PHIL 60: Aristotle's Virtue Ethics & Feminist Ethics

What kind of person should I be?

Instead of "What should I do," proponents of Aristotle's virtue ethics ask___________________?

Developing virtues or character traits.

Instead of emphasizing procedural principles like the Categorical Imperative or the principle of utility, virtue ethicists emphasize what?

Socrates taught Plato. Plato taught Aristotle.

Out of Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle, who taught whom?

Nichomachean ethics

What is the name of Aristotle's magnum opus on moral philosophy. Hint: we read an excerpt from it.

Arête is ancient Greek for virtue or excellence. Aristotle defined it a character trait that manifests as habitual action, which lies on a mean between two vices.

For Aristotle, what is arête?

End, goal, or purpose.

What is telos?

Function

What is ergon

Flourishing, thriving, well-being, the good life, or a profound, sustaining happiness.

What is eudaimonia?

Practical wisdom or practical reason. It is a virtue of intellect, not a virtue of character like courage.

What is phronesis?

Vice of excess Virtue Vice of deficiency

1. Fool Courage Coward

2. Extravagance/Wasteful Generosity (with smaller sums of money) Stingy

3. Boastful Honesty Liar/Too modest

4. Overly flattering Friendliness Rude

5. Overindulgence Temperance Inhibitions/Abstinence

6. Vanity/Overestimating self-worth Magnanimity (usually means not petty/very forgiving of a less powerful rival, but Aristotle means knowing your self-worth) Underestimating self-worth

7. Overambitious Appropriately Ambitious Lack of Ambition

8. Buffoonery Wit Boring

9. Hot-head/Irritable Level-headed/Calm Spiritless

10. Gaudy/Wasteful spending/Showing off Magnificence (Generosity in spending large sums of money) Stingy (though you're wealthy, like Scrooge)

11. Shy Modesty (Not a 'proper' virtue for Aristotle) Shameless

What are Aristotle's virtues and corresponding vices of excess and deficiency?

We emulate role models including our parents, teachers, coaches, inspirational figures, etc.

How are virtues developed?

Aristotle would like agree that if you're eudaimon, then you are virtuous, because developing the virtues is a requirement for thriving. (I.e., there is no shortcut to thriving; you must cultivate virtue.) However, Aristotle would likely not accept that if you're virtuous, then you are eudaimon. For instance, you could imprison a virtuous person, and it would be hard for them to thrive. Virtuous people could develop cancer, lose a child, get stranded on a desert island. Any of these circumstances beyond one's control would impede upon one's flourishing

Think about the logic of the following iff statement: A person is eudaimon if and only if they are virtuous. Would Aristotle agree with both directions of this biconditional?

Aristotle probably believed that his set of virtues is what everyone should develop. But this might be too strict. But if there isn't one universal set of virtues to pursue, then virtue ethics might fall victim to the same objections of relativism, i.e., it could become an anything goes morality where one might emulate moral monsters and cultivate 'virtues' of being maniacal, greedy, and manipulative. Perhaps there are some core virtues that everyone should cultivate (e.g., courage & honesty) but must everyone be witty and magnificent to thrive?

Are virtues supposed to be relative to culture, historical age, etc.? Or is there one set of virtues that every person whoever lived is supposed to cultivate?

If you look at the major authors of the moral theories covered in our class, it's mostly men from Europe (or what would become Europe), i.e., Plato, Hume, Kant, Aristotle, Mill, Bentham, Ayer, Hare. If the authors of our history books were only white men, could they be fair and unbiased? Probably not, Similarly, if we don't have diversity in the voices who contribute to a theory how can it be a theory that represents everyone, particularly women?

What's the authorship problem with the history of moral philosophy, as described in class. What analogy did we make to history textbooks?

