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Virtue Ethics and the Search for an Account of Right Action

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Abstract

Conceived of as a contender to other theories in substantive ethics, virtue ethics is often associated with, in essence, the following account or criterion of right action: VR: An action A is right for S in circumstances C if and only if a fully virtuous agent would characteristically do A in C. There are serious objections to VR, which take the form of counter-examples. They present us with different scenarios in which less than fully virtuous persons would be acting rightly in doing what no fully virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. In this paper, various proposals for how to revise VR in order to avoid these counter-examples are considered. I will argue that in so far as the revised accounts really do manage to steer clear of the counter-examples to VR, something which it turns out is not quite true for all of them, they instead fall prey to other damaging objections. I end by discussing the future of virtue ethics, given what has come to light in the previous sections of the paper. In particular, I sketch the outlines of a virtue ethical account of rightness that is structurally different from VR. This account also faces important problems. Still, I suggest that further scrutiny is required before we are in a position to make a definitive decision about its fate.

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Notes

  1. Different versions of VR are defended in Hursthouse 1999 and 1997; Oakley and Cocking 2001; Zagzebski 2004 and 1996. My own formulation of VR draws heavily upon Johnson 2003, p. 812. It is sometimes suggested that VR is also defended in McDowell 1997, but that is not quite correct. At one point in the paper, McDowell does refer to “the attractive idea that a virtue issues in nothing but right conduct” (McDowell 1997, p. 143). However, while this suggests that it is sufficient for an action to be right that a virtuous agent would characteristically do it, it does not entail that it is also necessary for an action to be right that a virtuous agent would characteristically do it. In contrast to VR, therefore, McDowell’s position leaves room for the possibility of there being actions that are right despite the fact that no virtuous agent would characteristically do them.

  2. It is indeed impossible, on Aristotle’s view, to be ethically good or virtuous in the fullest sense without having practical wisdom, as well as to be practically wise without having the virtues of character; see Aristotle 2002, 1144b31-32

  3. Aristotle 2002, 1099a17-20. Some philosophers, notably Doris 2002 and 1998, and Harman 1999, argue that there actually are no such things as character traits or dispositions in the sense assumed by Aristotelian virtue ethics. Drawing on empirical research within the field of social psychology, they suggest that human behaviour often just is the result of seemingly irrelevant situational factors (such as whether one receives the correct change in a phone booth, or whether one happens to be in a hurry somewhere), rather than of stable traits or dispositions of character. I do not find this situationist critique of virtue ethics convincing, but I shall not try to deal with it here. There are, however, important responses to the critique available in the literature; see, for example, Kamtekar 2004; Miller 2003; and Sreenivasan 2002.

  4. It is worth noting that the commitment to eudaimonism is not essential to virtue ethics. For two examples of virtue ethical theories that reject eudaimonism, see Slote 2001, and Swanton 2003.

  5. Michael Slote’s agent-based virtue ethics constitutes an exception here (see Slote 2001). On Slote’s view, actions are right to the extent that they are done from virtue. However, Slote assumes a somewhat less demanding conception of what it is to act from virtue than what Aristotle does. In particular, Slote focuses primarily on the motives from which we act, and not so much on knowledge or wisdom. It is nevertheless a major drawback of Slote’s theory that it does not leave room for the possibility of performing right actions without acting from virtue (or virtuous motives). It seems to obliterate the common-sense distinction between doing the right thing and doing it for the right reasons, since if the reasons (motives) are not right, then the action will not be right either. For further criticism of Slote’s agent-based virtue ethics, see Brady 2004; Driver 1995; Garrard 2000; and Jacobson 2002.

  6. See, for example, Aristotle 2002, 1103b1-2, and 1105b10-12.

  7. These points of clarification are applicable also to the revised versions of VR that we shall consider below.

  8. In calling this a claim of equivalence, I am following Adams 2006, p. 7. Even though consequentialists and deontologists could theoretically accept VR, if it is understood merely as an equivalence claim, they need not do so. There are indeed several interesting virtue theories developed within broadly consequentialist and deontological frameworks, which do not entail a commitment to VR. For a few recent examples, see Adams 2006; Driver 2001; and Hurka 2001.

