PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
Virtue Ethics
The virtue ethics theory is among the three top theories in normative ethics. The theory stresses the importance of virtues and moral character. This is unlike other approaches that emphasize on the rules and responsibilities (de ontology) and the effects of an individual’s action (consequential ism). The reason the theory is important is that among other things, it instills important values in my person such as integrity, optimism, realism, and value human relations (Jayawardene 2014).PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
Virtue ethics theory can be interpreted as both objective and subjective. The element of objectivity is as a result of providing an objective standard for humanity, where the end is flourishing of all humans. The theory is subjective in that it fails to provide guidance on how people should act and people have to decide for themselves. As such, the objectivity of ethics is lost and relativism sets in (Hurst house 2013).
The theory has many strengths which include; recognizing that an agent is emotionally involved while making an ethical judgement, that there exist practical solutions to moral dilemmas contrary to conflict of absolute rules. The approach emphasizes on the significance of the character of the agent and role of motivation while reasoning ethically which is absent in other normative theories. More so the theory switches the focus for moral values from the acts of the agents and provides individuals with the opportunity to learn and improve their moral lives (Vaughn 2015). The theory, however, has weaknesses that are problematic to deal with. For instance, it’s hard to define the end, Pneumonia, and it is difficult to confirm the claim be Aristotle that particular virtues can lead to an end. The theory also fails to state with clarity the steps a person should follow while dealing with a dilemma. It is practically difficult to discover a virtuous individual on whose opinion shall the right action course of action is defined. The theory is also faced with the problem of circularity of definition leading to confusions in interpretations, and relativism (Hurst house 2013).
Virtue ethics belongs to the branch of philosophy called ethics. Virtue ethics is also a sub branch of normative ethics and it contrasts with dis teleology because normative ethics is more concerned about characteristics of a person rather than the moral duties and laws they must abide, so Natural Moral Law, Kantian ethics and Divine Command are usually dismissed by Virtue Ethics. This ethical theory also contrasts with consequential ism e.g. Utilitarianism which is more focused on results and outcomes. Virtue ethics was first introduces by Plato and was further developed by Aristotle.
Virtue ethics is based on the focus of characteristics, also known as virtues. This means the good character traits an individual has- and the opposite of a virtue (a vice) which are the negatives traits of an individual. Virtue ethics can be seen as an anti-theory because it is not concerned about the theory aspect but rather it is about the practice of it.
In other words Virtue ethics focuses upon what kind of human being you ought to be rather than the actions of a human being.
Plato, in his book “Republic”, focused on justices and further on argues that, with his beliefs about the soul, that there is a virtue connected to such part of the soul. These different parts of the soul, are called imperative and it is divided into three parts, with a virtue connected to it. These virtues are the cardinal virtues; thus reason and wisdom are one, the human spirit performing well is paired with courage and destiny which is paired with temperance or otherwise known as moderation (self-control). If we have all these virtues we can obtain justice, the fourth virtue. According to Plato, justice is an important virtue because it balances out the interrelationship between the parts of the soul. There is justice when reason rules over spirit and desires. Wisdom is the knowledge of Forms especially the knowledge of the Form of God, having to know what goodness is itself.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
The forms are the fixed, unities and unchanging concepts that are ultimately real. This type of thinking presupposes both anthropological dualism and ontological dualism. The problems with Plato is that he has based his argument on a questionable meta physic cleansing that we cannot prove something we have little to no experience to. The concept about the soul and the priparte are criticised because there is no empirical evidence to support it, it is only logic and reason. A fortiori is the criticism of the preparative soul because there is no solid empirical evidence to support it. Furthermore there is no evidence to support the claim that there are forms, again it is only a concept based on reasoning.
