Vice Definition: We explain what vices are, how they relate to addictions and virtue. We also explain their meaning in language and their legal meaning. Please read other MTV articles for more information. If you share it, it will be of little help to us.
What is a vice?
A vice is a type of flaw, defect, or bad habit, especially in relation to behaviors considered moral and immoral. What may be considered viceful in some societies may be acceptable or normal in others. In other words, it depends largely on the context and the social and moral values with which it is evaluated.
Vices are commonly associated with illegality and danger, as well as with activities of ill-health, such as certain addictions. Acts such as the recreational use of alcohol, tobacco, and other substances, as well as drug addiction, or even unsavory personal behaviors such as lying, selfishness, or mockery, are often considered vices. Must Read About Laziness Once.
Similarly, in English jurisprudence, the word “vice” is used to refer to minor criminal acts: prostitution, gambling, debauchery, and obscenity. However, according to Christian morality, for example, vices are linked to the deadly sins and other behaviors considered sinful or inappropriate.
However, the term vice is also used in popular language to refer to an activity performed with excessive enthusiasm, or through which we are able to forget about the rest of the world: “dancing is a vice for me,” “that game is addictive,” etc.
Vices and Addictions
Although many of today’s addictions are traditionally considered vices, they are not necessarily so. This is because addictions are behaviors that are beyond the control of the people who suffer from them. Therefore, they are true illnesses, and not simply reprehensible or immoral behaviors.
Some of these addictions are:
- Drug dependence: Also called drug addiction, it is the compulsive use of narcotic or psychotropic substances, generally illegal (although addiction to legal drugs also exists), which drives individuals to sacrifice everything in their lives in order to obtain an ever-increasing dose of the substance.
- Alcoholism: This is the name given to addiction to alcohol and the behavioral changes it causes. Alcoholics cannot abstain from consuming some type of liquor, and with each use, the effect on their body becomes more pronounced, causing more physical damage and deteriorating behavior with increasingly smaller amounts consumed.
- Gambling Addiction: Addiction to gambling, generally to games of chance, but it can literally involve any game that requires compulsive gambling, regardless of the consequences of the bets placed. This naturally leads to the loss of possessions and can be the gateway to other compensatory addictions.
- Smoking: Cigarette addiction may seem like the most harmless of the addictions on this list, but the components of cigarettes are proven to be carcinogenic and are linked to various cardiorespiratory and vascular diseases.
Language Vices
Another meaning of the word “vice” relates to the sloppy use of language, that is, certain forms of speech or even writing that make discourse ugly, contradict grammatical rules, or hinder understanding. These are called “language vices,” and some examples are:
- Pleonasm: This refers to the use of redundancies and “extra” words in a sentence, as in “Yesterday I stopped by Pedro’s house to pick up the scarf that Pedro lent me,” where the second allusion to Pedro is unnecessary, since that information can be inferred from the first.
- Apocope: Apocope refers to the elision of some letters within a word to increase speed or sonority, but in some cases, it can actually play a trick on you. This is the case of the use of “primer” instead of “primera” for a feminine referent: “This is the first time I’ve done it,” instead of the correct “This is the first time I’ve done it.”
- Queísmo and dequeísmo: Both phenomena consist, respectively, of the unnecessary subtraction or addition of the grammatical particle “de” in certain types of sentences. It is called queísmo when it is omitted, replacing “que” with “de que,” and dequeísmo when the opposite is done. For example, it is called queísmo to say “Yo sé que cosa que se nocer” instead of “Yo sé de que cosa que se nocer”; while it is dequeísmo to say “Así Pablo me dijo que me quiero” instead of “Así Pablo me dijo que me quiero.”
Must Read About Vanity Once.
Defects of the Will
In legal language, it is common to speak of defects of the will or defects of consent. These are certain conditions that prevent an act from being considered voluntary and conscious by a court. That is, elements that, when present, invalidate the argument that the person did what they did of their own free will.
These vices are generally the following:
- Ignorance or error: A person who is unaware of the consequences or meanings of an action cannot be judged for having consciously committed it, but rather for having made a mistake, that is, for having formed a false impression of it.
- Fraud: This refers to simulation, dissimulation, and deception, or in general to the tricks, cunning, and machinations of one of the parties, which would mean that the person did not perform an action voluntarily, but was deceived.
- Violence or intimidation: Actions carried out under irresistible force or a well-founded fear of punishment or dishonor cannot be considered voluntary.
Vice and Virtue
If vices are our “negative” or “immoral” habits, that is, those that disqualify us from a societal ideal, virtues are the opposite. A virtue is a personality trait considered exalted, altruistic, or desirable. In certain religious contexts, they constitute the opposite of sin, that is, the traits that guarantee salvation.
In fact, Christianity has its theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. In other areas, responsibility, generosity, honesty, and punctuality are considered virtues. Must Read About Sin Once.
References
All the information we offer is supported by authoritative and up-to-date bibliographic sources, which ensure reliable content in line with our editorial principles.
- Vice in the Dictionary of the Spanish Language of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- Vices and Virtues by Alejandro Cortés González-Báez in the newspaper Milenio 2020 (Mexico).
- Addiction is not a vice, it’s a disease on PMFarma.
- Apocope, metathesis, solecism, and five other ‘language vices’ you may be using without realizing it on BBC News Mundo.
