This division addresses a question that is simultaneously moral, strategic and ontological: by what process, by what mechanisms, is ethical virtue acquired? The delineation of these terms, 'ethics' and 'virtue', and the shifts in their meaning, will be one of my central concerns, but let us start by hearing the question as one about a specific form of excellence or authority: a robust ability to judge, to choose, to live ethically. By what mechanism is this produced? What fact or development or transformation yields it?