Whether moral virtue is a passion?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem that moral virtue is a passion. Because the mean is of the same genus as the extremes. But moral virtue is a mean between two passions. Therefore moral virtue is a passion.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, virtue and vice, being contrary to one another, are in the same genus. But some passions are reckoned to be vices, such as envy and anger. Therefore some passions are virtues.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, pity is a passion, since it is sorrow for another's ills, as stated above (Question [35], Article [8]). Now "Cicero the renowned orator did not hesitate to call pity a virtue," as Augustine states in De Civ. Dei ix, 5. Therefore a passion may be a moral virtue.