A chasm is sometimes proposed between so-called virtue ethics and so-called rule or law ethics.  Unless we are thinking of bad theories of ethics, there is no such chasm.

In the first place, every complete theory of moral law requires a theory of virtue.  If I do not have the proper dispositions, the right habits of mind and heart, then how will I recognize true moral rules and distinguish them from false?  For that matter, how will I even be able to apply the rules I know already?  It is one thing to know that I must not steal; it is quite another to see that this would be stealing.  For that I need virtue.

But every complete theory of virtue also requires a theory of moral law.  Even Aristotle, supposed by some to be the paradigm case of a moral philosopher who talked only about virtue and not about law, talks about law.  He holds that the man of practical wisdom acts according to a rational principle; this principle functions as law.  He holds that virtue lies in a mean, but that there is no mean of things like adultery; this implies that there are exceptionless precepts, which also function as law.  He holds that besides the enactments of governments and the customs of peoples there is an unwritten norm to which governments and peoples defer; this norm too is a law.  The awareness of law creeps in through the back door even when it is pushed out the front  -- and Aristotle wasn’t even pushing.

Though the followers of Calvin speak of “total” depravity, not even the greatest sin can obliterate the natural inclination to adhere to God’s law.  Thomas Aquinas goes so far as to suggest that “Even in the lost the natural inclination to virtue remains, else they would have no remorse of conscience.”

One might think this fact mitigates either their guilt or their condition.  It doesn't, for what it really means is that the wicked man is divided not only against God, but against himself.  In a sense he receives what he sought, but ultimately he does not find it sweet.  His actual inclinations are at war with his natural inclinations; his heart is riddled with desires that oppose its deepest longing; he demands to have happiness on terms that make happiness impossible.  In the end, his very nature concurs with God in inflicting on him the just punishment that eternal law decrees.  He is, in this sense, his own hangman.

Perhaps this is what Vergil means in Dante’s Comedy, when he says of the damned who leap eagerly from Charon’s boat,

And they are prompt to cross the river, for

Justice Divine so goads and spurs them on,

that what they fear turns into their desire.

(Esolen trans.)

“Surely, I find myself daydreaming, there is something, some substance in common use, that women could drink after sex or at the end of the month, that would keep them unpregnant with no one the wiser.  Something you could buy at the supermarket, or maybe several things you could mix together, items so safe and so ordinary they could never be banned, that you could prepare in your own home, that would flush your uterus and leave it pink and shiny and empty without you ever needing to know if you were pregnant or about to be.”  --  Katha Pollitt, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights

The term "classical" is often misunderstood.  Is classical music called classical because it is the oldest kind of music?  No, for music was unthinkably ancient before classical music was developed.  Is it so named because it is the best kind of music?  No, for people may disagree about which music is best and yet agree about which music is classical.  Because it is obsolete?  No, for a classical tradition can remain vibrantly alive, continuing to develop and give birth to new work.

The proper meaning of the term "classical" is none of these.  Rather it signifies, "Here is the body of work which sets the standard for all subsequent achievement."  This holds for classical traditions in all fields, not just music.  A classical tradition of thought, for instance, might not pose all the important questions, might not answer all those that they do pose, and might not give the right answers, but it sets the standard for what sort of things count as good questions and good answers.  So even if one rejects a classical tradition, one is most unwise to ignore it.

“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him.  ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’  And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’”   (Matthew 22:35-40, RSV.)

The second of these two precepts presupposes that I love myself, but it does not command me to love myself.  There is no need, because everyone loves himself.  Even the suicide desires his own good; he merely makes the mistake of thinking that he would be better off dead.  The moral problem is not that we love ourselves, but that we love ourselves the wrong way.

Thomas Aquinas holds that love of God and love of neighbor “are the first general principles of the natural law, and are self-evident to human reason.”    They are inviolable:  We may not transgress them for the sake of supposedly "greater" ends, like telling lies to elect good men to office.  They are also non-substitutable:  We may not trade them off against each other, like committing a few more murders to achieve a larger reduction in thefts.  In these two senses, neither has priority.

But in another sense, loving God certainly has priority -- it is more grave, more important, as the root is more important than the branch.  Besides, the love of God should be beyond measure, while the love of neighbor should be proportioned to the proper love of self.  To be sure, this is a very high proportion.  If I really loved my neighbor as myself I would die for him.  But my love for God should exceed even that.  Even the principle of justice, “Render to each one his due,” might teach that to us, if only we could gaze steadily upon it -- for if God is truly God, then in the most literal of senses we owe Him everything.

In the context of the Decalogue, love of God is spelled out in the first group of commandments, while love of neighbor is spelled out the second group.  The nature of this “spelling out” is crucial.  It is not that the commandments are deduced from love of God and neighbor; that is not how this works.  Rather, it is in the light of the commandments that we first understand what loving God and neighbor mean.  Once we recognize just what love it is that the commandments spell out, we come to understand them more deeply than we did at first.

A warning:  You may try to be truthful about the goodness of loving your neighbor -- but if you lie to yourself about the God who loved your neighbor into being, then your understanding of all love and every neighbor will be defective.  A more adequate understanding of love and neighbor will be terribly dangerous, because it may make you think of God.