Virtue is the positive aspect of desert

Virtue is the positive aspect of desert. When you appreciate what you have done to deserve something you experience it authentically. That lived authenticity comes from the practical, concrete action that gives one a sense of deservedness.

Prudence limits the sense of deservedness on the distributive justice side; temperance limits the sense of desert as vengeance on the punitive justice side. The opposite of this virtuous approach to concrete, practical action is the ethical, moral approach to negotiated, expressed behavior.

The covenant is the symbol of the virtuous path; the contract is the symbol of the ethical, moral path.