Abstract
There have traditionally been two schools of thought regarding moral ideals and their relationship with moral duty. First, many have held that moral agents at all times have a duty or obligation to realize or attain moral ideals, or at least they have a duty to strive to realize or attain them. A second school of thought has maintained that attaining or pursuing moral ideals is supererogatory or beyond the call of duty. Recently a third school of thought has been articulated by Robert Audi in his essay “Wrongs Within Rights.” In this paper I express agreement with Audi, and it will be my suggestion that the resources of virtue ethics can profitably be employed to illustrate how his view avoids problems which plague the two traditional schools of thought.
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Notes
In the opening sentences of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Book II, Section One. Prescriptivism is a meta-ethical view, but Elizabeth Pybus, for one, links it to the normative claim that moral agents must always pursue moral ideals.
For the purposes of this discussion I shall assume that moral agents have character traits, but it is worth noting that some philosophers have called into question the notion of a character trait (Doris 1998, pp. 504f).
As stated here, this school of thought is very strong regarding our duty to strive to realize moral ideals. It would be possible to hold a weaker view to the effect that our duties with respect to moral ideals are sometimes overridden by other duties.
Bernard Williams distinguishes between agent-regret, regret, and remorse. When I refer to “regret” I have in mind what he describes as agent-regret (Williams 1993, pp. 69f).
Trianosky is apparently assuming that omissions caused by indifference tend to be less serious from an aretaic perspective than omissions caused by malice. Nothing in the argument I am developing depends upon the truth of this assumption.
I have benefitted from the comments of members of the Calvin College Department of Philosophy and of an anonymous referee of this journal.
References
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Mellema, G.F. Moral Ideals and Virtue Ethics. J Ethics 14, 173–180 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9076-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9076-9