1037. What is the only essential reward of virtue?

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What is the only essential reward of virtue?

The only essential reward of virtue is the kind of "peace," or "nirvana," which comes insofar as one transcends one's own personal future and disinterestedly wills to enhance the value of future experiences generally. In thus transcending one's own personal future, there is a kind of "peace," or "nirvana." But it is a present experience, and not a reward looked-for in the future. On the contrary, so long as one's being rewarded in the future is taken to be the important matter, there neither is nor can be any "peace."

So far Hartshorne. But if peace can be said to be, in this sense, "the only essential reward of virtue," it can also be said to be the only essential ground of virtue. In fact, one may even ask whether "peace," in the Whiteheadian sense in which it is quasi-synonymous with "nirvana," ought not to be reserved to refer to the "alien" good appropriated by trust, as distinct from the "domestic" good actualized by loyalty. Granted that the good will is good not only with respect to future consequences, but also as a part of present experience, there is still a difference between our own righteousness and the righteousness of God; and Hartshorne's formulations do not sufficiently take account of this, notwithstanding his being quite clear that "the final beauty is the 'beauty of holiness'" and that "the particular goods which God himself determines are not in the world, but . . . 'beyond history'" (CSPM: 321, 240).