They also possess virtues that help to ameliorate a problem of rapidly growing magnitude in the analysis of complex living systems: that the data produced by high-throughput methods ("gene chips") have very high error rates.
For modal fictionalism to become the preferred treatment of possible worlds, it must not only be able to perform adequately the tasks assigned to talk of possible worlds, it must also do better than its rivals, or at least possess virtues that those rivals lack.
As Percy Newby has said, "The Crusaders were fascinated by a Muslim leader who possessed virtues they assumed were Christian".
His argument that functional democracies require the population to possess civic virtue in high measure, a virtue that consists in valuing public good above private interest, influences later Enlightenment theorists, including both Rousseau and Madison.
They should either set out the characteristic motivations and thoughts of those who possess the virtue or explain why it is that integrity is an anomalous virtue, one not associated with characteristic motivations and thoughts.
Neither Robert Skidelsky nor Peter Clarke leaves much doubt that the proponents of the "Anglo-American consensus" based their economic policies on the prejudices of private enterprise which they chose not to challenge - partly because their own inclination led them in the same direction and partly because the better option did not possess the virtue of simplicity.
As a non-economist, I cannot exude technical confidence about which forms of federal activity are more likely to generate G.D.P. or job growth than others, although I do think that common sense argues against tax cuts now because, although they possess the virtue of speed, in this environment, the money returned to taxpayers is more likely to be saved than spent productively.
Does this person possess the virtue of gratitude?
There are, first, those rights which children possess in virtue of their condition of childishness.
Group rights should not be confused with rights that people possess in virtue of being members of groups.