Kant and Mill attempted to come up with exceptionless procedural principles that could fit on a T-shirt, i.e., the Categorical Imperative and the principle of utility. Arguably these universal rules failed because to this day they face serious counterexamples. Many feminist ethicists suggest moving away from principles and moving toward promoting character traits -- similar to Aristotle's ethics -- which was repopularized by Anscombe & Philippa Foot in the 60s & 70s. However feminist argue that important character traits were left off Aristotle's list -- like being empathetic, nurturing, altruistic, and loving.

Where have the theories of the past failed? What are they missing? How can feminist ethics help?

One's height and muscle mass is to a large extent hereditary (tall parents tend to have tall children). However, there are social elements that go into height and muscle mass too. Diet, nutrition, and exercise all impact height and muscle mass. Boys and girls have received different messages that affect what and how much they eat and how much they exercise. For instance, "eat all your food so that you can grow up to be big and strong" might be said to boys and not girls, and "lift only light weights because heavy ones will make you too bulky" might only said to girls and young women. Imagine an island where the messages are reversed. How much would this reduce the size, weight, height differential?

Many philosophers and social scientists claim that gender is socially constructed but that there are genetic/biologically based differences between males and females that are not. That human males are taller and have more muscle mass on average than females is just a biological fact, some say. How could one argue that there is social element to height?

A more traditional view endorses biological determinism, which is the view that biological sex determines gender. In short: being biologically male means you are a boy/man & being biologically female means you are a girl/woman. Many sociologists & philosophers reject this view.

What are 2 views on gender? What does the more traditional of the two say about biological determinism?

Traditional ethics stresses:

Individuals over Relationships/Community

Autonomy over Cooperation

Dispassion over Compassion

Reason over Sentiment/Noncognitivism

Procedural principles (Mill/Kant) over Traits. esp like empathy, nurturing, altruism, caring

Exceptionless, Universal Rules over Flexible, casuistry, situation/context based

Impartiality over Partiality/No one gets special treatment Protect vulnerable, those with less power/voice, victims of inequality

How does what is stressed by traditional ethics compare to what may have been left out?

Some argue that these traits shouldn't be necessarily cultivated by women (or men) because they are rooted in stereotypes about women. Further, even if women tend to exemplify these qualities, they aren't an essential properties of being a women, i.e., they are accidental properties.

What's one problem that some feminist ethicists have with the qualities, etc. stress on the right side of the chart?

Even if we are attracted to everything on the chart, a moral theory that incorporates them all may be logically inconsistent. For instance, how could the sentence of a moral judge be simultaneously dispassionate and compassionate? How could the same judge be partial and impartial. How could they follow rules but break rules.

What's the inconsistency problem we discussed?

First, this may be a loaded question. Second, it might be that accidentally women in North America in 2018 happen to be more nurturing on average than men, but this doesn't mean that this is caused by a difference in biology between females and males (i.e., there may not be an 'essential difference). The difference could be the result of the fact that women are taught to be more nurturing, and that theoretically, with different upbringings and education, men could have been more nurturing than women.

Are women naturally more nurturing than men?

Reinforced gender stereotypes The Boy's Life magazine had boy's colors blue, red, black over pink and purple.

Cool career options: astronaut, firefighter, police officer over no mention of career, focus on bean an object of beauty and of sexual desire

What sexism was apparent in the 'Boy's Life'/'Girl's Life' magazine covers?

Mary Wolfstonecraft - Pioneer in feminist ethics

Phillipa Foot - Repopularize virtue ethics

Judith Jarvis Thomson - Famous Ethics Thought Experiments

Carol Gilligan - Criticized Kohlberg's Psychology of Moral Development as sexist.

Simone de Beauvoir - Existentialism & Feminism

Martha Nussbaum - Moral psychology

Christine Korsgaard - Neo-Kantian

Judith Butler-Gender & Queer theory

Who are the women in philosophy that we learned about, and how did they contribute to the field?

Could help with Kant's coverage and inflexibility problems. Could help with Mill's impartiality problem in the Titanic case.

If elements of feminist ethics were incorporated into Mill or Kant's theory how could it stave off the problems.