Ethics # 9

Virtue Ethics

 Ethics typically focuses on how we should act.

 Virtue theory focuses on who we should be.

 Greeks saw virtue differently  Doing things with excellence on a regular basis.

 Nature or nurture?  Is character innate?

 Africa  Ethics focused on virtue and character

 Not “he or she did something wrong” but “he or she is a bad person.”

 Character is generally innate, but people are still responsible for what they do.

 Can achieve good character through good habits

 Africa  It is because of what you do that you become a good

person.

 Humans born morally neutral.

 Favor kindness, faithfulness, compassion, hospitality. Social/community well-being is the focus.

 Native American  Ecological virtue = harmony with nature

 Nonhuman neighbors also part of community

 Do not kill in excess, use every part of animal, do not stay in one place long enough to deplete resources

 Heavily inf luenced by Christianity and its importance on conducting oneself according to the will of God.

 Cannot accomplish anything without will and grace of God.

 Do the right thing is moral imperative.

 Character vs. conduct  What good is it to be a decent person if one does not

act?

 “The good teacher is one who makes himself superf luous.”

 Dialectic/Socratic method  Use of conversation (not texts) to teach.

 Discussion based on asking/answering questions.

 Critical thinking.

 The death of Socrates  Challenge to authority

 Charged with “offending the gods and corrupting the youth.”

 Tried and convicted.

 Could have escaped but didn’t.

 Executed with hemlock.

 “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

 Student of Socrates

 Became a teacher himself

 Reconstructed Socrates’ intellectual legacy

 Opposed to the arts  Speak to emotion rather than reason

 For Socrates, virtue means:  Questioning the meaning of life.

 Keeping one’s integrity during the search.

 Not being swayed by physical longings or fear.

 For Socrates, Truth is absolute:  Each situation has its truth

 Truth should not be confused with appearance/external nature

 Use rational mind not senses

 Tripartite Soul:  Appetites (wild horse): must control if we wish to live

the good life.

 Rational element (charioteer): the power that pulls us away from appetites

 Spirit/willpower (well-behaved horse): part of you that becomes angry with weakness and nags at you to be better.

 Four Causes  Material cause (stuff it’s made of )

 Efficient cause (force that brought it into being)

 Formal cause (the idea of the thing)

 Final cause (the purpose)

 Everything has a purpose.

 Just as all human parts have a purpose, humans have a purpose.

 Our purpose exists for us as individuals and as a species.

 Our purpose is to reason well.

 Development of rational character = moral goodness.

 Intellectual and moral virtue  Moral virtue = our soul’s attempt to control our desires

 Intellectual virtue = when we try to make appropriate decisions using wisdom and reason.

 The Golden Mean  All things in moderation.

 Neither too much nor too little.

 Application: seeing someone in danger. Can respond with too much courage, too little or just enough (see 452-453).

 More applications: pleasure seeking, spending money.

 See page 455 for several good examples.

 Was not egalitarian.

 Questioning of reasoning well as human purpose. Is goodness always linked with what we do best?