Reading Summaries 5,6 and 7
Chapter7
Virtue Ethics: Be a Good Person
Copyright © 2019 W. W. Norton &Company
Virtue Ethics
Both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist moral theories are concerned with action and attempt to answer the question “What should I do?”
Virtue ethics is a theory of morality that makes virtue the central concern.
Virtue ethics attempts to answer the question “What should I be?”
Aristotle’s Ethics –1
- Almost all modern virtue ethicists trace their theoretical roots back to Aristotle. His ethics consists not in following moral rules that stipulate right actions but in striving to be a particular kind of person—a virtuous person whose actions stem naturally from virtuous character.
Aristotle’s Ethics –2
- For Aristotle, every living thing has an end toward which it naturally aims, the thing that represents its greatest good.
- The greatest good for humans—their true goal—is eudaimonia, which means “happiness” or “flourishing” and refers to the true realization of the good life.
Eudaimonia
- To achieve eudaimonia, human beings must fulfill the function that is natural and distinctive to them: living fully in accordance with reason.
- The life of reason entails a life of virtue because the virtues themselves are rational modes of being.
Virtues
- To Aristotle, a virtue is a stable disposition to act and feel according to some ideal or model ofexistence.
- It is a deeply embedded character trait that can affect actions in countlesssituations.
- Aristotle distinguishes between intellectual andmoral
virtues.
|
IntellectualVirtues |
MoralVirtues |
|---|---|
|
Wisdom |
Fairness |
|
Prudence |
Benevolence |
|
Rationality |
Honesty |
|
Loyalty |
|
|
Conscientiousness |
|
|
Courage |
The Golden Mean –1
- Moral virtues occupy what Aristotle calls the “Golden Mean”—a balance between two behavioral extremes.
- For example, a moral virtue such as courage is the midpoint between the extremes of recklessness, on one side, and cowardice, on the other.
The Golden Mean –2
For Aristotle, the Golden Mean expresses a fundamental truth: the virtuous—and happy—life is a life of moderation in all things.
Modern Virtue Ethics
Contemporary virtue ethicists agree with Aristotle on these points:
- The cultivation of virtues is not only a moral requirement but also a way to ensure human flourishing and a good life.
- A fully developed ethics must take into account motives, feelings, intentions, and moral wisdom.
- Acting only out of duty is a barren and one-dimensional approach to living a virtuous life.
Evaluating Virtue Ethics
- Virtue ethics seems to meet the minimum requirements of coherence.
- It seems consistent with our considered moral judgments (Criterion 1) and with our moral experiences (Criterion 2).
- The main critique of virtue ethics centers on Criterion 3: the usefulness of the theory in moral problem solving.
The Usefulness of Virtue Ethics –1
According to virtue ethics, when faced with a moral dilemma, we should do what a virtuous person would do.
But how do we determine this?
The right action is the one performed by the virtuous person, and the virtuous person is the one who performs the virtuous action. However, this is circular reasoning.
The Usefulness of Virtue Ethics –2
Another problem is the possible conflict of virtues in a particular context.
Loyalty, for example, may conflict with honesty when the fate of a friend is on the line and your testimony will make the difference between life and death.
How do you choose between being loyal and being honest in this case?
Learning from Virtue Ethics
- Regardless of its value as a stand-alone theory of ethics, virtue ethics forces us to acknowledge that virtue and character are large, unavoidable constituents of our moral experience.
- Virtue ethics has forced many thinkers to reexamine the place of principles in morality.
Credits
This concludes the PowerPoint slide set for Chapter 7
Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues
Fifth Edition (2019) by Lewis Vaughn.