  9. See, for example, Das 2003, pp. 331–334; Driver 2006, p. 118; and Österberg 1999, p. 287.

  10. That there is no room for saying this is a common objection to the version of VR defended in Hursthouse 1997.

  11. VR thus entails a commitment to the view that it is possible to be in possession of all the virtues.

  12. This objection to VR is found already in Harman 1983, p. 315.

  13. Perhaps this is because, as Hursthouse suggests, the man “does not … have to break his promise to B nor condemn her child to illegitimacy because she is glad to release him from it and marry a previous lover who is delighted to adopt the child”, while A, on the other hand, remains “compliant and loving” (Hursthouse 1999, p. 50).

  14. See Hursthouse 1999, particularly pp. 44–5; Russell 2008 follows Hursthouse in this regard.

  15. See Hursthouse 1999, p. 79.

  16. I am drawing here on Harman 1983, p. 315, and Doris 1998, particularly pp. 515–518; cf. also Driver 2006, p. 117; Johnson 2003, pp. 820–822; and Tiberius 2006, p. 250.

  17. This objection is pursued at some length in Johnson 2003. My example below is due to Johnson’s paper.

  18. What about the man in Hursthouse’s example who has induced two women, A and B, “to bear a child of his by promising marriage”, but who “can only marry one” (Hursthouse 1999, p. 46)? Assuming that the salient feature in this context is self-improvement (that is, that the man in the example is now concerned about how he might become a better, more virtuous person), and furthermore that it would be less bad to abandon B than A, then Tiberius might argue that the man ought to marry A, since to do otherwise would be to act contrary to considerations that would guide the conduct of a fully virtuous agent in relevantly similar circumstances (that one course of action would be less bad than another would, presumably, figure among the considerations the fully virtuous would take into account when determining how to act).

  19. Full virtue is thus a very demanding ideal. Tiberius agrees with this: “we have nothing”, she writes, “that corresponds to [the notion of a completely virtuous person] in real life” (Tiberius 2006, p. 263). At one point in her discussion, however, Tiberius suggests that “[i]t is only if we see the fully virtuous person as self-satisfied and complacent, steered by the knowledge of her own perfection, that self-improvement has no place in the ideal of a fully virtuous agent” (Tiberius 2006, p. 254). I find this unconvincing. While some amount of satisfaction on account of having achieved a fully virtuous character may, to my mind justifiably, be a feature of the ideally virtuous agent, I can think of no reason for why we would have to ascribe an attitude of complacency to her just because she knows that her character is not in need of further improvements.

  20. See, for example, Conee 2006, p. 179; Crisp 2000, p. 45n65; Cullity 1999, p. 280n3; Doris 1998, p. 518f; Driver 2006, p. 118; Harman 2001, p. 121; Johnson 2003, p. 826; and Milgram 2005, p. 173f.

  21. See Railton 1986.

  22. Cf. Harman 2001, p. 121.

  23. For a classic statement of an ideal observer view, see Firth 1952.

  24. They would surely do more than just provide “some general goodwill” (Johnson 2003, p. 828); cf. Foot 1985, p. 206.

  25. Cf. Conee 2006, p. 179. (I thank Krister Bykvist for bringing Conee’s interesting paper to my attention.)

  26. I am grateful to the two referees for this journal for pressing me on this point.

  27. Yet another problem for VRA is noted in footnote 30 below.

  28. Kawall 2002 defends an account of this kind.

  29. It should be reasonably clear that VRAP and VRA avoid the counter-examples to VR that we considered in section 2 for very similar reasons (assuming that the fully virtuous agent in VRAP, just as in VRA, has full information of the circumstances).

