The general questions are: what is virtue and how can it be cultivated? The specific focus is on the conceptions of virtue in the works of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls. Kant regarded virtue as a good will that is also strong enough to resist contrary passions, impulses, and inclinations. Childhood training can prepare children for virtue, but becoming virtuous requires an empirically inexplicable commitment and effort that is up to each individual. Rawls explains a sense of justice as a civic virtue that he conjectures will develop naturally, according to certain psychological laws, if the basic structure of society is just. Rawls' reliance on empirical studies addresses questions left mysterious by Kant, but his theory faces problems of its own. (Contains 20 notes.)