Title



Virtue Ethics

Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

An agent-centred theory

Throughout our study of Aristotle, it is important to keep in mind that he was not approaching ethics from the same perspective of Mill and Bentham, trying to find out what makes an action “good”. He was starting from the very different question of what makes a person “good”. Other ethical theories fall into two categories, teleological and deontological, but both of these are known as action-centred because their aim is to guide our actions. Virtue Ethics is known as agent-centred because it focuses on the agent rather than the action. Instead of asking what we should do, it asks what we should be.

Living Well

For Aristotle, the purpose ethics is to help us to live a good life. He calls this state eudaimonia. This is often translated into English as “happiness”. However, this can be confusing as Aristotle does not mean merely pleasure. He disagrees with Bentham that increasing pleasure is the purpose of life, as

"it would be absurd if the end were amusement and if trouble and hardship throughout life would all be for the sake of amusing oneself."

He means something much more permanent, something that can be applied to our lives as a whole. The meaning of eudaimonia, then, is closer to our concept of “flourishing” or “thriving”.

We often use the words “thrive” and “flourish” to describe plants. A plant can be described as thriving when we can see that it is successful in all of its aspects. We can imagine a thriving person in the same way.

For the purposes of ethics, what we want to know is to how we become a flourishing person. We don’t want to be a person who is not flourishing, although we can recognise that we are probably not flourishing as we are. So, for Aristotle, the key question that ethics has to answer is how do we achieve this state of eudaimonia/ flourishing/ living well?

Rationality

Our actions and decisions are influenced by both the irrational and the rational parts of our soul. Often, the irrational part (our emotional reactions) has too much influence and causes us to respond badly to situations. In order to flourish, we need to use our rationality to take control of our irrational, emotional reactions.

If we can use our rationality to ensure we have the right emotions at the right time and in the right degree, then we will be fulfilling our function, and we will thereby live a good and successful life.

Virtues and Vices

Aristotle recognised that there were certain characteristics required to be a successful person. In order to truly flourish, a person must excel in each of these aspects.

A virtue is a personal quality, habit or skill that has been highly developed, through individual effort and engagement. (Just like someone learning the skill of piano-playing).

To be good person, we need both intellectual and moral virtues.

Moral virtues are excellences of character and can be developed by practice and habit. Aristotle gave a list of the moral virtues, which includes courage, generosity, friendliness, honesty and justice. To be a good person, we must develop each of the moral virtues by practising them. We develop the virtues by doing virtuous actions. For example, if I want to become a more generous person, I have to start doing generous things. The more generous things I do, the more this generosity will become natural to me, and the more generous I become.

Intellectual virtues are excellences of the mind and can be acquired by instruction. There are several different intellectual virtues according to Aristotle, but the main one is phronesis in Greek (prudence or practical wisdom). Without prudence, it would be impossible to practice the moral virtues properly. A person who has all the right moral virtues knows what is good, but without prudence, they won’t know how to achieve it. On the other hand, someone with prudence knows how to achieve what they want, but without the moral virtues they won’t necessarily want what is good.

The Golden Mean

Although the virtues are necessary, like anything that we need, they are only good for us in the right amount. If we have them at the wrong time or in the wrong amount, they are no longer helpful but actually prevent us from flourishing. So each virtue sits between two vices – a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess.

These are just some of Aristotle’s examples:

|Vice of Deficiency |Golden Mean |Vice of Excess |

|Cowardice |Courage |Rashness |

|Want of ambition |Right ambition |Over-ambition |

|Spiritlessness |Good temper |Irascibility |

|Surliness |Friendliness |Obsequiousness |

|Deprecation |Sincerity |Boastfulness |

|Boorishness |Wittiness |Buffoonery |

|Shamelessness |Modesty |Bashfulness |

|Callousness |Just resentment |Spitefulness |

For example, the virtue of courage means getting the balance right between fear and confidence in the face of danger: if you tend to feel and respond with too much fear then you are cowardly; if you tend to feel and respond with too much confidence then you are rash or foolhardy; if you get the balance right, are able to temper your fear, but not do anything stupid through over-confidence, then you are courageous.

‘Mean’ here refers to ‘middle’, but Aristotle is not saying that we should take the ‘middle way’ in every situation, or act moderately in every situation. It means taking the appropriate response. Clearly there are some situations where a more (or less) emotional response is required, for example when protesting against extreme injustices.

Development of Virtuous Character

So, putting all this together, we can see how Aristotle thinks we should be. We need to have the virtues. In order to have them, we need to practise using them. To help us with this, we can copy the examples of others who are already virtuous (like role-models).

Practising the virtues means using our rationality to work out the appropriate response in any situation. As we develop morally, we will become more skilled at acting appropriately, and will exercise more of the virtues and less of the vices.

We will start off by changing our actions for virtuous ones, but the aim is for this behaviour to become natural to us, part of our character.

Then we will have changed who we are – we will be a virtuous person.

