The Grammar of True Virtue

This from Douglas Wilson on verbs of virtue:

We too often forget that in a world in which both good and evil exist, virtue cannot be found in a transitive verb. It is not enough to be told that a man loves, we want to know what he loves. If another man is tolerant, we do not know if this is virtuous or not. What does he tolerate? The same problem exists with the word “conserve.” To say that someone is a conservative does not tell us what they are interested in conserving. Within our lifetimes, we have seen hardline communists trying to conserve the Soviet Union, [and] fanatical Muslims trying to conserve ancient Islamic traditions…. The word itself does not communicate very much.

Jones, Douglas, and Wilson, Douglas, Angels in the Architecture: a Protestant Vision for Middle Earth (Moscow, Canon Press, 1998), p109f.