Lace Wing presents the argument that even if ontology accepted Virtue Ethics, then it is unclear what the practical implications are. If Virtue Ethics is an anti-ethical theory then to how would you practice it? What would you do afterwards? How would knowing these virtues and forms affect you? In the hope of rescuing Virtue Ethics, Aristotle (Plato’s student) delivers his interpretation of this ethical theory. Aristotle does not necessarily agree into Plato’s meta physic, epistemology or ontology but he does agree with Plato that reason is vital to virtue’s. This is because human’s are rational animals and agrees that virtue’s are vital to human flourishing otherwise known as “eudsimonia”. Unlike Plato, Aristotle believes that there are only two kinds of virtues; intellectual virtues and moral virtues.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
Virtue ethics began in the 300s BCE with Aristotle’s teaching, but the importance of virtues have been stressed by many scholars such as Aquinas who described a virtue as “a disposition to act well”. Aristotle wrote Nicomachean Ethics, which is comprised in ten books that form a significant part of his ethical theory. Aristotle argued that it was of extreme important to behave virtuously and in doing so to develop a virtuous character. He believed that the virtuous person is more likely to recognize the most virtuous course of action. Nonetheless, he also argued that a young person is not fit to attend a lecture on ethics because they will not be able to turn what is said to them into positive and virtuous action and because we are not born moral, but moral virtues are acquired by a process of habituation. In his theory, Aristotle goes through what may be the goals of human life such as pleasure, wealth or honor, but he concludes that these goals are simply goals you pursue for the sake of another end. Similarly to utilitarians, Aristotle did argue that the fundamental goal we pursue is happiness because the happy person succeeds at being a human being. From the aim of happiness, Aristotle goes on to argue that human happiness involves living according to reason, a human being who reason well is set apart from those humans who do not and our appetite and our desires may be responsive to reason because we can be educated and we can become increasingly responsive to life circumstances. He believed that character traits, such as being virtuous are increased by continued performance of them but it is difficult to achieve virtuosity because there will usually be a slight deficiency in being virtuous. He developed the doctrine of the mean, which suggests that each virtue is closely related to a vice on either side of it. For example, a deficiency of being brave is being a coward and being too brave could be seen as being rash.
To simplify Aristotle’s argument, he believed that from concentrating on what sort of person you would like to be, your choices and actions will flow from your character and if your character is virtuous then you can place more importance on your decisions than if your character is not virtuous.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
The most important attraction to virtue ethics is that it is an account of moral motivation with the emphasis on who I should be rather than what I should do. This could make people aspire to greater heights of virtuosity and reason. Another positive of the virtue theory is that in some moral theories based on duty for example, it is possible that a person could obey every moral rule where they would be like a robot, whereas we need to know what the person is like, how they feel about things and what effects them, not just that they are focused on duty.
Stanley Hauerwas is a modern example of a virtue ethicist who believes that character is more important than many other things such as rules, so we should be asking what sort of community we should be, not what we should do. Hauerwas is a Christian and dedicated the Blackwell Companion To Christian Ethics, a book he edited, to his local parish church in Norwich. Greg Pence says, “Questions about personal character clearly occupy a central place in ethics.” This shows that virtue ethicists are right to place importance on the character of a person. Virtue theory has been ignored of recent times in favour of deontology and consequentialism but they too place central importance on the personal character of the person making the decision. In consequentialism, the personal character has to be able to decide which action will bring about the best consequences and in deontology, the personal character has to know its duty.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
Hauerwas believes that we should use Christ’s life as an example for how we should live our own lives. Hence in his text, “pacifism: some philosophical considerations”, he argues, “Pacifism follows from our understanding of God which we believe has been most decisively revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ.” He believes that the church’s community comes from the understanding of Jesus’ story and suggests that the story becomes our story because moral identities are formed by it. He believes that Christian ethics should allow us as individuals to live in an entirely Christian manner. Hauerwas’s pacifism comes from his belief in virtue ethics because virtue ethics promotes non-violence as a character trait; only people with good personal characters can make important ethical decisions.
Pence argues that we have to apply Aristotle’s arguments to modern times because they did not live in democracies and were idealizing the behaviour of their times, not giving descriptions of it.
