Virtue Ethics
It's ironic really that we're discussing virtue ethics last in our treatment of ethical theories in Rachels's text since Aristotle's virtue ethics was one of the first systematic treatments of ethical theory in the west. While this was a very popular approach in ancient Greece and Rome it languished in the Middle Ages. Then, with the rise of other approaches including social contract theory, deontology, and utilitarianism, virtue ethics seemed consigned to be an historical curiosity. A central figure in the resurgence of virtue ethics is Elizabeth Anscombe who published an important article in 1958 in the journal Philosophy.
More recently virtue ethics has staged a comeback due in large part to such works as Alasdair MacIntyre's 1981 book After Virtue. Less than ten years later virtue was to work its way further into the conversation of popular culture with William Bennett's collection titled The Book of Virtue. One of the points that Bennett's book illustrates, with stories from different eras, is that virtue never really went away. Indeed, it has always been an important part of our ethos and our ethical theory. One can find significant examples of this throughout the history of philosophy after the middle ages in such works as Montaigne's essays in the 16thcentury to Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments in the 18th century. But what exactly is virtue ethics and how does it differ from other theories we've considered so far?
The major difference can be described as follows. As different as they are, social contract theory, deontology, and utilitarianism are similar in their emphasis on ethical principles as a guide to conduct. What each theory attempts to formulate is a decision model for addressing moral dilemmas. The real debate among them is what the decision model should look like and what principles should be followed. Virtue ethics, on the other hand, addresses the role of character and addresses the question of what makes a good human being. The idea is that if we can train ourselves to be good human beings moral dilemmas can be solved more easily. And this is something we can train ourselves to do, or so Aristotle thought. For him, virtue was a matter of getting into the habit of acting virtuously. Of course, to get into the habit, we have to know what it means to act virtuously in the first place.
To address this we will attempt to answer five questions concerning the virtues.
1. What is a virtue?
2. What are the virtues?
3. What do these virtues consist of?
4. Why are the virtues important?
5. Are the virtues the same for everyone?
Let's begin with the first question.
What is a virtue? Rachels offers a good definition borrowed from a professor at the University of Texas. A virtue "is a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for a person to have." Notice that the habit that Aristotle spoke of is included in the definition. Why would it be good for the person to have such traits? Aristotle said that having such traits would lead to a happier life. This is not an egoistic approach however since many of the virtues are not self-directed but involve benefiting others.
What are the virtues? A complete list might be very long indeed but Rachels does provide a small list on p. 176. In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics he outlines many of these virtues in detail explaining just what they consist of and how they can be practiced. The common thread running through these explanations is that the virtue in all cases consists in the mean between two extremes. Take the virtue of courage for instance. There is such a thing as too little courage and this is the vice of cowardliness. But, there's also such a thing as too much courage and this too is a vice; the vice of foolhardiness. The virtue then lies in the middle though this is not the same for everyone. The virtue of courage for a soldier is much different from the virtue of courage for a schoolteacher. Each may benefit from the virtue of courage but in different ways. A detailed account of virtue ethics such as Aristotle's work would provide an in-depth analysis of the virtues and their extreme vices.
Why are the virtues important? The next question for us concerns why these virtues are important. The general answer as Rachels puts it is that "people will fare better in life." This doesn't necessarily mean you'll make more money with the virtues or have a bigger house but it does mean that you'll live a more contented, happier life and that seems to be the point of Aristotle's theory. Not a bad incentive really for following the virtues! We can also provide a more detailed account of each virtue of why it is important as Rachels does in this section.
Are the virtues the same for everyone? Lastly, we can ask whether the virtues are the same for everyone. We are each different and depending on what we do in our lives and what projects we take on some virtues may be more important to us than others and so a certain amount of variety is to be expected. But, given our common nature as human beings, it also should not come as a surprise that many of the virtues are universally important.
Among these Aristotle rates friendship and contemplation among the highest. Friendship is important because we live in communities and are inherently social beings. This was a very important aspect of life for the Greeks and Romans and they placed a great deal upon public service to the community. We live in a more individualistic society but even so, there is no denying the importance of a strong network of friends to contribute to our happiness.
The other virtue Aristotle places great emphasis on is contemplation. Again there are parallels to other ancient thinkers such as Epicurus who placed friendship and contemplation among the necessities of life. We are rational beings and for many philosophers such as Aristotle, a full happy life implied realizing all our potential. Since we have the potential for reason this capacity must not be ignored. For Socrates, the unexamined life was not even worth living. This may be a little strong but for Aristotle clearly, the unexamined life was not as fulfilling. There is still a great deal to be said for this sentiment.
