Virtue ethics

Virtue ethics is one of three major theories in normative ethics. It holds the cultivation of moral character and embodiment of virtues as the essential issues in ethics, rather than the establishment of rules based on duties (deontological ethics) or consequences (Consequentialism).

In the West, virtue ethics was the prevailing approach to ethical thinking in the ancient and medieval periods. The tradition faded out during the early modern period, as Aristotelianism fell out of favor in the West. Virtue theory returned to prominence in Western philosophical thought in the twentieth century, and is today one of the three dominant approaches to normative theories (the other two being deontology and consequentialism).

The roots of the tradition lie in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and so the tradition’s key concepts derive from ancient Greek philosophy. These concepts include arete (excellence or virtue), phronesis (practical or moral wisdom), and eudaimonia (flourishing). In the late twentieth century, an "ethics of care" emerged from a feminist perspective, which focuses on relationships, the emotional aspect of human existence, and moral values cultivated in a family. This "ethics of care" emphasizes the importance of the family as opposed to a traditional framework of ethics based on an individual's place in a society.

Ethics developed in Eastern philosophy can all be said to be forms of virtue ethics, the major Eastern ethical theory being Confucian ethics. Confucian ethics also holds the family as the basic unit of society and thus virtues are defined accordingly. Ethical perspectives embedded in religious traditions are similarly forms of virtue ethics; these ethical perspectives also take into account the human tendency to commit evil, cultivation of character, and the spiritual needs of the person.

Virtue ethics vs. deontological and consequentialist ethics

Virtue ethics offers a schema of the moral life that strongly differs from those offered by its predominant rivals, deontological and consequentialist ethics. These systems aim to articulate principles or rules that provide an agent the ability to decide how to act in a given situation. They often still use the term 'virtue', but in a restricted sense, namely as a tendency or disposition to adhere to the system's principles or rules. These very different senses of what constitutes virtue, hidden behind the same word, are a potential source of confusion.

This disagreement over the meaning of virtue points to a larger conflict between virtue ethics and its philosophical rivals. The system of virtue ethics is only intelligible if it is teleological: that is, if it includes an account of the purpose (telos) of human life, or in popular language, the meaning of life, like the Greek ethics of Palto and Aristotle, which took eudaimonia (happiness or flourishing) as the final end or purpose of life and made virtues as the necessary condition to achieve this goal. Obviously, strong claims about the purpose of human life, or of what the good life for human beings is, will be highly controversial. So, virtue ethics' necessary commitment to a teleological account of human life puts the tradition in sharp tension with the other dominant approaches to normative ethics, which, because they focus on actions, do not bear this burden.

Three central concepts in virtue ethics

Virtue

According to Plato and Aristotle, virtues are character states of the soul with respect to its own inner harmony. Plato maintained that the inner harmony of the soul is reached when the rational part of the soul regains its knowledge of eternal truth in the Forms to able to regain also control over the other parts of the soul. Depending on a variety of aspects of the soul's inner harmony, Plato suggested four virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Aristotle also explained moral virtues in terms of the rational ability of the soul to control its appetitive portion. But, unlike Plato's thesis that virtues are only based on knowledge, he asserted that moral virtues should be learned through practice to become habits. Aristotle considered many more moral virtues than Plato, and included virtues such as magnificence, liberality, friendship, sincerity, and self-respect. Aristotle also argued that each moral virtue is a mean between two corresponding vices. For example, the virtue of courage is a mean between the two vices of cowardice and foolhardiness. Where cowardice is the disposition to act more fearfully than the situation deserves, and foolhardiness is the disposition to show too little fear for the situation, courage is the mean between the two: the disposition to show the amount of fear appropriate to the situation. Other than the moral virtues, Aristotle categorized intellectual virtues, which consist in purely rational abilities of the soul unrelated to controlling the appetitive part, and the most important of which are "philosophical wisdom" of first principles (sophia) and "practical wisdom" of the good (phronesis). While the moral virtues can lead us to happiness (eudaimonia), the intellectual virtues constitue even higher forms of happiness.

Practical wisdon

Various virtues are complementary to each other and work in an integral form. For example, a good intention of a person with the moral virtue of benevolence does not necessarily bear fruit, if he or she makes a misjudgment. According to Aristotle, therefore, one must have the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (phronesis) to make a proper judgment at the given situation, at the right moment with the proper method. One cannot properly possess any of the virtues unless one has developed practical wisdom. Conversely, if one has practical wisdom, then one has all the virtues

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia is a state variously translated as "happiness" or "human flourishing." The latter translation is more accurate; eudaimonia is not a subjective, but an objective, state. It characterizes the well-lived life, irrespective of the emotional state of the person experiencing it. According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of eudaimonia in the Western philosophical tradition, eudaimonia is the proper goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality—reason—as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia was an activity that could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the polis or city-state.

Although eudaimonia was first popularized by Aristotle, it now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally. For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome which can be reached by practicing the virtues.