A criticism of virtue ethics is the question of whether we can base an entire theory on somebody’s personal character. Another criticism is that generally most scholars agree that people can corrupt and shape their own characters and characters like this should not be trusted to make ethical decisions. If bad characters can change into good characters then surely good characters can also turn into bad characters if life throws at them a particularly nasty set of circumstances. Pence argues that virtue ethics does not pay enough attention on the area of life that form our characters such as our childhoods, where we live, what job we have and who we marry.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
A criticism of Hauerwas’s idea of virtue ethics is that it leaves non-Christians completely out of the frame and implies that they cannot be virtuous because they do not believe in the story of Christ.
Nevertheless, virtue is an ancient concept and a great deal of thought is being put into it at the moment and Pence thinks that this will continue throughout the century. Scholars are thinking about traditional vices such as greed and lust and considering the extent to which we are responsible for our characters or how they are shaped by outside influences.
Virtue ethics is a moral theory that emphasizes the role of an individual’s character and virtues in evaluating the rightness of actions. It is one of three major moral theories. It is often contrasted with deontology, which emphasizes following moral rules, and consequentialism, which determines the permissibility of an action from its consequences. Virtue ethics offers an account of right and wrong based on what a ‘virtuous agent’ would do. It believes that an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would perform in the circumstances (Oakley, 1996, p. 129). The right thing to do is whatever the virtuous person would do. The virtuous agent is a person whose character traits are virtues and does not have any vices. Virtues are character traits that are positively valued in a person. They are generally said to encompass traits such as honesty, kindness, and generosity. Vices, on the other hand, are character traits that are negatively valued (Timmons, 2002, p. 270). This can include traits such as dishonesty, cruelty, and selfishness. The virtuous person is an ideal to emulate. As Simon Keller (2004) explains, “we should not, according to virtue ethics, seek merely to act like the virtuous agents … we should seek to be virtuous agents” (p. 224). Excellence in virtues is acquired over time. Virtues are different from excellences of nature, such as musical pitch or good eyesight, with which people are born. One must have an account of what a virtue is before one can decide if an action is right or wrong. Thus, one must have an account of good before an account of right. Virtue ethics uses aretaic classificationdetermining whether a trait is a virtue or a vicebefore giving a deontic classification of right or wrong (Timmons, 2002, p. 278). The very fact that a trait is classified as a virtue or vice allows for the determination of a right or wrong action. This paper will later discuss how different varieties of virtue ethics use different approaches to aretaic classification. Virtues will be classified as such because they are valuable in their own right. In this sense, virtue ethics believes the virtues are a plurality of intrinsic goods (Oakley, 1996, p. 139). The virtues are valuable in a way that cannot be reduced to a single, main value. They are valuable intrinsically rather than instrumentally. Virtue ethics differs in this way from other moral theories that tend to be monistic, meaning they believe all goods can be reduced into a single value. Utilitarianism, for example, is a popular form of consequentialism that believes all good can be reduced to the single value of pleasure (Oakley, 1996, p. 140). An action is right if and only if it produces the most pleasure, since that is the most important good of all. Different varieties of virtue ethics will prefer certain virtues to others, depending on how they define right action.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
Moral Schizophrenia
The main advantage virtue ethics has over other moral theories is that it does not fall victim to ‘moral schizophrenia’ as it does not compromise one’s motivations and reasons. First, the problem moral schizophrenia poses, which most moral theories face, must be understood. Michael Stocker (1976) identifies the problem, which he calls ‘moral schizophrenia’, in many modern moral theories such as consequentialism and deontology. Moral schizophrenia, he explains, causes a split between motives and reasons, so an indicator of a ‘good life’ is having harmony between motives and reasons (p. 454). If one wants to lead a good life one “should be moved by [one’s] major values and [one] should value what [one’s] major motives seek” (p. 454). A moral theory should support personal motives. However, the reasoning in many moral theories conflicts with personal motives. They require that people do “what is right, obligatory, [their] duty no matter what [their] motive for so acting” (p. 454).
