Virtue ethics

Anscombe’s ‘modern moral philosophy’

• legalistic conception of ethics (‘is bound by law’) ie. Kantian and utilitarianism is a byproduct of christianity - dependent on a belief in a law-giver (God)

• many people now no longer believe in god so we should no longer think of morality in terms of laws since in the absence of a law giver, a legalistic conception of ethics is not really intelligible

• only a non legalistic conception in ethics is relevant in modern times

• aristotle’s ethics offers a non-legalistic conception

What is virtue ethics concerned with (as opposed to kant and utilitarianism)

kant + utilitarianism — concerned with what the right action is. A good person is one that is motivated to do morally right actions

Virtue ethics starts by looking at a good person and then from that it derives an account. of what a morally right action is, which it understands in terms of what a good person would do

more to the moral life than actions

concerned with the ultimate goal of human life - what it is for a human to do well or be happy rather than focusing on action (like the other two). A person can reach the ultimate goal if she has certain character traits (virtues) which enable her to carry out the human function well

there is more to moral life than..

actions

similarity in Mill’s proof and Nichomachean ethics

both begin with the question about what is the good for human beings? What is our ultimate end?

What are Aristotle’s five key concepts

• eudaimonia - flourishing

• the function argument - ergon

• virtue - arete (and vice) - skill analogy

• practical wisdom (phronesis)

• moral responsibility

Explain the good in terms of subordinate and ultimate ends

aristotle believes that to be a good and to be a goal amount to the same thing. He concieves of a good or a goal as an activity that is performed repeatedly

Subordinate end = an end that we desire for the sake of another end. eg. attending a lesson in order to learn a topic, learn a topic in order to do well on an exam etc. - even up to fulfilling a carreer. But this too would be a subordinate end for something else.

Ultimate end = an end we desire not for the sake of some other end, but for the sake of itself. That end would be good for humans. If we know what the ultimate end is, we are more likely to achieve it. Aristotle beleives the ultimate end to be eudaimonia.

explain the good in terms of eudaimonia

• can be understood as human flourishing

• a good human life might be compared to a plant that is flourishing, and a bad human life to a plant that is wilting

• Humans flourish when they are fulfilled and reach their full potential

• life of certain achievement and success

How is Eudaimonia different from our normal understanding of happiness + what can’t it be and why

Not happiness because..

• happiness is a subjective state of mind that you are most likely right about whether you are in that state of mind. Eudaimonia is an objective feature of a good human life - a man may think he has it and could be wrong about it.

• Happiness is passive and eudaimonia requires action

• happiness can come and go, whilst eudaimonia is a stable and lasting condition that does not fluctuate

• u can be happy without being eudaimon but you cannot be eudaimon and unhappy because if you are eudaimon then you are happy in the sense that you take pleasure in doing what human beings are supposed to do

• pleasure is a good, but not the ultimate good. We seek things other than happiness and not always as means to the end of happiness.

• not all happiness is good- the only happiness that is good is that which relates to our function (ergon)

explain aristotle’s argument that eudaimonia is our final end

• everything we do is for the sake of living and faring well. We never want to live and fare well for some other end. Therefore it is the only end we only ever seek for its own sake. Eudaimonia, our final end, is complete in this way

• Eudaimonia is the only self-sufficient good: it makes life desirable on its own. Eudaimonia is the most desirable thing and we can’t make it desirable by adding something else to it. To add some other goal such as knowledge to eudaimonia is only to make that other thing part of ur eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is the only self-sufficient good

Explain ergon and arete

• knife analogy

• what is our human function + human qualities

• what do we need in order to do this?

• our ergon is our function, our charactersitic form of activity

• Aristotle understands what kind of thing something is and whether it is a good example of that kind in terms of its function or what it is supposed to do (ergon)

• what makes a knife what it is is that it can cut - that is it’s function or ergon

• what makes a knife a good knife is that cuts well - it performs its ergon well

• Our human function means that there are certain things that we should do that other animals should do such as eating, sleeping, drinking etc.

• But human flourishing involves performing the activity which is most characteristic of the human purpose, that distinguishes us from other animals , our characteristic activity.