Virtue Ethics in Christianity

Following Aristotle, the idea of virtues was adapted by early Christian scholars such as St Augustine and St Aquinas.

They used Aristotle’s main virtues of temperance, wisdom, justice and courage. These are known within Christianity as the Cardinal Virtues.

Based on NT passages from St Paul, the virtues of faith, hope and charity (agape love) were added. These three are known as the Theological Virtues.

Although most Christians would agree that these are good qualities to have, this list of seven virtues are a key part of Roman Catholic teaching. Like Aristotle’s virtues, each one has a corresponding vice. These seven Capital Vices are also commonly known as the Seven Deadly Sins.

We saw last year in Situation Ethics that many Protestant Christians want an approach to ethics that is more flexible than the traditional deontological methods.

By using Aristotle’s ideas, we can formulate a Christian version of Virtue Ethics. Some Christians even argue that this was the approach taken by Jesus himself. For example, he moved away from action-centred thinking. When asked whether a certain action was right or wrong, he usually responded by ignoring the action itself and talking about the person. His focus did seem to be on the moral character of the agent – think about his main moral teaching – be loving towards others. This doesn’t tell us what to do or not to do, but what sort of person to be.

Virtue Ethics also fits in with the Christian idea of aiming to be “Christ-like”. By using Jesus as our virtuous role-model, we can try to be more like him. A good example of this is the famous wristband slogan “What Would Jesus Do?”

Task:

Read Richard Higginson’s chapter “Girding our ethics with character”.

Take notes on his key points, and especially on the Bible quotes that can be used to support a Christian approach to Virtue Ethics.

Modern Interpretations of Virtue Ethics

For many years, the ethical writings of Aristotle were forgotten about. Eclipsed by Christian ethical thinking, modern ethics has for decades centred around the debate between teleological and deontological approaches. Either we can base ethical decisions on fixed rules (deontology) or we can maintain that the morality of an action depends on its consequences (teleology).

However, in recent years, there has been a “re-discovery” of Aristotle’s approach. Several ethicists have taken up a Virtue Theory approach, and have based their ethical theories on Aristotle’s.

Elizabeth Anscombe

In 1958, Anscombe published a paper, Modern Moral Philosophy, which began the revival of virtue theory. In it, she challenged both the deontological and teleological approaches.

Giving reasons why none of the modern systems of ethics are coherent, Anscombe said that what was needed was a completely different approach. Referring back to Aristotle, she said that we need to re-engage with his ideas of human flourishing and virtue.

Alasdair MacIntyre

Alasdair MacIntyre is the main scholar responsible for the modern resurgence in Virtue Ethics. He begins his 1985 book After Virtue with a historical study of different ethical approaches.

Where are we now?

MacIntyre begins with a critique of the state of modern ethics. He claims that we are currently in a state of ‘moral vacuum’, where people use words like ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but that these words have no real meaning any more. To understand how we got in this situation, MacIntyre gives us an analogy.

Task

Read MacIntyre’s analogy of the destruction of science. What is the point he is making about ethics?

So, people currently think that they are doing ethics, but although they are using the vocabulary of ethics, they are not actually engaging in the same practice as the original ethicists.

How did we get here?

MacIntyre says that in order to move forward with ethics, we need to understand what ethics was originally like and how it got to the mess it is currently in. So he gives us a summary of the history of ethics:

In ancient societies like Greece, ethics was based around virtues. People learned ethics through stories of heroes, and people tried to emulate these heroes and be like them. Homer (a very early Greek writer of epic stories) focused on virtues such as physical strength, courage and cunning. These were the qualities that were necessary to be successful in this society.

In Athenian society, Aristotle’s ethics was based around the same idea of virtues, but used a slightly different list of virtues, because society had changed. Athens was a democracy where people needed negotiating skills rather than physical strength, so Aristotle’s list of virtues included things like ‘right ambition’, ‘modesty’ and ‘friendliness’.

Medieval European society was different again, especially because of the influence of Christianity, so a different idea of the virtues emerged, focused on modesty, conformity and obedience. But ethics was still based around the idea of being “the right sort of person”.

So, for thousands of years, ethics had been agent-centred and based on different lists of virtues. But it all changed during the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was a period during which science and technology advanced rapidly (roughly 1650-1800). People’s main focus was to increase their understanding of the world around them. Things that were previously accepted as being mysterious or spiritual were discovered to be explainable by science (For example, the discovery that everything is made of atoms, Newton’s laws of motion that explain how every physical object moves and reacts). This is when most aspects of what we think of as “modern” life were introduced, such as electricity and engines.

Although the Enlightenment was a crucial time for science, the same attitude of searching for simple, logical answers was applied to all aspects of life. So, when it came to ethics, scholars began searching for a formula for moral behaviour. A good example is Utilitarianism, but there are now many different ethical theories, each trying to find one rational method of making ethical decisions.

