A Very Short Introduction to Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics builds on the idea that human agents possess certain consistent dispositions or states of character, called the virtues, which inclines them to engage in right action in a particular context. It does not focus on the evaluation of particular actions, but on evaluating the agent’s character. The seminal paper that has been responsible for the revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics in the Western world is G.E.M. Anscombe’s Modern Moral

Philosophy, in which the author states that when we have the outlines of a philosophy of psychology, in which notions such as “action, intention, wanting and pleasure” can be accounted for, we might eventually start advancing the concept of “virtue” as the basis for a form of ethics (Anscombe, 1958, p. 12). Even though Anscombe did not herself present a theory of virtue ethics and was reluctant to adopt the Aristotelian system due to its perceived lack of clarity (notably regarding concepts such as eudaimonia or “human flourishing”), a novel approach in moral philosophy emerged that started to develop the Aristotelian notion of virtue, with Philippa Foot (1978), John McDowell (1979), Rosalind Hursthouse (1999), and Alasdair MacIntyre (2007) as its main proponents. What these scholars have in common is not only their focus on virtue, but - in line with Anscombe - also a strong disagreement with the established Kantian and utilitarian traditions in moral philosophy. Yet, Martha Nussbaum (1999) contests whether virtue ethics genuinely offers a distinct, or incommensurable approach that can be contrasted with Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, because thinkers in these traditions also assign importance to the notion of virtue in their theories. We tentatively agree with her assessment, but also argue that virtue ethics at least presents a refocusing or correction of modern moral philosophy by a return to the notion of virtue as developed in ancient Greek ethical theory. Accordingly, a notable difference between virtue ethics and other approaches in moral philosophy is the emphasis on the agent as virtuous or vicious rather than on the rightness or wrongness of an action.

In the literature on virtue ethics, the following central questions are posited: (1) what is virtue; (2) which (cardinal or principal) virtues can we distinguish; and (3) how are virtues “cultivated”? A human being has certain dispositions that we commonly say belong to her “character”. Some of these can be regarded as “general beneficial characteristics” (Foot, 1900, p. 2), which can be conceptualised as “virtues”. It is the possessing of virtues, or rather of a certain kind of “virtuous being” that determines the goodness of a moral agent. The virtues themselves are socially cultivated, rather than naturally acquired, but do depend on a teleological notion of the good life for human beings (the human ergon, or “function”) (NE, 1.7, 1098a15-20, trans. Irwin). This teleological notion is captured by the concept of eudaimonia, which cannot be easily translated into the more familiar concept of happiness (which might be understood as a pleasurable state), but rather designates the end of a human life as a whole that needs no qualification. While other ends in a human life, such as health, can have a qualification (e.g. we are healthy to live in accord with eudaimonia), eudaimonia does not have any further qualification (e.g. it does not make sense to state that we live in

acted upon in accordance with eudaimonia and that endures rather than one that might be deployed in a single action or that may lay dormant in an individual. An agent can therefore be evaluated according to an evaluation of enduring dispositions to act in certain way in particular circumstances and not according to an evaluation of a single action (e.g. one apparently kind act does not make its agent kind). Contrary to Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, which argue from the idea of ethical principles towards an idea of the good life, virtue ethics holds that acting on the virtues in line with eudaimonia yield rules of action (Hursthouse, 1999, p. 39). For instance, virtue ethics maintains that by engaging in just practices we become just people and therefore acquire a notion of rules that just practices adhere to (e.g. a sense of procedural justice).

Based on a certain conception of what virtue is, distinct versions of virtue ethics offer different heuristics or lists of virtues. MacIntyre discusses types of these heuristics, such as the lists of Christian virtues, Homeric virtues and Benjamin Franklin’s utilitarian virtues (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 185). Unlike the heuristics we discussed in the previous chapter, a heuristic in a certain version of virtue ethics stands for a distinct, systematic theory of virtue (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 183). Aristotle articulated the most influential list of virtues in Western philosophy. He distinguished between virtues of character and virtues of thought, which relate to one-another. Virtues of character belong to the part of the soul that is not rational itself but nonetheless can “share in reason” (NE, 1.13, 1102a14-18, trans. Irwin). In other words, these are virtues that allow a person to have certain emotional dispositions or rather feelings such as fear, confidence, pleasure and pain, in the right way that is mediated by the right reasons. A way to understand such a virtue is by considering the mean within two types of emotional extremes: of excess and of deficiency. For instance, an excess of fear leads to cowardry while a deficiency of fear leads to recklessness. The virtue of courage represents the mean disposition between these extreme emotions, and is mediated by rational deliberation – notably by the intellectual virtue of phronesis or prudence. Amongst the virtues of character we can count courage, temperance, generosity, magnanimity, mildness, truthfulness, wit, friendship and justice. Virtues of thought are dispositions to act that are fully rational (NE, 1.13, 1103a1-5, trans. Irwin), belonging to the human intellect. In other words, these virtues do not mediate our feelings, but aspects of reason. The virtues of thought are craft knowledge, scientific knowledge, prudence, wisdom and understanding. Prudence, or phronesis, which is a disposition to grasp the truth concerned with (a particular) action about what is good or bad for the human function, takes a central position because it connects

all the virtues by linking practice with reflection. As such, prudence is a required virtue for all the other virtues to be cultivated and acted upon.

