An alphabetical reference
All Vices
Find a disposition by name and compare its readings across collections.
Vices in context
51 entries across 7 collections. Shared definitions connect their contextual readings. Where collections give the same name a different meaning, each definition and its collection remain together.
A
- Arrogance
An inflated sense of one's importance or judgment that discounts correction and other people's standing.
Confidence can remain answerable to reasons and criticism.
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- Avarice
Acquisition becoming more important than fairness or the needs of others.
Providing for ordinary needs and financial security is not the same pattern.
C
- Callousness
Habitual indifference to another person's suffering or serious needs.
Distinguish indifference from an inability to meet every need or a necessary difficult decision.
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- Capability Worship
Habitually treating possession of a capability as sufficient justification for exercising it.
Feasibility becomes permission. Unlike recklessness, the person may foresee consequences accurately and still regard power as its own license.
- Complacency
Unwarranted satisfaction with one's adequacy that weakens needed attention or improvement.
Unlike arrogance, it need not claim superiority; unlike rigidity, it may simply see no need to examine the situation.
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- Contempt
A habitual disposition to regard other people as beneath basic consideration or respect.
Its focus is the standing denied to another person. Arrogance inflates one’s own importance or judgment; Cruelty seeks suffering or humiliation. Disapproval, anger, criticism and ending contact need not deny a person’s basic standing.
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- Contrarianism
A habitual preference for opposing a prevailing view that gives opposition itself greater weight than relevant reasons warrant.
The focus is opposition as a misplaced standard of judgment. Independent dissent, testing a consensus and a justified contrary conclusion are different; neither admiration-seeking nor newness is necessary.
- Cowardice
Habitual surrender of a considered, defensible purpose to fear when a fitting response was reasonably available.
Caution, dependence, coercion and a person's inability to absorb a danger must not be recast as moral failure. It is not a demand to accept business risk.
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- Credulity
A habitual readiness to accept claims on inadequate grounds when fitting scrutiny is reasonably available.
Accepting a claim is the focus; deference concerns whose judgment governs, and truth indifference concerns whether truth matters.
- Cruelty
A habitual readiness to make another person's suffering or humiliation part of what one seeks, rather than an incidental cost of a defensible action.
Seeking suffering differs from indifference to it (Callousness), denying someone’s standing (Contempt), and seeking payback (Vindictiveness). A necessary painful decision does not establish cruelty. These dispositions can overlap.
- Cynicism
A habitual presumption of base or self-serving motives that discounts relevant reasons for acknowledging sincerity or ethical concern.
The focus is an unfair default attribution of motives. Warranted suspicion, mixed-motive analysis and historical Cynic philosophy are not identified as vices. It need not deny basic standing or protect a flattering account of oneself.
D
- Defeatism
Habitually surrendering worthwhile purposes to an inadequately examined conviction that meaningful action is futile.
Reasonable recognition of limits, pessimism, distress and changing a purpose for adequate reasons differ; no duty to outperform machines is implied.
- Dishonesty
A readiness to make or preserve a misleading understanding for advantage, convenience or concealment.
False promises, selective concealment and fraudulent presentation are possible expressions, not separate identities by default.
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- Domineeringness
A persistent desire to control others that overrides their reasonable agency.
Delegation, supervision and justified coordination do not by themselves establish it.
Everyday Vices (Domination) · Business Vices · Executive Vices · Political Vices (Domination) · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices (Domination) · AI Age Vices (Domination)
E
- Envy
Resentment of another's advantage, with a desire to diminish or deny it.
Learning from a rival, seeking improvement and recognizing unfair advantage are different.
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- Envy
Resentment of another person’s good fortune, with a wish to diminish it.
Admiration can instead help clarify what you value.
F
- Fanaticism
A habitual commitment to a cause that treats its advancement as overriding defensible moral limits and other people's legitimate claims.
The focus is granting a cause overriding moral permission. Strong conviction, radical reform and sustained activism do not establish it. Rigidity resists warranted reconsideration; Recklessness discounts consequences. A fanatic may adapt tactics and anticipate harm while treating that harm as licensed by the cause.