The problem here is that these theories take ethical decision-making out of their social contexts. They have lost sight of the people making the decisions, of their development, and of the communities and relationships they are part of. So, modern philosophers are arguing between different action-centred theories, but they are like the people in MacIntyre’s example who think they are doing science, but they’re not really, because they have forgotten the context in which the ideas were meant to be used in.

As for most normal people today (not philosophers or A Level RS students!), everyone has different understandings of what right and wrong mean, some are deontologists, some are teleologists, some think that right and wrong don’t even exist, and no-one will agree on which actions are acceptable. Disagreements about whether for instance, abortion, is ever acceptable will never be resolved in the current situation.

So, where should we go from here?

According to MacIntyre, the only way for ethics to move out of this vacuum and actually be useful again is to return to an agent-centred approach, based on virtues. He says that we need to go back to Aristotle.

Although he agrees with Aristotle’s approach, MacIntyre adapts some of Aristotle’s ideas to create his own ethical theory.

The main points of MacIntyre’s approach are:

• Virtue relativity

• Virtues can only be developed within practices

• Morality must be understood in the social context of the agent, their communities, wider society etc.

1. MacIntyre focuses on his idea not just of a virtuous person, but of a virtuous society. A moral society for MacIntyre is one in which people recognise commonly agreed virtues and everyone aspires to achieve them. He says that virtues have to be understood from within a community. Some communities in the past and in other areas of the world have valued different virtues from those that we would aspire to. So in order for us to behave morally, we need to be aware of the virtues common to our society. MacIntyre’s approach takes the format of Aristotle, and the idea of reaching eudaimonia by practising virtues. But he allows for a different set of virtues than that which was appropriate in Aristotle’s own society. This is known as virtue relativity.

Task

Make a list of 12 virtues that are suitable for 21st Century Britain. Would you keep any of Aristotle’s original list? Can you think of a vice of deficiency and of excess for each one?

2. Secondly, MacIntyre amends Aristotle’s Virtue Theory by claiming that virtues can only be developed within particular practices. A practice is a co-operative activity that involves aiming towards shared goals. For instance, playing hockey is a practice, and within the community of hockey players, we can recognise certain virtues, such as competitiveness or a particular skill with the hockey stick. These are qualities that members of the hockey-playing community aim for because they benefit that community. MacIntyre envisages our lives as being a web of interconnected communities that we belong to, each with its own set of virtues. In order to succeed in a practice, we must possess the virtues relevant to that practice. And in order to develop those virtues, you must engage with the practice itself, eg. by playing hockey.

Task

Make a list of virtues that are needed to be successful in the practice of being an AS student.

3. Thirdly, MacIntyre claimed that in order to measure whether a person is virtuous or not, we can’t just look at whether they do individual virtuous acts. We need to take a holistic view of the whole person, considering their past, present and future. The different practices that you engage in have to mesh together to create a coherent, whole, virtuous person.

Philippa Foot

1. Foot points out that virtues and vices exist where there are temptations to act inappropriately. For instance, industriousness is a virtue because laziness is a temptation. And hope is a virtue because despair is a temptation. It is human nature to be tempted to act in these vicious ways. But the virtues act in a corrective way, drawing us towards actions that are good for others. Human nature dictates that we want to run away from dangerous situations. But someone shows the virtue of courage if they can overcome that natural temptation and face the danger instead.

2. Foot also notes that the virtues mostly relate to our acting well towards others. She says,

“there is no general virtue of self-love as there is a virtue of benevolence or charity, because men are generally attached sufficiently to their own good.”

Task

Who do you think is morally better –

(a) a naturally courageous person who performs a courageous act, or

(b) a naturally cowardly person who fights against his cowardly nature in order to perform the same courageous act?

3. Read pages 327-329 of Foot’s paper Virtues and Vices and make notes on her idea of moral effort:

Task

Do you think it is appropriate to call a murder a

“courageous act”? Explain your answer.

4. Outline Foot’s response to this issue, from pages 332-334:

5. Aristotle claimed that we acquire virtues in the same way we acquire skills. But Foot says argues that virtues are not entirely like skills. We can have a skill without using it. For example, I could have the skill of piano-playing, and I could have an opportunity to exercise this skill but choose not to do so. I could even choose not to play the piano for several years. I still have the skill. But virtues are different: If I have the virtue of generosity, I have to use it when I have the opportunity. If I come across someone who needs my help, and I just choose not to be generous, then I can’t claim to have the virtue of generosity. I cannot be generous if I don’t do generous acts.

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Aristotle lived in Ancient Greece between 384 and 322 BC. He was a philosopher who wrote at length about science and the natural world as well as about ethics. He based his conclusions on observation. For instance, he learnt about biological development by opening fertilised chicken eggs at various stages and describing the state of the organs and tissues inside. He used these same methods to investigate the “practical sciences” of ethics and politics.

Extension Task (very challenging!)

Read Anscombe’s paper Modern Moral Philosophy

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