• The human function is to live in accordance with reason - humans are distinctly guided by reason

• Our lives are good and we flourish when we do this well

• In order to do this, we need certain qualities. An arete, or virtue, is a quality that aids the fulfilment of our ergon, allowing us to flourish and reach eudaimonia. eg. focus in eye

Explain Aristotle’s claim that eudaimonia involves virtue, pleasure, prosperity

virtue - through possessing the virtues on their own is not enough for human flourishing, to achieve eudaimonia we must possess virtues so we can then act in accordance with them and employ them to achieve good purposes

Pleasure - people find pleasant whatever it is they love. A virtuous person loves living virtuously. This means the life of a virtuous person will also be a pleasant life

wealth - in order to live virtuously eg. to be generous, you need a certain amount of external goods. Enough good fortune is needed for a fully virutous life

Explain Foot’s naturalism argument

Similarly to a flower needing the ability to blossom to flourish, for a human to flourish they need to have good characteristics for a human - virtues. It is because of our biology - our ability to reason - that we have the function that we do

Explain the difference between instrumental reasoning and reasoning in accordance with moral values

• the good life means you must reason in both ways

• instrumental reasoning - considering what the means is to your end eg. how you achieve your goal. This is the kind of reasoning employed when you want to know what you need to do in order to get to a certain thing eg. following the steps of a recipe

Explain moral virtue + good happiness

• for a particular thing to be a good example, it must have…

• therefore, only happiness…

• what makes happiness good?

• you can only be eudaimon if…

• a eudaimon person…….

• moral virtues….

• moral virtues enable us…

• For a particular thing to be a good example of the kind of thing it is it must have certain qualities, which Aristotle calls virtues or excellences (arête).

  The excellences that enable an individual to be a good example of humanity are the virtues. Therefore, only happiness accompanying virtuous activity can be good. What makes my happiness good is an objective not a subjective matter: it is not because I enjoy it but because it is consistent with virtue that my happiness is good.

• you can only be eudaimon if you get your happiness from virtuous activity

• a eudaimon person takes pleasure in being virtuous

• moral virtues are virtues of characters (other type is intellectial virtue)

• moral virtue is a habitual disposition or relatively stable tendecny to think, feel, and act in certain ways in certain circumstances

• moral virtues enable us to lead a good life whereas vices stop us from doing that

Why must virtues be states of character and why can’t they be passions or faculties?

• virtues are habitual dispositions expressed in the choices we make that lead us to have a good life and flourish

• character has stability and longevity - more stable and consistent than passions

• but can’t be faculties because those are innate and cannot be changed

What must being virtuous involve (feelings)

Note that being virtuous involves feelings: you cannot be a good person unless your feelings are appropriate, which means you neither under-react nor overreact emotionally in the given circumstances. Virtuous feelings occur at the right time, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way. For Aristotle, our passions can and should be guided by reason: how you respond emotionally in a particular situation can be right or wrong, rational or irrational.

Explain the doctrine of the mean

• moral virtues sit between two vices, the vice of deficiency and excess (of the virtue). Eg. virtue of courage sits between foolhardiness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency). A corageous person satisfies the doctrine of the mean if she feels corageous at the right time, with reference to thre right objects, in the right way, etc.

• eg. the good nutritionist avoids prescribing too much or too little protein - we achieve nutritional health by following an intermediate course of action - the mean.

• Varies from situation to situation

• needs to be accompanied with the right feelings, and we need to understand that our action is the right one to do

What is techne and how is it diff to phronesis

• techne is the type of thinking which enables us to make goods of a certain sort eg. a carpenter to make a table

What is phronesis and what does it involve

• practical wisdom

• the type of thinking that makes us predisposed to act viruously

• allows the good person to bridge the gap between having a general knowledge of the virtues and being able to apply and act on them appropriately in particular situations

• Involves and understanding of the conditions of eudaimonia; the ability to deliberate; the ability to act on that delibiration; a knowledge of what is required in a particular situation

why is practical wisdom not just knowing rules or knowledge of the virtuous

• no rules to tell you how to be moral in every situation in the same way that there is a recipe for a certain dish

• virtues are more like general guidelines than rules. While some actions are always wrong eg. murder., others are not ruled out absolutely and for these we might need to interpret or suspend a relevant guideline in given circumstances. Phronesis enables the virtuous person to make such judgements, identifying the morally relevant facts of the situation and making a choice about the right thing to do

• An understanding of a virtue for example, generosity is not enough to lead a good life, since the generous thing to do varies depending on the circumstance . You need to be disposed to act generously to be able to be generous in a given circumstance

Why are Aritstotle’s ethics neither deontological nor consequentialist

• you need knowledge of the specific circumstance, and you need to be able to deliberate on the situation itself, and likely the implications of your actions in order to apply the virtues

• It is also not consequentialist because a good and virtuous action must involve the right feelings and you must take pleasure in being virtuous to be eudaimon. Being virtuous is also a disposition, so is habitual and consistent - so it is not only the consequences but the way in which you go about an action and your consistency that counts morally.