There are several clear advantages as well as several serious problems for virtue theory. Among the advantages is the ability to explain what motivates our actions as well as a reason for not being impartial in all situations (a serious flaw in utilitarianism). The example Rachels gives concerning motivation is a classic problem within deontology. A friend visits you when you are sick in the hospital and you thank you, friend, for being there. But your friend responds that it was just their duty. How does this make you feel? Probably not good. But virtue theory says that the value of friendship is motivation in and of itself. One need not explain why friends support each other by appealing to abstract notions of duty. Friendship is the explanation.
Remember one of the problems with utilitarianism is that it demanded impartial treatment towards everyone seemingly making no distinction between friend, family, and stranger. This seems odd. But virtue theory can address the question more adequately illustrating that in some cases impartiality is correct but in other cases it is inappropriate. Not only does virtue ethics maintain that impartiality is sometimes inappropriate, but it can also explain why. The virtue of love, for example, simply doesn't make sense when practiced with strict impartiality. Of course, neither does friendship.
There are, of course, several problems with virtue ethics that we should address. The two main problems are that virtue ethics is an incomplete ethical theory and it doesn't provide a clear decision model for making moral decisions. We have seen how virtue theory can offer useful insights into ethical theory and addresses important points that other theories such as utilitarianism and deontology don't. However, there seem to be aspects of morality that virtue ethics on its own cannot account for. In particular, virtue ethics seems ill-equipped to address questions of action. In other words, we can address what counts as good character traits but often we need to be able to assess what action would be right to take in a given situation, and virtues ethics doesn't seem to address this question.
Closely connected to this is the second problem. Virtue ethics doesn't provide a clear decision model. Despite their flaws, both utilitarianism and deontology provide reasonably clear accounts for how to decide in a given situation what to do and why this decision can be justified. It's much harder to see how virtue theory can do this. For these reasons perhaps the best alternative is to view virtue theory as a supplement to other ethical theories which can address these problems.
In physics, the current project is to unite two fundamentally disparate theories (relativity and quantum mechanics) into one unified whole. Einstein first postulated the possibility of such a unified field theory in the early 20th century. Perhaps this is what we need in ethics as well. A unified field theory in ethics would take the best elements of many of the theories we've addressed and combine them into a coherent unified whole. But, be careful! This is not as easy as it sounds. Physicists today are still in search of this grand unification theory and they've been at it for decades. Ethicists are only now starting to inquire about such a unified theory so it may be centuries till we have some possible candidate. Still, it's interesting to ask what would such a theory look like and it is to this question that we now turn.
More recently virtue ethics has staged a comeback due in large part to such works as Alasdair MacIntyre's 1981 book After Virtue. Less than ten years later virtue was to work its way further into the conversation of popular culture with William Bennett's collection titled The Book of Virtue. One of the points that Bennett's book illustrates, with stories from different eras, is that virtue never really went away. Indeed, it has always been an important part of our ethos and our ethical theory. One can find significant examples of this throughout the history of philosophy after the middle ages in such works as Montaigne's essays in the 16thcentury to Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments in the 18th century. But what exactly is virtue ethics and how does it differ from other theories we've considered so far?
The major difference can be described as follows. As different as they are, social contract theory, deontology, and utilitarianism are similar in their emphasis on ethical principles as a guide to conduct. What each theory attempts to formulate is a decision model for addressing moral dilemmas. The real debate among them is what the decision model should look like and what principles should be followed. Virtue ethics, on the other hand, addresses the role of character and addresses the question of what makes a good human being. The idea is that if we can train ourselves to be good human beings moral dilemmas can be solved more easily. And this is something we can train ourselves to do, or so Aristotle thought. For him, virtue was a matter of getting into the habit of acting virtuously. Of course, to get into the habit, we have to know what it means to act virtuously in the first place.
To address this we will attempt to answer five questions concerning the virtues.
1. What is a virtue?
2. What are the virtues?
3. What do these virtues consist of?
4. Why are the virtues important?
5. Are the virtues the same for everyone?
Let's begin with the first question.
What is a virtue? Rachels offers a good definition borrowed from a professor at the University of Texas. A virtue "is a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for a person to have." Notice that the habit that Aristotle spoke of is included in the definition. Why would it be good for the person to have such traits? Aristotle said that having such traits would lead to a happier life. This is not an egoistic approach however since many of the virtues are not self-directed but involve benefiting others.
