Vices, Vice City, and Smoking
The only way to bring a hereditary prince down is through his extraordinary vices. I drew from Machiavelli to reach this conclusion.
Descartes tells us that the greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices. (well, that’s only half of the quote)
And then there is uncle Benji who asks us to always be at war with our vices.
The first time I came across the V-word, it was used in a 2000s video game to describe a wild city. The game was called Vice City and I really hated it since I could not play well. What can I say, I am more of an Age of Empires guy.
Yes, I am thinking in depth about the word today. The main question of this discourse will be: what is a vice? And there will be a number of side questions that will emerge as we move on. I will try to answer some and I am pretty sure that a lot will be left unanswered. Well, I need content for future discourses too.
Even though the game was horrible (like I said, I could not play), Vice City will come handy when I explain the nature of vices.
In that game and others that followed, one act was surprisingly common: stealing someone’s car, either directly from the street or the parking lot. When one’s character threatens and loots the owner of the car, the owner is shoved out from the driving seat, sometimes sustaining injuries. Ok boomer! So what?
There are two characteristic traits of vices underlying in that act. First, everyone will concede that the act was wrong. What if a person was in a medical emergency? Or if the person’s need (generally financial) drove them to the act? To these questions I will simply reply that the act is still an infringement of the owner’s property rights. Unless the owner agrees to hand over the vehicle to the person, it is always wrong to take hold of the steering wheel. The understanding is that vices are always objectively wrong. Subjective vices are apparent problems. What this means is that vices are not connected to morality since morality is subjective too.
Before I reveal the second trait let me ask you, “Did you ever feel guilty of robbing a car from the guy in the game?” Don’t even start complaining that you did, because I know you did not. That is how vices work. You never feel like you are doing something wrong when you commit a vice. A smoker will tell other people that smoking is smoking is injurious to health and that such habit should never be cultivated. But she will never how injured she has already become through consistent smoking habit. A thief will always think about the monetary gain over the immorality of her action. She will have a subjective reason stronger than the sensation of guilt. Therefore, in her point of view, she will not be committing a crime when she steals from someone else.
Have I asked too many questions? I will fire another. How many people quit smoking because of the health complications it invites? That’s a bullshit question. Quite a number of smokers quit smoking due to the health problems it can cause. But how many of them quit smoking after the first cigarette? I assume they would have known the side effects beforehand. Let’s reframe that question, why do people smoke at all when they know what awaits smokers? Well, that question would have suited the preceding paragraph. Now, the relevant question; “Why is it difficult to quit smoking?” I understand there are scientific reasons to this, some chemical reaction and psychological reasoning. But all I can deduce from this question pertaining to all vices is that vices are people’s habit. Like smoking, or hijacking a car, people find comfort in repeating the wrong. And these comfortable wrongs that become habits are vices. If a wrong is only committed once, it is a mistake. A person who has only smoked once is not a smoker, she smoked by mistake.
For now, I will only disclose these three characteristic traits of vices since even I am not sure about the other traits I could think of. Next, lets try to draw a method to classify vices. That’s my favorite part of a discourse.
There are at least three basis to divide vices. First, a vice can either be committed by an individual or a group of people. Second, a vice will either have an effect on an individual or a group of people. The first kind of harm is a human effect. This is generally self-harm which affects the longevity of a person’s life. The second kind of harm is humanity effect, or it affects a portion (not just a single human) or the entirety of humanity. In some cases, these vices are actions against humanity. You could also call this social harm. Third, a vice is either infectious or not. The infectious vices could also be called social vices. Either people are attracted to committing a vice or repelled by it. People will want to burn firewood during winter evenings, but they will not want to copy a serial killer. (some might)
That was quick. Now lets try to classify a common vice. Smoking is an individual actor vice with a human effect, sometimes humanity effect as the smoke ultimately harms our environment, and it is infectious. Think of another vice and try to classify it too.
Is that the end of our discussion on vices? Absolutely no. I have more to share about the difference between vices and social problems, how vices and desires are connected and more of such questions pertaining the nature of vices. We will discuss it all. Until next time!
