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[Notes for a lecture
given in London, April 27th 05, and based on the relevant sections in
Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics. Copyright is retained by the author, but
permission is hereby given to use this material for the purpose of individual
study.]
All
ethical theories acknowledge that there are virtues and vices. They are seen as
dispositions to follow
(or go against) certain principles or rules.
But:
-
Other
theories examine
general principles and rules for moral action.
Virtues are simply ways of describing the habit of following those principles.
-
Virtue
Ethics, by contrast, starts with a consideration of
the virtues that make for
living a good life.
When we describe someone as ‘good’ or ‘moral’ we do not generally refer to
particular decisions they have made (a good person may sometimes make a
mistake; a rogue may sometimes behave honourably), but to a disposition
– a quality that they have as a person. It is not so much concerned with what we
should do, but what sort of person we should hope to be.
Virtue ethics is about the
virtues that make for the good life. This approach, which became popular
once more from the middle of the 20th century, developed an approach
that had already been explored by Aristotle. (Because it originated in Greece,
it is sometimes known by the Greek term Aretaic Ethics, which comes from
the Greek word for virtue – arete.)
Aristotle
does not explain right or wrong simply in terms of rules; rather, he examines
the personal qualities that make a person ‘virtuous’ and therefore able to act
well in a variety of situations, each of which may be unique and which therefore
cannot be covered
adequately by way of a general rule.
So
note particularly an implied criticism of other ethical systems. They assume
that you judge what to do by reference to rules. But each situation and
person is unique. By contrast, virtue ethics starts with personal qualities.
In a difficult situation, say if I am seriously ill, I might want someone
looking after me who is kind, sympathetic, gentle and so on. That might be
better than someone who holds fixed rules about exactly what you should or
should not do for the terminally ill!
Aristotle saw ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia) as the goal in life. It was about
living a good life,
as
well as
enjoying
the good things of life. He considered qualities that enabled people to live
together; only when those qualities were displayed could one enjoy happiness,
because they were necessary for
one’s development as a social
being.
In
Nichomachaean Ethics, he says:
‘Since
all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what do we take to be the end
of political science – what is the highest of all practical goods? Well, so far
as the name goes there is pretty general agreement. ‘It is happiness’, say both
ordinary and cultured people; and they identify happiness with living well or
doing well. But when it comes to saying in what happiness consists, opinions
differ, and the account given by the generality of mankind is not at all like
that of the wise. The former take it to be something obvious and familiar, like
pleasure or money or eminence, and there are various other views; and often the
same person actually changes his opinion…’
He also
describe pleasure in acting virtuously…
‘…lovers
of beauty find pleasure in things that are pleasant by nature, and virtuous
actions are of this kind, so that they are pleasant not only to this type of
person but also in themselves. So their life does not need to have pleasure
attached to it as a sort of accessory, but contains its own pleasure in itself.
Indeed we may go further and assert that anyone who does not delight in fine
actions is not even a good man;
for nobody would say that a
man is just unless he enjoys acting justly, nor liberal unless he enjoys liberal
actions, and similarly in all the other cases. If this is so, virtuous actions
must be pleasurable in themselves’
In other
words, true happiness is to be found in those things that are virtuous. So a
rational person – seeking happiness – will want to act virtuously. He can then
examine what those virtues are, and relate them to human nature.
NB.
Considering personal virtues is not selfish, but is related to the needs of
others.
Aristotle
thought that developing the virtues was a necessary feature of living alongside
other people. His ethics are social and political, not just personal.
Aristotle saw the virtues as qualities needed to live a moral life and to
achieve the ‘final cause’ or overall purpose in life.
He also considered it important to strike a balance (or
mean)
between extremes – and it is recognising that balance that leads to virtue.
[e.g. courage is mid way between being a coward and taking suicidal risks] His
aim is to have a life that follows
reason
and is therefore balanced. Reason is the distinctive feature of human beings.
BUT the
‘mean’ does not apply to acts that are considered to be wrong (e.g. murder,
theft); it is applied to dispositions, rather than to actions in themselves.
Perhaps the
best way of thinking about the ‘mean’ in Aristotle is to consider what makes a
balanced and mature friendship or relationship. Do you want someone who is
desperately anxious to please you and agree with you no matter what? Do you want
someone who is hyper critical and ready to challenge you at every point? Or do
you want someone who is balanced – sometimes being happy to please, sometimes
about to challenge? (Maturity is being able to maintain a rational mean!)
Four
cardinal virtues are found in Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas. They
are: temperance (moderation), justice, courage and wisdom. [c.p. the
seven capital vices: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth –
generally called the ‘seven deadly sins’.]
Key question: what virtues will I display if my life is ruled by reason and is
lived in a way that will enable me to achieve my purpose as a human being?
NB
At some point in
your course, you will have examined Natural Law Ethics – a moral theory that
was developed (particularly by Aquinas, and prominently in the Catholic
Church) from Aristotle. In Natural Law, something is good if it fulfils its
natural purpose. And Christians add – ‘for which God created it’.
How does this relate
to Virtue Ethics?
Both Virtue Ethics
and the Natural Law approach are based on a fundamental understanding of the
nature of humankind. They both start from a view of what constitutes the
‘good life’ – without that, neither makes sense. It is therefore possible to
see them as two aspects of a single moral argument. Natural Law requires
me to seek my ‘end’ as a human being; the virtues are the personal qualities
that enable me to make the moral choices that will enable me to do so.
My view on Natural Law and
Virtue Ethics has changed recently. Because they approach ethical question from
very different directions, I assumed that they were fundamentally different.
Natural Law (think about Abortion issues, or sexuality or contraception) tends
to work from general principles and applies them to situations – while Virtue
Ethics starts with the qualities that make for a good life.