In sum the person who has ___ (____) and other ___ (____) successfully engages in the _____ ______ _____ (_____) of living in accordance with ______ and is more likely to achieve the ___ ___ _______ (_____)

practical wisdom

phronesis

virtues

arete

human characteristic activity

reason

good for humans

eudaimonia

Explain the skill analogy in the development of moral character

• analagous to learning a practical skill like playing the piano

• no one is born virtuous as no one is born with piano-playing skills

• like learning the piano, you cannot become virutous without practice. Unlike some things such as geometry that you can learn merely by instruction and without practice, you cannot learn piano if all you do is recieve instructions. The same applies for being virtuous - takes trial and error, good people around you

• the educational process goes from imitating others, to thinking for ourselves, to having a deep understanding of why some actions are right or wrong in specific circumstances

• It helps to have a good role model when becoming virtuous, just as it helps to have a good piano teacher when learning piano

• to become moral you must develop habitual dispositions that allow you to be good that will not take place without repeated practice

• eg. to become temparate you might repeatedly refuse to indulge yourself

• this type of education is called habituation.

explain habituation and first/second nature

• habituation - repeated practice, skill analogy,

• first nature - biology - makes it possible for us to be good, gives us the capacity to be virtuous, our ergon. It is our capacity to reason - given to us by nature

• second nature - culture - we will only be good if we develop the right kind of second nature by developing the virtues through habituation

  • it is not innate, but it is a developed nature in the sense that you cannot unlearn it eg. literacy. The virtues, through learning, can become part of our nature

• much like learning a language - though we are born with the capacity to understand language, we do not innately understand language - we must hear it, practice forming words, and then have an understanding of their meaning and when and how to use them

explain why practical wisdom requires virtue and vice versa

even if a child is naturally kind/has good dispositions from birth, they cannot have what ari calls ‘full virtue’ since they do not have practical wisdom; they cannot comprehend the nature of their action, and could easily be misled into being kind for the wrong reasons or at the wrong time; therefore they cannot fully develop a habitual disposition (virtue) without practical understanding of it.

Practical wisdom similarly depends on virtue. You can be very smart and deliberate for the wrong ends, but cleverness is not practical wisdom because practical wisdom involved having general knowledge about what is good

Explain voluntary, involuntary, and non voluntary actions and relate it to moral responsibility

voluntary - if you bring it about with a knowledge of what you are doing and the circumstances in which you are doing it eg. intentionally standing on someone’s foot

non voluntary - if you brought it about under force or by ignorance eg. knocking into a tree because of a strong wind. Or by psychological pressure such as threat of pain. Where no one would withstand such pressure, we don’t blame them for what they do

involuntary - it is non-voluntary and you did not want to bring it about such that you now regret it eg. accidentally standing on someone’s foot because you didn’t know it was there and you apologise

moral responsibility only applies to voluntary actions - you can only be praised or blamed for what you do voluntarily

all choices are voluntary, but not everything voluntary is chosen. Choice involves deliberation. eg. now that i can walk i do not choose how to walk but how I walk is voluntary; spontaneous actions of animals are voluntary but not chosen. my emotions and desires are voluntary but not chosen

Issue of lack of clear guidance - doctrine of the mean and then practical wisdom (no guidance to someone who is not alreasy virtuous)

• does not provide is with clear guidance on how to act - in the same way that utility principle and categorical imperative give us rules on what the right thing to do is

• many philosophers think Ari’s doc of the mean does this, but in reality it doesn’t help — ‘too much’ and ‘too little’ are not queantities on a single scale - where do the vices end and the virtue stop. ‘right time, right place. right motive, right way’ - not at all specific or helpful

• unlikely that Aristotle intended the doctrine of the mean to be used this way

• we can’t ‘figure out’ what the right thing to do is by applying the doctrine of the mean; we must have practical wisdom - Aristotle says ‘what is in the mean is determined by the person of practical wisdom’ - experience, practice, guidance

• But his theory about practical wisdom doesn’t provide any guidance about what to do either. If you have practical wisdom, you simply know what to do. But if you do not then knowing that the right action is the one a virtuous person would do does not help you - because you do not know what the virtuous person would do in that circumstance

• without a good character, you cannot understand what is truly good

• no guidance for anyone who is not virtuous

response to lack of clear guidance issue

• too simple

• the criticism assumes that it is possible to formulate general rules to guide all our ethical-decision making, an assumption that aristotle would reject

• being good is a matter of judgement and it is impossible to specify a set of rules to guide all ethical decisions

• But it does not follow that we are completely at a loss when it comes to being good. By the time we start to ask what the right thing to do is, most of us already have some understanding of the good life as a result of the moral education we have been given and the practical experience we have gained.

  also there is some guidance: instead of starting to think in terms of rules as utilitarianism and kantian ethics do (could everyone do this?/what are the best consequences?), we should think in terms of the virtues, perhaps asking ourselves, ‘what would I do if I were more kind/corageous/loyal?’ - this allows us to develop our ability to reason morally. independent thinking - link to no law-giver

issue of clashing/competing virtues

We can find ourselves in situations where two or more virtues conflict, but Aristotle’s virtue ethics does not help us resolve such conflicts. Here is an example: Being loving towards your child and being lawful are both virtues. What is a mother to do if her child commits a murder? Should she be unlawful and not turn him into the police because out of love for him she does not want him to suffer in prison? Or should she be unloving and turn him into the police because out of respect for the law she believes that law-breakers should be tried by the justice system?

