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Assessing Recent Agent-Based Accounts of Right Action (and More)

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Abstract

Agent-based virtue ethical theories must deal with the problem of right action: if an action is right just in case it expresses a virtuous motive, then how can an agent perform the right action but for the wrong reason, or from a vicious motive? Some recent agent-based accounts purport to answer this challenge and two other related problems. Here I assess these accounts and show them to be inadequate answers to the problem of right action (and one of the other problems for agent-basing). Overall, it is shown that the most recent and promising attempts at squaring agent-based virtue ethics with commonsense morality are flawed, and so, the case for agent-basing in general that much dimmer.

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Notes

  1. For further discussion, see Hursthouse and Pettigrove (2016: §2.2). My concern here is only with Slote’s flavor of agent-basing, where a particular agent’s motives are what matters, not what a hypothetical virtuous agent’s motives are (cf. Zagzebski 2004).

  2. For more on the problem of moral luck, see Slote (1992: ch. 7); cf. Athanassoulis (2005). For an agent-based approach to metaethics, see Slote (2010); for discussion, see Kauppinen (2014).

  3. See Brady (2004), Garrard (2000), Jacobson (2002), Johnson (2003), Russell (2008), Svensson (2010), and Swanton (2001).

  4. For the sake of argument, I assume that these two other problems are genuine; some readers may not find them so. My concern is only whether or not Doviak’s account can do what he claims it can.

  5. For further discussion, see Sider (2003).

  6. I should note that my aim here is not to criticize the notions of maximization or optimality per se, but only in Doviak’s identification of it with rightness.

  7. Thanks to anonymous reviewers for bringing to my attention the need to consider this objection.

  8. Note that Doviak must also endorse a converse position—call it the affirmation of limitless admirability—which claims that, no matter how virtuously an agent acts, so long as there is an alternative to act more virtuously, the agent does not act rightly.

  9. For discussion of a contrastivist account, see Snedegar (2013).

  10. Thanks to Julia Driver for brining this objection to my attention.

  11. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for prompting me to make my discussion here clearer. For a discussion of excusing conditions (in some circumstances), see McMahan (2009).

  12. For further discussion and development of Doviak’s view, see Ciurria (2012).

  13. Another objection to Doviak’s view worth registering is that it seems committed to counterintuitive comparative evaluations. Suppose that in making a modest donation, Jim expresses numerous virtues—generosity, kindness, and justice—to a small extent, resulting in a net-IVV of 0.6. And suppose that while fighting in a just war, Jane expresses the single virtue of courage to a great extent, resulting in a net-IVV of 0.6. Given that Jim and Jane have identical net-IVVs, Doviak must claim they are equally praiseworthy.

    But who is more praiseworthy, someone who acts from minimal generosity, kindness, and justice, or someone who acts from great courage? Intuitively, the courageous hero is more praiseworthy then the modest but variously motivated alms giver. Thanks to Ge Fang for brining this objection to my attention.

  14. An interesting objection that Walsh (2016: 658ff) addresses, but one I will not consider here, is that on his account it seems as though, so long as an agent does not realize some deplorable motive, they cannot act wrongly. For instance, if Gustav is motivated to influence an election but must first blackmail a government official, so long as the election is not in fact influenced, he does not act wrongly. Walsh responds in exactly the same way he suggests we account for the poolside savior’s acting rightly: posit a subordinate motive that is realized.

  15. Thanks to Eric Brown for helping me to see this.

  16. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this response to my attention.

  17. Walsh (2016: 660) notes such an appeal is open to him, and mentions one account proposed by Van Van Zyl (2009), but does not pursue or adopt it (although he mentions it is compatible with his view). In fact, he seems unconvinced that he or other proponents of agent-basing need to adopt an account of action guidance at all. He writes (2016: 660), “I am not convinced that agent-based theories (or indeed any other approach to virtue ethics) ought to be in the business of providing principles of action guidance. A rejection of this undertaking has been persuasively argued for by Julia Annas…”

  18. I would like to thank Niklas Andersson, Anne Margaret Baxley, William Bell, Eric Brown, Chris Colacchia, and Ge Fang for helpful comments on this paper. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for the journal for providing very detailed comments. Julia Driver deserves special thanks for reading multiple (and likely, not so great) drafts and brining important material to my attention.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis, Wilson Hall, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA

    Graham Renz

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Renz, G. Assessing Recent Agent-Based Accounts of Right Action (and More). Ethic Theory Moral Prac 23, 433–444 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-020-10076-1

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