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G
- Gluttony
Consumption that repeatedly overrides consideration for its consequences and for others.
Appetite, body size, and illness are not measures of character.
- Greed
Excessive desire for gain that persistently overrides fair claims or defensible limits.
Acquisition is its focus; ambition and earning a reasonable return are not sufficient evidence.
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H
- Hypocrisy
Habitually demanding standards of others while making unjustified exceptions for oneself.
An admitted failure to meet a shared standard is not automatically Hypocrisy. It differs from misleading another (Dishonesty) and maintaining a comforting belief (Self-Deception); the double standard can be openly acknowledged.
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I
- Impatience
Habitual unwillingness to allow the time or process that a worthwhile purpose reasonably requires.
Urgency can be justified. The issue is intolerance of necessary duration, not simply moving quickly.
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- Inconstancy
Habitually abandoning considered purposes or commitments without an adequate reason.
Changed evidence can justify a changed commitment. This differs from a promise that was deceptive from the start.
Everyday Vices (Fickleness) · Business Vices · Executive Vices · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices · AI Age Vices (Fickleness)
- Ingratitude
A habitual unwillingness to give fitting appreciative regard to benefits freely received and to those who provided them.
The focus is refused appreciation of an acknowledged benefit. It need not involve deception, acquisition, denied basic standing or unfair allocation. Appreciation does not require repayment, obedience, public praise or endorsement of a benefactor's other conduct; coercion and purported favors that impose unjust claims are different.
- Ironic Detachment
Habitually using ironic disavowal to evade taking answerable ownership of what one expresses or values when such ownership is reasonably called for.
The focus is retaining an escape from sincere answerability. Humor, satire, privacy, uncertainty, changing one's mind and withholding disclosure under threat do not establish it. It need not depend on fear or seek admiration.
- Irresolution
A persistent unwillingness to settle a choice when adequate grounds for an appropriate decision are available.
It concerns settling a choice; procrastination may instead delay carrying out a choice already made.
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L
- Lust
Desire pursued with disregard for another person’s dignity, consent, or autonomy.
Attraction and consensual sexuality are not equated with this harmful pattern in our editorial treatment.
M
- Metric Worship
Habitually treating a numerical indicator as more authoritative than the worthwhile purpose it is meant to serve.
A proxy displaces its end; measurement, targets and proportionate optimization are legitimate.
- Miserliness
Habitual unwillingness to part with resources even when their proper use calls for expenditure or provision.
Preservation is its focus; prudent reserves and saying no to a poor investment are different.
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N
- Negligence
Habitual disregard for the attention and care one could reasonably give to entrusted concerns.
Distinguish insufficient resources, incapacity and unforeseeable error. This is an editorial meaning, not a legal determination.
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- Novelty Worship
Habitually treating newness or unfamiliarity as sufficient grounds for superiority, at the expense of relevant evidence or enduring value.
The focus is misplaced authority given to novelty. Curiosity, experimentation and a justified preference for a new idea are different; novelty need not be beautiful or fashionable.
P
- Partiality
Persistent, unjustified favoritism in the weight given to people's claims, evidence or opportunities.
Relevant distinctions and warranted preference require reasons; not every preference is a vice.
Everyday Vices (Favoritism) · Business Vices · Executive Vices · Political Vices (Favoritism) · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices (Favoritism) · AI Age Vices (Favoritism)
- Possessiveness
A habitual claim to ownership of another person's attention, attachments or independent choices, pursued at the expense of their reasonable freedom.
The focus is an exclusive claim over a person. Jealous feelings, a wish for closeness and freely agreed commitments do not by themselves establish it. Domineeringness concerns control more generally; Envy concerns another person’s advantage.
- Pride
A sense of superiority that resists correction or diminishes others.
Confidence and satisfaction in good work need not involve contempt.
- Profligacy
Habitually indulging expenditure or consumption without fitting regard for the resources entrusted to one's care.
Spending too much is an outcome to investigate; a justified costly investment is not profligacy.
