Philosophy is a large field with great variety in practitioners. I hold that those that aim to practice value philosophy have an obligation to develop in themselves personal virtue suitable that task, for from that field comes the role of community definer/leader/inspiration. These virtues combine the classical role of the scholar with those of the guardian and nurturer. Historically, a useful set of virtues such as these have often been realised by various philosophies and fathers of movements, from the religious (Muhammad, Abu Bakr) to the secular (Ataturk, Trotsky). A failure to find and self-nurture some usable set of these leads to various kinds of failure, from individual corruption to failure of their ideas to take hold - the purely academic philosopher without ambitions, an escoteric topic, or with intent only to extend a well-developed system may have little need for some of these, but these virtues are generally useful even in those cases, and may be appropriate for the general public.

Like Tabula Escriba, the descriptions here are derived from my values, although in this case they have a different mix of metavalues (values that as expressed shape other values or the process by which one's mainline set of values is constructed/resolved) and actual values. The metavalues are distinguished as such because as stated here they guide the practice of philosophy and its practitioners (particularly in the field of value-philosophy) rather than entirely directly determine its content.