Greg Detre
Wednesday, May 30, 2001
Jeremy Watkins, Hertford
Ethics VI
What role should the notion of �virtue� play in ethics?
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, book 1 ch 7, book 2
Roger Crisp, �Modern moral
philosophy and the virtues�, in Crisp (ed) How should one live?
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, chs 5, 15
Roger Crisp and Michael Slote (eds)
Virtue ethics
Elizabeth Anscombe, �Modern moral philosophy�, Philosophy 1958
Philippa Foot, �Virtues and vices� in Virtues and vices, or ch 1
Rosalind Hursthouse, in Virtue ethics (eds Crisp and Slote)
Greg Pence, �Virtue theory�, Companion to ethics (ed Singer)
Rosalind Hursthouse, in How
should one live?
J. O. Urmson, Aristotle�s Ethics
Aristotle�s threefold ethical system???:
1. untutored man�s nature???
2. man as he could be if he realised his telos
3. and the rational precepts for getting from one to the other
He sees many similarities between Hume, Diderot and Kant in their approach. Obviously, they were all writing within a Christian tradition,
shared views on human nature
shared views on �
but they didn�t have the third part, since one could not get from an �is� to an �ought�, and reason cannot provide the evaluations needed for morality, only assessments and quantifications of logical truths. Hume was probably least aware of this missing leg in his ethical tripod, with Kant being more aware of the need for telos.
However, you can get from an �is� to an �ought� if you take a functional definition of whatever you�re describing, e.g. a good watch, a good farmer, a good man, which is exactly what Aristotle did.
In the absence of a divine Creator, and assuming we want more than just a naturalistic basis for deciding man�s function, MacIntyre �
3 ways in which the reader can be confused by Aristotle:
has translated words differently � � self-control etc.
Virtue is self-enforcing. By acting in line with virtue, we learn to take pleasure in it, so making it easier to be virtuous in the future.
It is not enough to simply act like a virtuous man � you�ve got to act in the right way
agents are irrelevant in the sense that an action�s moral worth is entirely independent of who carries it out
reduced to the status of executors of
the lack of integrity which such a criterion of action
can see himself as more or less moral on the basis of his actions,
The agent himself is irrelevant, in the sense that
Although Kant allowed for morally indifferent acts, those minutiae which fall through the grand cracks of duty but matter to the individual himself, the implication is that every moment not spent
Some feminists have gone so far as to describe these systems as �male�, in their emphasis on obligation, rather than trust
waggling my wrist � writing an exam
Virtue theory seeks to address these major flaws by building on the ancient Greek perception of ethics.
Virtue ethics involves ethics in every moment of our daily lives.
To Aristotle�s list, Aquinas added the �theological virtues�, of faith, charity and hope. These were intended to have God as their immediate origin, and so to square an Aristotelian account with Christianity. Even in a secular world, we might want to adopt charity and hope within our schema, since they are just as valuable, if harder to justify, for a godless humanity.
Hursthouse, see Skrmetti
virtue theory places emphasis on self-development, and explains moral motivation in terms of a positive spiral
would it be fair to say that virtue ethics is more immediately comprehensible than most other ethical theories???
binds the practical in with the theoretical
the virtues aren�t doing the work (Griffin), so much as the questions that we ask in assessing virtuousness???
the difficulties of enumerating and defining the virtues of man outweigh the bonuses and attractiveness of virtue ethics as a theory. can man�s function be so easily decided upon??? is it simply a case of looking for what separates us from the brute beasts??? assumes a naturalistic teleology I'm not happy with. what if man�s function is to be happy � does that help us/lead to the desirable sort of virtues we have in mind???
requires a �serious man� as a yardstick � the virtues are shifting, and cannot be pinned down easily by deductive argument, only by pointing to men consensually regarded as virtuous
is Kantianism a form of deontology???
can I not be a subjectivist virtue theorist??? i.e. each man should strive to be what he regards as the virtuous man???
if my aim in life is �to be admired�, then am I a virtue ethicist???
does virtue theory lead to inauthenticity???
what are Greg Pence�s criticisms of virtue ethics???
is there room for development and education in Kant???
does virtue ethics place much of a burden on our reason (Skrmetti)??? do we need reason to experience and apply the virtues???
is there a finite number of virtues???
can we incorporate inalienable rights into virtue theory???
Kantianism and consequentialism are rule- and obligation-based. In what way is virtue ethics different???
Can we incorporate rights, consequences, intentions etc. into the virtues???
To what extent is virtue theory tied to contemporary conceptions of the virtuous???
Is there a single master virtue???
where do the cardinal virtues (courage, temperance, wisdom and justice) fit in???
intellectual vs moral (vs theological) virtues???
how can Aristotle/MacIntyre be so sure that being virtuous will lead to being fulfilled will lead to people everywhere being happy???
what�s the difference between pleasure and happiness in Aristotle???
apart from education/indoctrination, how does Aristotle ensure that pleasure/pain accord an action in the right way???
how do the intellectual virtues fit in with the cardinal virtues???
how different are the Aristotelian virtues to modern virtues???
can we talk of virtue theory independent of actual virtues???
to what extent is man�s function rational???
do modern virtue theorists talk in terms of means???
does Aristotle distinguish between �moral� and �ethical�???
can �excellence� be wholly substituted for �virtue� in Aristotle???
how are we to know that the emotions of spite, shamelessness and envy, or the actions of adultery, theft and murder, are necessarily and always base and wrong???
is it simply that the virtuous (well brought up) man wouldn�t do them, and so clearly we shouldn�t either???
Pascal as a Jansenist???
how is the intelligibility/unintelligibility of my actions important
to what extent can a man decide what he thinks are the virtues??? what do we say to a psychopath whose virtues are all �wrong�??? does MacIntyre take the Aristotelian consensus view about what is right???
what�s the difference between virtue theory and virtue ethics???
to what extent can virtue theory be meshed with other ethical theories??? can we have a theory of right action sitting next to a theory of right character???
is it a virtue if it�s turned to evil uses??? can we talk of �evil� in virtue theory???
so are there any definite virtues??? �poison� is a term we impose on chemicals as a result of their effects � is it the same with virtue???
Acts are called just and self-controlled when they are the kind of acts which a just or self-controlled man would perform; but the just and self-controlled man is not he who performs these acts, but he who also performs them in the way just and self-controlled men do (1105 7)
Thus we can experience fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity and generally any kind of pleasure and pain either too much or too little, and in either case not properly. But to experience all this at the right time, towards the right objects, towards the right people, for the right reason, and in the right manner � that is the median and the best course, the course that is a mark of virtue (1106b 20)
The proper function of a harpist, for example, is the same as the function of a harpist who has set high standards for himself (1098a 8)
Just as we might say in a certain setting, �P is not a poison here�, though P is a poison and P is here, so we might say that industriousness, or temperance, is not a virtue in some. Similarly in a man habitually given to wishful thinking, who clings to false hopes, hope does not operate as a virtue and we may say that it is not a virtue in him
Not every man who has a virtue has something that is a virtue in him