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LEON KASS: Even though he doesn’t attain, attain the moral perfection, in fact fails
in many respects, he still credits this project with the happiness…that he became a much
happier and better human being than he would otherwise have been. And he recommends this
project to his descendants, that they should emulate him and reap the benefits.
DIANA SCHAUB: The virtues he acquires are actually an unstated list of virtues like
tolerance, or accommodation to others. So for instance, with order, he says “it proved
very, very difficult for me to bring order to my life. I’m not a very orderly person.”
But then he also makes the point the reason he could never stick to that order he had
listed for the day was because other people have their own plans for the day and orders.
So he sometimes had to depart from his order in order to conduct his business with them
in a way that was…that accommodated them. So that, so that in fact it seems to me there’s
a kind of second set of virtues here embedded in the first that really are a result of the
failure of, some at least, in the stated set of virtues.
AMY KASS: He’s being very playful as he’s doing it…I would not say he’s giving you
as second list of virtues. There are hidden things he’s trying to say. He says quite
explicitly in each of these explanatory self-injunctions that he gives, or these little precepts. Sincerity:
use no hurtful deceit.
DIANA SCHAUB: Which, which means, in other words, the virtue means “use deceit well.”
AMY KASS: Sometimes. Sometimes. Yes.
DIANA SCHAUB: Maybe as Franklin himself does, as a diplomatist, and an as an author...
AMY KASS: Yes, don’t hate yourself.
DIANA SCHAUB: … who writes under various masks and disguises.