Specifically, the impartialist nature of most moral theories does not allow people to treat anyone else differently. People cannot treat their family and friends any differently from strangers, even though moral intuitions support preferential treatment. Whatever personal motivation one may have to do something does not matter; one must always follow the reasoning of the moral theory, even if it conflicts with his or her motives. Moral schizophrenia in moral theories will prevent the agents from ever achieving the good life. Stocker explains that these moral theories “allow [people] the harmony of a morally impoverished life, a life deeply deficient in what is valuable … people who do let them compromise their motives will, for that reason, have a life seriously lacking in what is valuable” (p. 455).PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
A life cannot be very fulfilling if everyone who performs his or her duty very rarely actually wants to. Moral schizophrenia means that, in most situations, individuals will end up discontent from following the reasoning of the moral theory. Modern moral theories do not allow for personal pursuits such as love, friendship, and community, which are valuable sources of pleasure. These theories do not recognize the value people can bring to lives. Stocker writes “there is a whole other area of values of personal and interpersonal relations and activities; and also of moral goodness, merit, and virtue” (p. 453-456). People’s motives need to be in harmony for these values to be realized.
Virtue ethics avoids moral schizophrenia because it allows for virtues that harmonize motives and reasons. Recall that virtue ethics believes virtues are a plurality of intrinsic good; there are various reasons why certain virtues are valuable. It does not believe one overarching principle is the ultimate guide to live by, which generally would compromise other values in our life. Virtues ethics considers traits such as love, friendship, and community as virtues that are important for the wellbeing of the individuals involved. Specific varieties of virtue ethics will sometimes value certain virtues above others that are imperative to maintaining the personal and interpersonal connections other moral theories do not. NeoAristotelian virtue ethics values what is good for the wellbeing of the individual. Certainly acting upon personal motives is important for one’s wellbeing, so it would value traits such as friendship and love that allow one to maintain personal connections.
Consider the following example to help further explain. A man has recently saved up a considerable amount of money in order to visit his friend in Iceland for a week. Instead of spending money on the trip, he could always donate it to a local homeless shelter to help directly feed the hungry. Surely donating his money to such charitable efforts would produce more happiness than would spending the money to see his friend. It would most likely be agreed that there is nothing wrong with him spending the money to see his friend. He saved the money himself and would gain personal satisfaction from seeing his long-distance friend. According to utilitarianism, a theory plagued by moral schizophrenia, the right thing to do is donate the money because it would produce the most pleasure.
However, think about what the virtue ethicist would say. The virtuous person would take all the virtues into account. They would consider the virtues of love and friendship. They would most likely conclude that the right thing to do is take the trip to Iceland. The reasons may include the fact that the person would be acting as a good friend or acting in their own best interest by going on the trip. This decision would satisfy the virtuous person because it harmonizes motives and reasons. Virtue ethics allows people to maintain personal and interpersonal connections important for the good life. Virtue ethics does not fall victim to moral schizophrenia, which is one advantage it has over most other moral theories.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper
Care Ethics
After understanding what makes a virtue ethics approach so appealing, some common varieties of this moral theory can be considered. Care ethics believes that the virtue of care is central to understanding morality (Timmons, 2002, p. 282). Most moral theories employ a conception of justice. The self is considered an individual and the primary concern is “to protect individual interests in a manner that preserves equal respect for all” (Timmons, 2002, p. 283). Care ethics, on the other hand, employs a conception of care where “the relationship becomes the figure, defining self and others… (and the moral agent) responds to the perception of need” (Timmons, 2002, p. 283).
Care ethics seeks to maintain and promote relationships with one another. It asks people to approach a moral issue with sensitivity. In care ethics, the virtuous agent is one who acts with the virtue of caring. They become the ‘caring agent’. Care ethics believes an action is right if and only if it is what the caring agent would perform in the circumstances. The big appeal of care ethics is that it accommodates a person’s intuition to give preferential treatment to those closest to him or her (Timmons, 2002, p. 282-285). It realizes and protects the value in personal and interpersonal relationships and activities. It avoids the problem of moral schizophrenia because it allows such intuitive motives to align with the reasoning.PHIL 2001 week 2 Assignment Paper