By Dr. Donald DeMarco, Catholic Exchange - Virtue is perfective of the person. Vice is ruinous. In order to recognize virtue as a true reality that is perfective of the person, we need to use our capacity for reason. Thus, Joseph Pieper in his book, Four Cardinal Virtues, can state, citing St. Thomas Aquinas, that “The intrinsic goodness of man—and that is the same as saying his true humanness—consists in this, that ‘reason perfected in the cognition of truth’ shall inwardly shape and imprint his volition and actions”