How to be virtuous?

Relative to a sound judgment. Happy days for Epicurus because nice talks between friends, talking and thinking together being naturally good. I wouldn't say that "virtue is relative" if my kid likes to eat sand.

go to bed Aristotle, you are putting everyone to sleep

Join the proletariat and seize the means of production. Vanguard parties don't work.

I wouldn't know as it cannot be taught. Just be ignorant.

Virtues are trash

Serious answer, here are some book recommendations. This is not meant to be comprehensive, but you won't be wasting your time if you pick these.

Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics." This is of course one of the most important and foundational philosophical works on virtue. This is the work that analyzed virtue as being functional, i.e. directed towards some end, and as being a mean between extremes.

Plato's "Republic." Often mistaken for a political treatise, but Socrates specifically explains that the state is actually being used as an analogy for the soul, and thus it should be read this way. This is the work that introduced the ideas of the four cardinal virtues and analyzed how the different parts of the soul/mind function according to the appropriate virtue, e.g. the virtue most proper to reason, the "ruler" of the soul, is prudence.

Boethius's "The Consolation of Philosophy." Written while he was unjustly imprisoned and awaiting death, and one of the most influential works of the next thousand years. It's about a lot of things, but mainly it's about how one should deal with the problem of evil, and how one should live in an unjust world.

Josef Pieper's "Four Cardinal Virtues." Pieper is a modern philosopher, and thus a little more accessible to modern readers. This is a work that focuses specifically on the cardinal virtues themselves, as opposed to being more generally on the soul as the "Republic" is. Pieper is a great writer; most philosophers present a world view that is specifically dealing how things work in a flawed world, I often think that Pieper gets the closest of anyone to showing how things would work in a perfect world (which is not to say what he writes is not applicable to this world, far from it).

I would like to note that understanding the metaphysics of people like Aristotle, etc, is very helpful towards understanding their ethics. Metaphysics is the foundation of ethics.

Don't be poor, don't work for a living

Do you know the way to Larissa?

>Plato's "Republic." Often mistaken for a political treatise, but Socrates specifically explains that the state is actually being used as an analogy for the soul, and thus it should be read this way

Source: My ass

>virtuous

>Source: My ass
actually, he's right.

not him but to outright disregard it as non-political is just wrong. theres obviously a connection being drawn with the two else plato wouldnt devote that much space

There will never be a universal agreement of what is truly virtuous and what is not.
It is entirely up to you to decide what you believe to be virtuous and then live accordingly.

That is how.

It's almost as if Plato is illustrating his penchant for symmetry and that it is obvious to everyone who isn't a fucking retard that the lessons of the Republic apply both to the individual human and the state as a whole, and that Plato literally and explicitly states this early in the work.

make money fuck bitches

>lessons of the Republic apply both to the individual human and the state as a whole
well of course, insofar as the ruling of a soul is like the ruling of a state and vice versa. but the point was THE SOUL, and look how we can debate about it using a state analogy. oh bonus, now we also know how a state could be run like a just soul.

you do know that the cultivation of the just soul is necessarily a political act? its so obvious with how a philosopher is compelled to go from outside the cave and back into the cave ("going down into the piraeus") but nonetheless being condemned for it. its almost as if plato is drawing a parallel between this and the apology, where he was condemned for his ignorance and eventually put to death. not to mention the fact that socrates is similarly a defender here. it starts with him questioning cephalus and polemarchus to thrasymachus condemning him for his idea of justice and finally to glaucon and adeimantus further pressing socrates rather than the usual other way around. it is a defense similar to that in legal proceedings, a la apology. socrates does not do the questioning but instead he is questioned. also, note how in this dialogue the philosopher rules. in a city where the philosopher rules, he will not be put to death obviously. perhaps it is an attempt to make a city where philosophy truly is the best way of life? again, the fact that the topic here is justice should bring into mind to any reader the very unjust act of putting socrates to death and relate the two.

again, to say the point is only the soul and everything relates to it is too simplistic of a reading. all of this works as a defense of philosophy as the superior way of life.

dead meme, too.