response to competing virtues issue

In a moral dilemma like this, the virtuous person will exercise judgement in order to decide what the right thing to do is. For Aristotle, any conflict between virtues is apparent, not real. If practical wisdom dictates that the mother should turn her son in, then (according to Aristotle) she has been lawful and loving. In this particular situation turning him in is the way she shows that she loves him; not turning him in would be an unloving thing to do.

doctrine of the mean - right virtues at right time, virtuous person will know when one is relevant - all about context and judgement. Virtues don’t make demands of their own accord (they do not have to be applied in every single action as they are not all always relevant), they are instead means to the ultimate end of eudaimonia

issue of circularity (wouldn’t use in an essay)

• virtue ethics suggests that if you don’t know what to do then ask a virtuous person

• but this link between what the virtuous thing to do is and what a virtuous person would do gives rise to a problem. Aristotle is in effect saying that ‘a virtuous action is the action a virtuous person would perform’ and that ‘a virtuous person is a person who is disposed to perform virtuous actions’

• these ways of defining ‘virtuous action’ and virtuous person’ are circular, because each presupposes a definition of the very thing it is trying to define, which is completely uninformative.

response to circularity issue

• Aristotle might argue that the definitions would be circular only if there was no other way of coming to understand what ‘virtuous action’ and ‘virtuous person’ mean apart from these definitions, but that does not seem to be true.  A child starts to develop an understanding of what virtuous action is when it starts to understand what it is to think, act and feel compassionately (for instance) and when and where compassionate thoughts, actions and feelings are called for.  All adults have a fair understanding of the virtues already and do not need to consult a virtuous person each time they want to know how to act.

• this objection is rooted in an expectation that morality is like a set of instructions that need only to be read for someone to be moral - not what Aristotle’s ethics are fundamentally about

Issue of a virtuous trait not contributing to eudaimonia

You can be virtuous and not flourish.  Christine Swanton develops an example to make this point. Imagine a woman provides medical support in a poor and isolated community where there are high rates of an infectious disease.  It is hard work and the woman has made many sacrifices.  She demonstrates kindness, compassion, generosity, justice and other virtues.  Sadly, at the age of 23 she catches the disease herself, suffers greatly for six months and eventually dies.  Despite all her virtuous activity, hers was not a flourishing human life because she has not lived enough of a life to be eudaimon and there was great suffering at the end of her life.  

swanton argues that we shouldn’t require virtues to contribute to the eudaimon of the person who has them. Because sometimes these values call on us to sacrifice our own well-being, aristotle is wrong to think virtues are traits that contribute to one’s own eudaimonia - eudaimonia not one unitary end

response to issue of a virtuous trait not contribuiting to eudaimonia

Aristotelians might defend themselves against this criticism as follows: the virtues are a necessary but not a sufficient condition of eudaimonia. While you cannot be eudaimon unless you are virtuous, you can be virtuous without being eudaimon. In order to be virtuous and eudaimon, you need some good fortune as well. The woman in the example above was virtuous but she was also unlucky. She suffered when she was ill and then her life was cut short, and so she did not flourish.

issue of individual/moral good

it explains how to live a life that is good for the individual whose life it is, and it does not show how to be morally good to other people. In other words, with its focus on how a person is to fulfill their function and ultimately flourish, this ethics is too egoistic (self-centred) and insufficiently altruistic (selfless). It is too interested in ‘what is the best life for me?’ and not interested enough in ‘how should I treat others?’

response to issue of individual/moral good

 (1)  The virtues that Aristotle believes we should develop in order to flourish are hardly completely egoistic.  To be just, to be compassionate, to be generous and to be kind (etc.) are not to think of oneself but to think of others - they involve putting other people before oneself.  In that sense they very much line up with what we would consider to be morally good things as opposed to merely individually good things.  Certainly, there are some virtues (e.g. adventurousness) which might lead to more self-centred actions than selfless ones.  But (as the virtues listed above illustrate) it is not true that all the virtues are self-centred.  However, it has to be admitted that Aristotle does believe that action based on one of the more selfless virtues does benefit me by helping me to flourish.

(2) Aristotle said that his ethics has to be understood in the context of his politics.  Individuals should be good in order that the polis (political sphere) is good.  Being ethical is not an end in itself but a means to the end of good public relations between citizens.  This reinforces the view that Aristotle’s ethics is concerned with more than just what is best for a single individual.