A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer, whether human or non-human, to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what the human purpose is. There is, and always has been, sharp disagreement on this question: thus, as Alasdair MacIntyre observed in After Virtue, though thinkers as diverse as Homer, Aristotle, the authors of the New Testament, Thomas Aquinas, and Benjamin Franklin have all proposed lists of the virtues, these lists often fail to overlap.

Historical origins and development

Like much of the Western tradition, virtue theory seems to have originated in ancient Greek philosophy. Discussion of what were known as the Four Cardinal Virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance—can be found in Plato's Republic. The virtues also figure prominently in Aristotle's moral theory (see below). The Greek idea of the virtues was later incorporated into Christian moral theology. During the scholastic period, the most comprehensive consideration of the virtues from a theological perspective was provided by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae and his Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics.

The tradition was eclipsed in the Renaissance, and throughout the early modern period, when the Aristotelian synthesis of ethics and metaphysics fell into disfavor. Though the tradition receded into the background of European philosophical thought in these centuries, the term "virtue" remained current during this period, and in fact appears prominently in the tradition of classical republicanism or classical liberalism. This tradition was prominent in the intellectual life of sixteenth-century Italy, as well as seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and America; indeed the term "virtue" appears frequently in the work of Machiavelli, Hume, the republicans of the English Civil War period, the eighteenth-century English Whigs, and the prominent figures among the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding. Despite this common term, classical republicanism should not be conflated with virtue theory, as the two philosophical traditions draw from different sources and often address different concerns.

Virtue theory and classical republicanism

Where virtue theory traces its roots to Aristotle, classical republicanism draws primarily on Tacitus. Virtue theory emphases Aristotle's belief in the polis as the acme of political organization, and the role of the virtues in enabling human beings to flourish in that environment. Classical republicanism in contrast emphasizes Tacticus' concern that power and luxury can corrupt individuals and destroy liberty, as Tacitus perceived in the transformation of the Roman republic into an empire; virtue for classical republicans is a shield against this sort of corruption and preserve the good life one has, rather than a means by which to achieve the good life one does not yet have. Another way to put the distinction between the two traditions is that virtue ethics relies on Aristotle's fundamental distinction between the human-being-as-he-is from the human-being-as-he-should-be, while classical republicanism relies on the Tacitean distinction of the human-being-as-he-is from the human-being-as-he-is-at-risk-of-becoming.

Contemporary virtue theory

Although some Enlightenment philosophers (e.g. Hume) continued to emphasize the virtues, with the ascendancy of utilitarianism and deontology, virtue theory moved to the margins of Western philosophy. The contemporary revival of virtue theory is frequently traced to the philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe's 1958 essay, Modern Moral Philosophy and to Philippa Foot, who published a collection of essays in 1978 entitled Virtues and Vices. Since the 1980s, in works like After Virtue and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has made an effort to reconstruct a virtue-based theory in dialogue with the problems of modern and postmodern thought.

In French philosophy, Paul Ricoeur has accorded an important place to Aristotelian teleological ethics in his hermeneutical phenomenology of the subject, most notably in his book Oneself as Another. Following MacIntyre, American Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas has also found the language of virtue quite helpful in his own project. More recently, Rosalind Hursthouse has published On Virtue Ethics and Roger Crisp and Michael Slote have edited a collection of important essays titled Virtue Ethics, while Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have employed virtue theory in theorizing the capability approach to international development.

One of the notable developments in the late twentieth century is "ethics of care." It was initially developed by a psychologist Carol Gilligan from a feminist perspective. While utilitarianism and deontological ethics emphasize universality, justice, impartiality, ethics of care emphasizes the importance of relationships, emotional aspect of human being, the importance of family as the ground to cultivate moral virtues. (see main article: ethics of care)

Confucianism

Non-Western moral and religious philosophies, such as Confucianism, also incorporate ideas that may appear similar to those developed by the ancient Greeks. Like ancient Greek ethics, Chinese ethical thought makes an explicit connection between virtue and statecraft. However, where the Greeks focused on the interior orientation of the soul, Confucianism's definition of virtue emphasizes interpersonal relations. Normally when the term virtue theory is used, it is in reference to the western conception of virtue theory, rather than any of the schools of East Asian ethical thought.

One of notable characteristics of Confucian ethics is its emphasis on family. Greek virtue ethics focuses on the cultivation of individual character and his or her ethical relationships with other individuals and society, and pay no special attention to human relationships in a family. Confucian virtues such as "ren" (benevolence), "yi" (righteousness), "li" (propriety) yields interpersonal virtues such as filial piety, loyalty, and fidelity between parents and children, husband and wife, lords and subjects, elder and younger, and among friends. Devotion of family members to their parents and grandparents are extended to those deceased ancestors, and the concept of family is also extended to relatives.

