If this account is right, then it appears that instability afflicts every virtue that falls short of perfection, not simply tolerance, and this shared affliction appears to be an ordinary consequence of the difficulties that every virtue regards. Given this ordinary feature of the virtues in general, the tendency of tolerance to dissolve into some other moral posture hardly justifies Fletchers doubts about the virtue as a source of civil peace. Courage, justice, and the rest display similar tendencies, and yet no one appeals to this fact in order to suggest that we can (or should) proceed without them. Rather, most of us acknowledge the difficulty of thinking, feeling, and acting as the virtuous do in precisely those circumstances of extremity that most urgently require virtue’s act. We admit that we fall short of moral perfection most of the time and that we squirm out of virtue’s demands more often than we care to admit. Even so, in a cool hour we recognize the virtues for what they are, for the goods they instantiate in themselves and for the benefits they secure when their acts succeed. In fits of justice and charity, we take note of those who lay hold of these goods and obtain these benefits, and we grant them the honors they deserve.