What are the virtues? A complete list might be very long indeed but Rachels does provide a small list on p. 176. In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics he outlines many of these virtues in detail explaining just what they consist of and how they can be practiced. The common thread running through these explanations is that the virtue in all cases consists in the mean between two extremes. Take the virtue of courage for instance. There is such a thing as too little courage and this is the vice of cowardliness. But, there's also such a thing as too much courage and this too is a vice; the vice of foolhardiness. The virtue then lies in the middle though this is not the same for everyone. The virtue of courage for a soldier is much different from the virtue of courage for a schoolteacher. Each may benefit from the virtue of courage but in different ways. A detailed account of virtue ethics such as Aristotle's work would provide an in-depth analysis of the virtues and their extreme vices.
Why are the virtues important? The next question for us concerns why these virtues are important. The general answer as Rachels puts it is that "people will fare better in life." This doesn't necessarily mean you'll make more money with the virtues or have a bigger house but it does mean that you'll live a more contented, happier life and that seems to be the point of Aristotle's theory. Not a bad incentive really for following the virtues! We can also provide a more detailed account of each virtue of why it is important as Rachels does in this section.
Are the virtues the same for everyone? Lastly, we can ask whether the virtues are the same for everyone. We are each different and depending on what we do in our lives and what projects we take on some virtues may be more important to us than others and so a certain amount of variety is to be expected. But, given our common nature as human beings, it also should not come as a surprise that many of the virtues are universally important.
Among these Aristotle rates friendship and contemplation among the highest. Friendship is important because we live in communities and are inherently social beings. This was a very important aspect of life for the Greeks and Romans and they placed a great deal upon public service to the community. We live in a more individualistic society but even so, there is no denying the importance of a strong network of friends to contribute to our happiness.
The other virtue Aristotle places great emphasis on is contemplation. Again there are parallels to other ancient thinkers such as Epicurus who placed friendship and contemplation among the necessities of life. We are rational beings and for many philosophers such as Aristotle, a full happy life implied realizing all our potential. Since we have the potential for reason this capacity must not be ignored. For Socrates, the unexamined life was not even worth living. This may be a little strong but for Aristotle clearly, the unexamined life was not as fulfilling. There is still a great deal to be said for this sentiment.
There are several clear advantages as well as several serious problems for virtue theory. Among the advantages is the ability to explain what motivates our actions as well as a reason for not being impartial in all situations (a serious flaw in utilitarianism). The example Rachels gives concerning motivation is a classic problem within deontology. A friend visits you when you are sick in the hospital and you thank you, friend, for being there. But your friend responds that it was just their duty. How does this make you feel? Probably not good. But virtue theory says that the value of friendship is motivation in and of itself. One need not explain why friends support each other by appealing to abstract notions of duty. Friendship is the explanation.
Remember one of the problems with utilitarianism is that it demanded impartial treatment towards everyone seemingly making no distinction between friend, family, and stranger. This seems odd. But virtue theory can address the question more adequately illustrating that in some cases impartiality is correct but in other cases it is inappropriate. Not only does virtue ethics maintain that impartiality is sometimes inappropriate, but it can also explain why. The virtue of love, for example, simply doesn't make sense when practiced with strict impartiality. Of course, neither does friendship.
There are, of course, several problems with virtue ethics that we should address. The two main problems are that virtue ethics is an incomplete ethical theory and it doesn't provide a clear decision model for making moral decisions. We have seen how virtue theory can offer useful insights into ethical theory and addresses important points that other theories such as utilitarianism and deontology don't. However, there seem to be aspects of morality that virtue ethics on its own cannot account for. In particular, virtue ethics seems ill-equipped to address questions of action. In other words, we can address what counts as good character traits but often we need to be able to assess what action would be right to take in a given situation, and virtues ethics doesn't seem to address this question.
Closely connected to this is the second problem. Virtue ethics doesn't provide a clear decision model. Despite their flaws, both utilitarianism and deontology provide reasonably clear accounts for how to decide in a given situation what to do and why this decision can be justified. It's much harder to see how virtue theory can do this. For these reasons perhaps the best alternative is to view virtue theory as a supplement to other ethical theories which can address these problems.
In physics, the current project is to unite two fundamentally disparate theories (relativity and quantum mechanics) into one unified whole. Einstein first postulated the possibility of such a unified field theory in the early 20th century. Perhaps this is what we need in ethics as well. A unified field theory in ethics would take the best elements of many of the theories we've addressed and combine them into a coherent unified whole. But, be careful! This is not as easy as it sounds. Physicists today are still in search of this grand unification theory and they've been at it for decades. Ethicists are only now starting to inquire about such a unified theory so it may be centuries till we have some possible candidate. Still, it's interesting to ask what would such a theory look like and it is to this question that we now turn.