Although Confucian ethics developed some variations throughout history, the basic teachings of its family-based normative ethical theory remained the same. Texts of Confucius remained as the canonical texts and other theorists did not attempt to deviate from them. Thus, family based ethical thinking has been consistently strong in the Far Eastern societies, such as China, Japan, and Korea, where Confucianism had a considerable influences.

Criticisms

Cultural diversity

Some criticize the theory in relation to the difficulty involved with establishing the nature of the virtues. Critics argue that different people, cultures and societies often have vastly different perspectives on what constitutes a virtue. For example, many would have once considered a virtuous woman to be quiet, servile, and industrious. This conception of female virtue no longer holds true in many modern societies (see also cultural relativism).

Proponents of virtue theory respond to this objection by arguing that a central feature of a virtue is its universal applicability. In other words, any character trait defined as a virtue can reasonably be universalized and the seemingly different appearances of virtues are not in fact so different. For example, images of virtuous woman change over time and place but woman's fidelity to husband (or husband's fidelity to his wife) has been recognized as a virtue.

Other proponents of virtue theory, notably Alasdair MacIntyre, respond to this objection by arguing that any account of the virtues must indeed be generated out of the community in which those virtues are to be practiced: the very word 'ethics' implies 'ethos'. That is to say that the virtues are, and necessarily must be, grounded in a particular time and place. What counts as virtue in fourth-century Athens would be a ludicrous guide to proper behavior in twenty-first-century Toronto, and vice-versa.

To take this view does not necessarily commit one to the argument that accounts of the virtues must therefore be static: moral activity—that is, attempts to contemplate and practice the virtues—can provide the cultural resources that allow people to change, albeit slowly, the ethos of their own societies. MacIntyre appears to take this position in his seminal work on virtue ethics, After Virtue.

Conflicts among virtues

Critics also point out that virtues often conflict. For example, loyalty to a nation can conflict with filial piety. For example, a person who may want to sacrifice his or her life for the nation may have sick, old parents that he or she needs to take care of.

Virtue ethicists argue that virtue is always accompanied with phronesis (practical wisdom), which is needed to make an appropriate decision.

Social actions and legislation

Another objection to virtue theory is that the school does not focus on what sorts of actions are morally permitted and which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone ought to foster in order to become a good person. In other words, while some virtue theorists may not condemn, for example, murder as an inherently immoral or impermissible sort of action, they may argue that someone who commits a murder is severely lacking in several important virtues, such as compassion and fairness. Still, antagonists of the theory often object that this particular feature of the theory makes virtue ethics useless as a universal norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for legislation. Some virtue theorists concede this point, but respond by opposing the very notion of legitimate legislative authority instead, effectively advocating some form of anarchism as the political ideal. Others argue that laws should be made by virtuous legislators. Still others argue that it is possible to base a judicial system on the moral notion of virtues rather than rules.

See also

• Arete
• Aristotle
• Confucianism
• Consequentialism
• Deontological ethics
• Ethics of care
• Eudaimonism
• Normative ethics
• Phronesis
• Prudence
• Utilitarianism
• Virtue

References

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• Becker, Lawrence C. A New Stoicism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998.
• Carden, Stephen D. Virtue Ethics: Dewey and MacIntyre. Continuum studies in American philosophy. London: Continuum, 2006.
• Crisp, Roger, and Michael A. Slote. Virtue Ethics. Oxford readings in philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Darwall, Stephen L. Virtue Ethics. Blackwell readings in philosophy, 10. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2003.
• Devettere, Raymond J. Introduction to Virtue Ethics: Insights of the Ancient Greeks. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002.
• Flanagan, Owen J., and Amélie Rorty. Identity, Character, and Morality: Essays in Moral Psychology. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990.
• Foot, Philippa. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
• Gardiner, Stephen Mark. Virtue Ethics, Old and New. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005.
• Hooft, Stan van. Understanding Virtue Ethics. Understanding movements in modern thought. Chesham, U.K.: Acumen, 2006.
• Hursthouse, Rosalind. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• MacIntyre, Alasdair C. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.
• Oakley, Justin, and Dean Cocking. Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Slote, Michael A. From Morality to Virtue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Statman, Daniel. Virtue Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1997.
• Swanton, Christine. Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Terris, Daniel. Ethics at Work: Creating Virtue in an American Corporation. Waltham, Mass: Brandeis University Press, 2005.
• Wai-Ying, W. 2001. "Confucian Ethics and Virtue Ethics." JOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY. 28: 285-300.
• Yearley, Lee H. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. SUNY series, toward a comparative philosophy of religions. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1990.

External links

All Links Retrieved September 9, 2008.

• International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy
• Virtue Ethics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry by Rosalind Hursthouse;
• Moral Character, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry by Marcia Homiak.
• Virtue Ethics - summary, criticisms and how to apply the theory
• Legal theory lexicon: Virtue ethics by Larry Solum.
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Virtue Ethics
• A clickable list of Virtues with definitions and famous quotes.
• The Four Virtues
• Virtue: Confucius and Aristotle by Jiyuan Yu

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