaginary young woman would do well to consider which of her suitors is more courageous. Perhaps the first man is predictable because he is timid. Maybe he is simply too afraid to do anything outside of his routine. If so, then life with this man is likely to be not only boring, but shameful. The situation is different, however, if his consistency is a sign of courage. It may be that he has developed the habits of fortitude. The evidence will be in his actions.

As for the second man, is his spontaneity the result of courage or evidence of its absence? Is his apparent whimsy actually a demonstration that he cares more about goodness than convention? Maybe the pursuit of the good life will often appear idiosyncratic.

Then again, what looks like free spiritedness may actually be cowardice. It may be an inability to suffer under discomfort. And so our imaginary young woman will have to ask herself which of these men is more courageous. Which is more likely to meet the challenges of courage, whether of endurance or attack?