Additionally, theories in virtue ethics make explicit how virtues are cultivated, or how a human being becomes virtuous. MacIntyre is perhaps the scholar who has constructed the most widely adopted theoretical basis for answering this question. He even takes the position, one that we will adopt hereafter, that the “how” question is the one that unifies different, seemingly incommensurable theories of virtue (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 186). His framework, in conjunction with Vallor’s, will be central to the discussions in the remainder of this chapter. Virtue, for MacIntyre, is “an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods” (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 191). He argues that to understand the logical development of the concept of virtue we need to pay attention to the different stages in which virtues are cultivated. First, there is the stage of practice, in which a human being needs to engage in order to cultivate her virtuous being. MacIntyre explains that a practice should be understood as a “socially established human activity through which goods internal to that activity are realised” (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 187). Goods internal to a practice are those related to the desire or wish to excel or improve in the respective practice. An example would be practicing a musical instrument in virtue of improving the mastery of playing it. As such, internal goods are opposed to external goods, which are reasons for engaging in an activity that are external to it. An example would be working to acquire money, because a monetary reward is external to the actual activity of work. The notion of practice used by MacIntyre relates to one of the three senses of praxis that Irwin discusses in his authoritative translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle, 1999, p. 315). First, praxis can be used broadly for all voluntary, intentional actions. This type of praxis includes those actions performed to harness the necessities in life (e.g. nutrients). In its second, narrower sense, praxis can be rational action based on a decision. This relates to the realm of crafts, or technê. Finally, praxis can have a third, most narrow meaning of rational action, which is an end in its own right. It is such instances of praxis, designated as “practices” by MacIntyre, that enable an agent to cultivate her or his virtues.

Second, according to MacIntyre practices through which virtues are cultivated should be understood as being embedded in a narrative order of a human life. This relates to the notion that virtues are not related to individual actions, but to the purpose of a human life as a whole

a narrative order, which provides a life with a history in which practices and the cultivation of virtue can be understood. He states that narratives provide us with proper answers to the question: “what is she or he doing?” (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 206). We use narratives to situate a practice in a certain social setting, for instance the practice of “marrying” in the social setting that includes two people’s life histories and narratives relating them to their friends and family, the witnesses of and participants in the specific practice. Similarly, intentions for actions and engagement in certain practices can be explained through the construction of narratives. For instance, the writing of a philosophy book can be rendered intelligible by constructing a narrative history of a philosopher’s professional career, including an account of the development of his ambitions and ideals. As such, narratives provide some kind of an epistemological correlate to the ontology of situated practices. An important consequence of MacIntyre’s turn to narrative is the novel characterisation of an agent as not merely an actor, but also as an author (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 213). We will return to this point, specifically in relation to the use of technologies, in the next chapter.

Third, practices that cultivate virtuous being and that are embedded in a narrative order of a single human life should be understood in the broader context of what MacIntyre designates as a “moral tradition” or community. A moral tradition can be understood as the system of particular moral practices and narratives that aim at an overarching idea of the “good life” and shape the virtues it promotes, such as the Christian moral community, the Confucian moral community or a moral community shaped by Greco-Roman ethics. In line with this idea, MacIntyre emphasises that different moral traditions offer different lists of virtues that in term embody different theories of virtue. The notion of “tradition” is needed in order to surpass the single life of an individual with its own narrative order and extend it to the community within which this life can be evaluated as having been lived in accordance with eudaimonia. In light of this argument, MacIntyre claims that every moral philosophy such as virtue ethics has a particular sociology, or theory of the social world, as its counterpart (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 225). To summarise MacIntyre’s theory of virtue, which will remain with us throughout the next chapters:

• Socially established human activities, or practices, that realise internal goods, allow human agents to cultivate their virtues.

• Practices are intelligible to these agents due to a narrative order that encompasses a human life as a whole, rendering agents both actors and authors.

• A human life and the related social established notion of happiness in a human life are embedded within a living moral tradition.