Everyday Vices (Wastefulness) · Executive Vices · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices · AI Age Vices (Wastefulness)
R
- Recklessness
Disregard for foreseeable, significant consequences, including risks imposed on other people.
Unlike impatience, it concerns the weight given to consequences; a calculated risk is not automatically reckless.
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- Responsibility Evasion
A habitual unwillingness to acknowledge or bear the answerability reasonably attaching to one's choices and contributions.
It can openly admit the facts while refusing answerability. It need not involve dishonesty, fear or failure to exercise care.
- Rigidity
Habitual unwillingness to revise a view or method when relevant reasons call for reconsideration.
Dogmatism and procedural inflexibility are contexts to distinguish within the article; ethical constancy is not rigidity.
Everyday Vices (Stubbornness) · Business Vices · Executive Vices · Political Vices · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices · AI Age Vices (Stubbornness)
S
- Self-Deception
Habitually sustaining a comforting or self-serving interpretation despite reasons one could reasonably acknowledge against it.
It concerns the story maintained; dishonesty concerns what is represented to others. Do not infer a person's inner state from a failed forecast.
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- Selfishness
A persistent preference for one's own advantage or convenience over other people's legitimate claims.
Its focus is the unfair weighting of interests. Greed concerns acquisition; Callousness concerns indifference to suffering. The claims of an organization do not automatically outweigh those of the individual or the public.
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- Servility
Habitual surrender of considered judgment to secure favor or approval.
Compliance under threat or dependence is not a freely chosen vice. Sycophantic behavior is one possible expression.
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- Sloth
Habitual avoidance of worthwhile effort that one has a reasonable capacity and responsibility to undertake.
Rest, disability and refusing an unjustified demand are not sloth. It need not take the form of inactivity.
Everyday Vices (Laziness) · Business Vices · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices · AI Age Vices (Laziness)
- Sloth
Persistent avoidance of a worthwhile action that one is able to undertake.
Rest, disability, exhaustion, and illness must not be interpreted as moral failure.
- Style Worship
Habitually allowing elegance, beauty or expressive effect to override warranted judgments of truth, importance or ethical acceptability.
The focus is misplaced authority given to form. Artistic devotion, aesthetic pleasure and judging art by artistic criteria do not establish it.
T
- Truth Indifference
Habitually treating the truth of factual claims as dispensable when they serve a preferred purpose.
Unlike dishonesty, it need not aim to mislead; unlike credulity, it need not believe the claim. Fiction and honestly acknowledged uncertainty differ.
U
- Uncritical Deference
Habitually granting an external judgment authority beyond its warranted grounds in place of assessment one could reasonably exercise.
Reasoned reliance on expertise is legitimate. Unlike servility, this does not require seeking favor; unlike credulity, it can govern action despite private doubt.
V
- Vanity
Excessive dependence on admiration and the appearance of importance.
Unlike arrogance, it centers the audience's approval rather than one's supposed superiority.
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- Venality
A readiness to trade a considered ethical commitment or entrusted responsibility for personal reward.
Unlike dishonesty, its defining focus is purchasability; a transaction can be openly corrupting without an explicit lie.
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- Vindictiveness
A habitual disposition to seek payback against someone for a real or perceived injury, slight, embarrassment or challenge.
Its focus is punitive retaliation, rather than indifference (Callousness) or control (Domineeringness). Proportionate protection, correction and fair accountability are different.
Everyday Vices (Vengefulness) · Business Vices · Executive Vices · Political Vices · Intellectual-Bohemian Vices
W
- Willful Blindness
Deliberately avoiding available inquiry or evidence in order not to confront an unwelcome reality.
It concerns avoided knowledge; inability, lack of access and an honest mistake are different.
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- Wrath
Habitually indulging anger at the expense of fair judgment and proportionate response.
Anger itself, distress and fear responses are not a vice. Vindictiveness seeks payback; Cruelty seeks suffering. The focus here is allowing anger to govern a response when a fitting alternative is reasonably available.
- Wrath
Anger turned toward disproportionate retaliation or cruelty.
Feeling anger or objecting to injustice does not itself establish a vice.
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