MODERN VIRTUE ETHICS

Three types

Theoretical (or cool) Virtue Ethics

Aristotle saw virtue as based in Natural Law.

Modern Virtue ethicists differ from Aristotle’s view in the following ways:

a. They reject the idea of a priori moral laws;b. They reject the idea of an ‘is’ becoming

an ‘ought’;c. They base their morality on the moral

agent.

• Some modern Virtue ethicists see the moral action as important because it makes you virtuous.

• Others regard the action as of no specific importance. What counts is the moral agent’s nature, how virtuous they are.

• ROSALIND HURSTHOUSE is a leading figure in this second group.

• Hursthouse looks at the virtues that go with Aristotle’s Golden Mean, e.g. courage rather than foolhardiness or cowardice.

• It is these moral virtues (that she calls the X-factor) that she is interested in.

• If you, by nature, are virtuous then what you do will be virtuous. If you are bad, your actions can never be virtuous.

• She argues that people should get into a state of virtuous living and then what they do will always be virtuous.

Criticisms of Hursthouse

1. Your action might seem virtuous but what about your motivation? Hursthouse doesn’t consider this.

E.g. I may invade Iraq because I am a virtuous person and wish to get rid of a tyrant, but deep down inside I might be counting the oil revenue!

2. What happens when my state of virtue conflicts with another person’s?

Every moral decision impacts on more than one person, and if his/her moral state is as virtuous as mine, how can we both be acting virtuously?

3. How can a virtuous state be judged

objectively?

I might appear virtuous; I might convince myself that I am virtuous but how can my virtue be truly determined?

Hursthouse’s idea of Virtue Ethics is purely theoretical.

It does not have any rules to follow. Hursthouse does not show how a particular character trait could be applied to a specific moral issue.

This seems impractical and unhelpful to many.

Practical Virtue Ethics

• This was a way of answering the problem of Hursthouse’s theoretical Virtue Ethics.

• It was put forward by MARTHA NUSSBAUM, an academic at the University of Chicago.

• She uses the principle of phronesis to examine particular issues.

• The concept of phronesis is taken from Aristotle, who believed that morality is inbuilt into rational humans.

• It means “practical wisdom”.

• It involves rational reflection, and deciding how to put reflection into practice.

• He argued that humans use phronesis to discover the best way of applying moral concepts to the real world.

• Nussbaum’s first major book looked at the issue of justice, which Virtue Ethicists find difficult.

• This is because the virtue of an individual may clash with the virtue of the whole in cases of justice.

• People who campaign for justice are often destroyed and end up being sacrificed for their pursuit of it, e.g. Socrates, Jesus, Thomas More.

• In 2009 Nussbaum published ‘From Disgust to Humanity’, which looks at issues of sexual orientation.

• She defends the rights of homosexuals.

• She claimed that a vitruous life is one which tolerates those who are different as long they do not abuse others.

• She supports a multicultural society.

• Yet, unlike relativists, she cannot condone such cultural practices as female circumcision.

Motive (or warm) Virtue Ethics

• A theory put forward by Roman Catholic philosopher ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE (1919-2001) and her friend PHILIPPA FOOT.

• Anscombe rejects the is/ought dichotomy.

• She explains this by referring to a house plant.

• Imagine that one day you return home and find that one of your houseplants is limp through lack of water.

What do you do?

You give it the water that it lacks and hopefully the plant recovers.

This is a common sense understanding of is/ought. Just because the plant is limp does not mean that it ought to be so. The plant is limp because it lacks water. You know what to do; you provide it with what it lacks.

• Anscombe develops this idea using the analogy of a man shopping in a supermarket. He has a shopping list of ingredients for a meal. He walks around the supermarket placing ingredients into his basket.

Suppose he acts impulsively, ignores his list and buys what he wants. He leaves the supermarket and returns home. He has bought the wrong ingredients. He cannot blame his list, whether he or his partner wrote it. It is his fault.

• This analogy can be applied to ethics.

• The shopping list = a list of virtues.

• In life, the moral agent walks around the ethical supermarket. What counts is not who created the list of virtues (although Anscombe says it is God), but the intention of the moral agent.

• The moral agent knows what ingredients (virtues) are required for an ethical life but will he/she take them or not?

• Virtue Ethics is therefore concerned with ensuring that the moral agent makes the right choices.

• It is concerned with intentions, with convincing individuals that they should choose the right ingredients needed for a good life and not to live impulsively.

• This view leads Anscombe to assert the importance of the law of double effect, since it is based on the intentions of the moral agent.

• Anscombe’s shopping list of moral virtues and moral evils are real. Humans should be led to buy the right things in the supermarket of life. Buying the right goods will develop the natural goodness of humans.

• This is achieved by using phronesis.

• Anscombe and Foot assume that all humans want a moral life and to live a good life for its own sake.

• Alasdair MacIntyre disagrees with this assumption. He argues that virtues may be desirable but humans need a reason to be moral. You can’t rely on a concept of natural goodness.

• E.g. people give presents in order to receive something in return. If they did not, they would stop giving.

• So, MacIntyre argues, consequences matter.

• A degree of consequentialism should be added to Virtue Ethics.

• People need to know why they should be virtuous.

• They should work this out by using reason.

• The contemporary American philosopher, MICHAEL SLOTE, develops this idea of motives as the basis of Virtue Ethics.

• Slote calls this warm Virtue Ethics since it is based on human sentiments and feelings rather than obedience to certain theoretical virtues.

• The moral agent must base moral judgements on virtues such as care and empathy.

• Therefore a moral agent may sacrifice his/her life for a sick or elderly relative. This would be the moral thing to do.

• Slote regard being sentimental as morally good rather than, as Kant and Mill, a sign of ethical weakness.

• He regards traditional approaches to Virtue Ethics as too cold and clinical.

• He agrees that the motivation of the moral agent is supremely important.