  30. Cf. Conee 2006, p. 180. It is worth noting that at least VR and VRA are also afflicted by this particular problem, since the fully virtuous might themselves do, and might advise others to do, only what is best.

  31. I am indebted to the referees for this journal for urging me to consider VRAP*.

  32. Brännmark 2006 and Brännmark 2008 defends an account of this kind. In his 2006, Brännmark formulates the account negatively (“An action is wrong iff it is one that no decent person would characteristically (i.e., acting in character) do in the circumstances”, p. 596), but in his 2008 he suggests that it might just as well be formulated in the positive way that I discuss here.

  33. It is true, of course, that mere decency is quite far from the ideal of full virtue, but there surely are some limits on what a person could do if he is to count as decent, and the man in Hursthouse’s example I think is clearly outside of those limits.

  34. I owe thanks to an anonymous referee for alerting me to this line of argument.

  35. To be a decent person, after all, involves more than merely performing certain actions. Furthermore, decent persons would not characteristically aspire towards becoming decent; since they are decent already, they do not need to.

  36. Thus, I think it is an important virtue of the so called developmental account of virtue and right that we will look at in the next section that it can account for such an obligation.

  37. Cf. Frankena 1973, p. 65ff.

  38. See Aristotle 2002, 1094b20-23; cf. McDowell 1997, and Dancy 1993, p. 50. Whether Aristotle embraces particularism is a contentious issue, however. Roger Crisp and Terence Irwin both argue that he probably does not (see Crisp 2000, and Irwin 2000). For my own part, I am inclined to think that he does, but I will not try to defend that here.

  39. Becoming virtuous and acquiring a practical skill is certainly not, on Aristotle’s account, analogous in all respects, but we need not get bogged down in the differences here (see, for example, Annas 1993, p. 68f, for some discussion of these differences). Aristotle’s views about the development of a virtuous character have generated a vast amount of literature. Good places to start may be Burnyeat 1980, Sherman 1989, and Sorabji 1980. For a more critical perspective on the skill-analogy, see Wallace 1988.

  40. Annas 2004, p. 68.

  41. See Norton 1988, p. 190f.

  42. To date, the best discussion of the developmental account is found in Annas 2004. The account is also hinted at in Conee 2006, p. 180f; Norton 1988; and Svensson 2008.

  43. See Aristotle 2002, 1103b24-26: “So it does not make a small difference whether people are habituated to behave in one way or in another way from childhood on, but a very great one; or rather, it makes all the difference in the world”. In this respect, acquiring virtue, on Aristotle’s view, might be slightly different from acquiring a practical skill (the acquisition of a practical skill is presumably not as dependent on one’s early upbringing as the acquisition of virtue).

  44. Another possibility for defenders of the developmental account might be to simply deny that all people can act rightly, but that is not a very attractive position. Interestingly, if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a plausible case to be made for thinking that we can always begin developing a virtuous character, then another potential problem for the developmental account arises, namely that the account will let some people get away too easily with the bad things that they do. By making right action dependent upon each person’s specific level of development in virtue, there is a risk that we in some cases will be unable to assess the performance of certain bad actions as wrong, just because the people who perform these actions are significantly— perhaps even totally—lacking in virtue.

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Acknowledgments

For comments and criticisms on earlier (and significantly different) versions of this paper, I am grateful to Julia Annas, Anne Baril, Matt Bedke, Michael Bukoski, Krister Bykvist, Erik Carlson, Ginger Clausen, Chris Freiman, Michael Gill, Victor Kumar, Rae Langton, Thaddeus Metz, Cole Mitchell, Jonas Olson, and Jan Österberg. I also received tremendously helpful reports from the two anonymous referees for this journal. Finally, I wish to thank the Swedish Research Council for financial support during the time of writing this paper.

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Svensson, F. Virtue Ethics and the Search for an Account of Right Action. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 13, 255–271 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9201-7

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