BUT
They are both based on an
understanding of the ‘end’or purpose of life. What is human life about? If you
know that, you can start to frame general principles that will enable it to
fulfil itself (Natural Law), but you will also be able to assess those
dispositions which may lead to fulfilment and happiness (Virtue Ethics). Hence
Natural Law and Virtue Ethics are effectively two sides of a single coin.
So let us now turn to the
modern developments in Virtue Ethics…
But first… a general
background note….
In the West – particularly in
the period before the Reformation – morality was defined by the Church. It was
rule-based, Natural Law, and closely related to religious belief, metaphysics
and Church authority.
Following the reformation,
but particularly later with the European Enlightenment, there was a quest for
rational ethics – acceptable to everyone on the basis of reason, quite apart
from their religious beliefs. Two appraoches developed: Kantian ethics and
Utilitarian Ethics. They rather dominated ethical from their origins in the 18th
century, through until the middle of the 20th. People tended to take
either the Kantian absolutist view, or the utilitarian view of the greatest
happiness to the greatest number. (They were the secular ones, while Natural Law
was the religious one.)
All of those were being
challenged in the second half of the 20th century – as part of a
general rejection of authoritarianism and rules. Hence the re-examination of
Aristotle and virtue ethics….
Modern Virtue Ethics:
Virtue Ethics stands in contrast
to the two major ethical theories that have dominated western philosophy in the
modern period: Kantian absolutist ethics and Utilitarianism. They take as their
staring point the moment of moral choice. They require you to assess
whether a chosen action is:
a) able to be universalised
(Kant), or
b)
likely
to give the greatest happiness to the greatest number (utilitarianism).
But the problem with both of
these is that one may ask ‘Why should I bother?’ since both depend on a prior
agreement about fundamental values.
The
revival of Virtue Ethics in modern times is generally thought to have started
with
Elizabeth Anscombe’s Modern
Moral Philosophy (1958). This was in
contrast to the prevailing ethics of the day because it moved moral debate
away from
general rules and principles of behaviour,
and towards more general questions about value and meaning in life, and
qualities that were worth developing and encouraging.
It was thought that the other
main theories were inadequate and lacked a sound
foundation, since many
people no longer believed in God as an external law-giver or guarantor of
rewards.
Anscombe felt that the older systems could not be effective as guides for the
moral life. The only answer, she felt, was to return to some Aristotelian idea
of what is was to live well (eudaimonia) – a goal which would be good in itself,
as well as producing good for society as a whole.
There was also debate about whether you should follow your duty even if (and
especially if) it goes against your natural disposition. Phillipa Foot, a modern
virtue ethicist, discussed (in Virtues and Vices, 1978) whether Kant was right
in considering that a person who behaved morally against his or her own
inclinations was more or less moral than one who was naturally virtuous. Virtue
Ethics sees the virtuous person as one who has a natural disposition to do what
is good. In other words, doing what is right is about ‘being good, or kind, or
generous. It is not simply a matter of obeying an external command, nor being
able to add up expected results. In a world where a majority do not believe in
an external lawgiver, and all results are ambiguous, there needs to be some
other criterion for moral action.
Virtue
Ethics involves personal responsibility and is entirely secular – it is about
developing qualities that will promote eudaimonia – happiness.
However, the
terminology has changed a bit since Aristotle. In modern debates, what Aristotle
called ‘happiness’ is generally termed ‘human flourishing’. And that, of course,
has the sense of happiness, of living and doing well, of fulfilling one’s own
natural abilities etc etc. We all know what it is to say that a plant or even
an organisation or a company is ‘flourishing’ – it thrives, it prospers, it
lives to the full. So what does it mean to say that a human being is
‘flourishing’? That is the key question, and it requires the ‘Natural Law’
question as well: What is life for?
Virtue Ethics
is therefore compatible with religion, since Religion does have views about what
life is for, but it is also independent of it. Human flourishing can be
completely secular.
The revived virtue ethics appealed to
feminist thinkers, who felt that the other ethical theories, based on rights
and duties, were a particularly male ways of approaching life, whereas virtue
ethics included a recognition of the value of relationships and intimacy.
Virtue Ethics is naturalistic: it
moves away from the idea of obeying rules, to an appreciation of how one
might express one’s own fundamental nature, and thus fulfil one’s potential as a
human being.
Questions to be considered:
·
Do we have a fixed ‘essence’?
Do we all have the same essence? Are there particular qualities that we should
ALL seek to express?
·
Is our nature dependent upon our
surroundings and upbringing? If it has been shaped by factors over which we have
no control (e.g. our culture or religion, or some traumatic experience in
childhood) are we responsible for those virtues and vices that lead us to
behave as we do?
·
If there are different ways of expressing
the same virtue (e.g. out of love, one person might seek euthanasia, another
seek to prolong life), how should you choose between them? Moral dilemmas
occur because people want to be good, but do not know what they should do to
be good.
·
We may all want
to be virtuous, but may not know how to be virtuous.
It is therefore possible to criticise
Virtue Ethics on the grounds that it does not say what you ought to do – it
leaves it all vague and open. But that is exactly the point. It was the attempt
to set down and apply general principles to particular situations that led to a
dissatisfaction with traditional Kantian and Utilitarian ethics. So you can’t
expect Virtue Ethics to give you simple and clean-cut answers to everyday
problems. It expects you do develop the virutes and then act naturally.
The key thing to remember:
Virtue Ethics has shown that morality goes beyond rules and regulations, is
concerned as much with dispositions as with actions, and should be concerned
with questions about the value and purpose of human life.
[NB
A most influential book: Virtue Ethics by Alistair MacIntyre, 1981]
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