Abstract
John McDowell argued that the virtuous person (VP) knows no temptation: her perception of a situation silences all competing motivations – be it fear in the face of danger or a strong desire. The VP cannot recognize any reason to act non-virtuously as a reason, and is never inclined to act non-virtuously. This view rests on the requirement that the VP rationally respond, and not merely react, to the environment – it rests on the requirement that the relation between the VP and the world (ethical requirements) must rule out the possibility that the VP is a brain in a vat. I will argue that the opposite is true: virtue requires a sensitivity to temptation. The VP, as such, must be able to recognize reasons for performing non-virtuous actions as reasons, and be inclined to perform them. She must find nothing human alien. This is so because the VP must possess the ability to understand non-virtuous agents, and understanding necessarily involves vulnerability to temptation. Otherwise, it will be argued, the VP views the actions of others as determined from outside the space of reasons. But the VP, like any other person, must have the ability to view the actions of others as rational responses to the environment, not only as reactions to it. Put differently, the VP’s view of others must rule out the possibility that they are brains in a vat – the possibility that their actions are merely caused, rather than justified, by the facts. Finally, it will be suggested that an amended conception of the VP can meet both requirements: view others as rationally responsive to the world, without relinquishing its relation to the facts.
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Notes
The VP can recognize similar reasons to act in different circumstances (when the action is not non-virtuous). I will return to this below.
Seidman (2005) distinguishes rational silencing – not recognizing reasons to act non-virtuously – from motivational silencing – not feeling any temptation to act non-virtuously.
For brevities sake, I use “the VP must recognize reasons to act non-virtuously as reasons” throughout to mean “the VP must recognize reasons to act non-virtuously as reasons to act non-virtuously”. The idea is that the VP must understand a particular action, in the circumstances in which it is taken.
The objection is that since vulnerability to temptation is inescapable, the VP must be someone who overcomes it. This inner conflict burdens an account of the psychology of virtue with the danger of “paralysis in action.” Stark (2001: 140–155) proposes that the VP sometimes feels conflicting emotions. However, she explicitly endorses silencing. Blackburn (1998: 38) also maintains that McDowell’s VP is superhuman.
McDowell’s analogy between values and secondary-qualities (McDowell 1998g) entails that something like the biconditional is required. The argument in (McDowell 1998h) grounds the virtue-as-sensitivity view in rule-following considerations. The VP also resembles the epistemologically-responsible agent (McDowell 1998c).
I use “attractive” to designate a reason that is both normative and motivating, in line with McDowell’s cognitivism. Someone who finds someone else attractive is therefore attracted to them.
I will use this example throughout. In this case, a non-virtuous person knows the person is married, and wants to sleep with him because he is attractive. Sleeping with him is wrong because he is married.
Continence occurs when the strength of an inclination is “in line” with the weight of reasons (McDowell 1998h). But continence is as bad as incontinence (McDowell 1998b, h: 55). McDowell argues (McDowell 1994) that the distinction between strength and weight raises the skeptical challenge, and consequently the problems inherent in Davidson's ideological dualism.
The relation between an action (as response) and the fact (the world as it is) must be revealed as rational (justification), not merely causal. By “rational response” I shall refer only to actions justified by facts.
I will refer to such factors as “executive”.
This argument is based on (McDowell 1998h). McDowell’s argument, and the relation between the rejected view of virtue-as-continence and the possibility of skepticism, are further developed in (McDowell 1994) and in particular in the criticism of Davidson's causal account and ideological dualism (McDowell 1994: 14–18, 137–161).
It will be suggested below that a purported reason can be rejected without appealing to the mere strength of motivations. This suggestion requires a different approach to the objectivity of ethical requirements then that expressed by the analogy with secondary qualities.
This does not imply that such reasons fully justify non-virtuous action, only that they justify in a weaker sense – falling short of overall-justification.
Another way to put this is that the VP fails to find a suitable description that makes the action reasonable. The arguments in the following sections explicate why finding such a description amounts to viewing the married person as attractive and entails being attracted.
Otherwise, either one clearly perceives ethical requirements, or else one understands non-virtuous actions. David Heyd suggested that equating virtue with someone otherworldly, like Alyosha Karamazov, exemplifies this view.
For example, Davidson (1984: 170) claims that only a creature that has the concept of belief – allowing for the gap between how it takes the world to be and how it is – has beliefs. And a creature has the concept of belief only if it is capable of interpreting the behavior of others.
This is so even if behavior accidentally matches requirements.
This also follows from Davidson’s principle of charity, which means the outlooks of interpreter and interpretee are logically on-a-par. The recalcitrant belief of an interpretee challenges the interpreter because presumably it is as reasonable as the interpreter’s beliefs. As argued above, the fact that the VP knows what virtue requires cannot undermine this claim. Ultimately, the proposed view requires a stronger version of charity than Davidson’s.
Compare (McDowell 1994: 8, ff 7). The contrast between justification and exculpation pertains to modes of use: a conception of honor can either justify, or exculpate.
Similarly, the pianist (who “mastered a technique”) must have the ability to view a competing performance of a piece (and its nuances) as a performance of it - as responding to the score and interpreting it. See (Bar-Elli 2006).
It does not suffice that others are not viewed as brains-in-a-vat. The VP’s view must preclude the possibility that they are, just as McDowell’s view guarantees the relation the VP and objective requirements by precluding the possibility that she is a brain-in-a-vat.
If the pillar-box appears red, then normally our NO would know its red, and consequently that conditions are normal. However, she cannot dismiss the claim made by others that it is green. Ignoring all others and relying on her sight is dogmatic. The NO need not, and cannot, know in advance that conditions are normal. Therefore, she must address the claim that the pillar-box is green. Otherwise, she only believes truly (and unreasonably) that it is red.
When the claim that the pillar-box is green is causally determined – as in colorblindness – the behavior is irrelevant for the purposes of grounding objectivity.
Tenenbaum (2007) attaches a related significance to appearances.
Compare Davidson's principle of charity: the fact that interpreter and interpretee are logically on-a-par does not imply that the interpreter can never actually presume (on the basis of prior knowledge) that certain beliefs are false or irrational.
Sometimes, an appropriate analogy suffices. A coffee-lover can understand a wine-lover, because wine and coffee are compatible. Similarly, someone who sleeps with a woman he shouldn’t can understand someone who sleeps with a man he shouldn’t, when the temptations are relevantly comparable.
This conception resembles understanding “sideways on” criticized in (McDowell 1994: 34–36).
This holds even if the agent embraced the faulty conception of honor upon reflection (McDowell 1998f: 188). The interpreter’s view of such a reflection is sideways-on in that it is viewed as taking place within a conceptual-scheme determined from outside the space of reasons.
A rejection McDowell’s-requirement implies defining the VP as someone whose actions, as a matter of fact, match the requirements of virtue. This amounts to embracing a “skeptical solution” to the rule-following problem.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Hagit benbaji, Dalia Drai, David Enoch, Rami Gudovitch Hemdat Lerman, Michal Merling, and an anonymous referee for this journal for helpful comments.
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Eylon, Y. Virtue and Continence. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 12, 137–151 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9126-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9126-6