An odd claim about human goodness

 Take a look at two assertions about virtue:

Humility is to the various virtues what the chain is in a Rosary. Take away the chain, and the beads are scattered; remove humility, and all virtues vanish. ― St. John Vianney

 

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. 
— Maya Angelou

 

St. John Vianney asserts that humility is the primary virtue. Maya Angelou asserts it’s courage. In my reading, Angelou speaks for the majority party. I’ve read more advocates of courage than of humility.

What’s interesting to me is not the disagreement, but the common claim behind the disagreement. Vianney and Angelou both think there is a principle virtue that makes other virtues possible.

Is that true? Is that the right way to look at virtue, at our efforts to cultivate virtues that make us better?

I’m not denying that there’s an internal logic in the language of virtues. That internal logic is everywhere in language.

But something about this notion seems odd, and I think it’s this:

The scientific model of thinking has enormous prestige and influence. The model includes organizing principles for the various sciences. A science of biology that organizes the world’s vast number of life forms based on the principle of heredity is far more helpful than one organized on the principle of animals and plants that have similar colors or similar sizes.

We would like to have principles that show organizing relationships among virtues or values just as we have organizing principles that show organizing relationships between plants and animals. But virtues and values aren’t the same kind of thing.