Center for the Study of Anomalous Virtues

Living catalog · Semantic Ethics

Untranslatable virtues as linguistic evidence.

These first entries sit under Linguistic Relativity in Morals (Semantic Ethics). They use well-known untranslatable virtues to illustrate catalog form and the problem of remainder in translation. They are not completed monographs, and they invent no citations.

Illustrative only. Each card is a sketch of method under Semantic Ethics — examples of linguistic relativity, not a closed canon of anomalous virtues. Later entries will be longer, sourced, and developed with the communities who hold the terms. Anomalous virtues in philosophy, ethics, and literature extend beyond this linguistic sample; see Research.

  1. 01

    Philotimo φιλότιμο

    A love of honor that obliges generous, fitting action even when no rule requires it.

    Greek Greece and the Greek-speaking world

  2. 02

    Amae 甘え

    The cultivated capacity to presume upon another's goodwill, and to receive that presumption with skill.

    Japanese Japan

  3. 03

    Sisu sisu

    Extraordinary perseverance after ordinary endurance has already run out.

    Finnish Finland

  4. 04

    Hózhǫ́ Hózhǫ́

    A lived condition of beauty, harmony, and right relation — often glossed as walking in beauty.

    Diné Bizaad (Navajo) Diné / Navajo Nation and Diné communities

  5. 05

    Fingerspitzengefühl Fingerspitzengefühl

    Tact as a fingertip sense: knowing, without a rule, when pressure should increase, ease, or change form.

    German German-speaking Europe; later borrowed into military and diplomatic English