VIRTUE

ETHICS
• Virtue ethics is a broad term for theories that
emphasize the role of character and virtue
rather than duty or good consequences.

• A virtue ethicist is likely to give you this kind of

moral advice: “Act as a virtuous person would
act in your situation.”

• Most virtue-based theories derive from Aristotle

(384-322 BCE) who argued that a virtuous
person is one who has ideal character traits.
These traits derive from natural internal
tendencies, but need to be nurtured; once
established, they will become stable.
 Greek Philosophers (500BC – 200BC)
Timeline
The Great Three

Plato, 20, meets Socrates,

60

Plato
(429 -
347)

500 200
BC BC

Socrate
s (469 -
399)
Every art and every inquiry,
and similarly every action and
pursuit, is thought to aim at
some good; and for this reason
the good has rightly been
declared to be that at which all
things aim. (Aristotle)
Aristotle’s Ethics
• Modern ethics is focused on
rights and duties

• Aristotle is interested in them

too (indirectly), but he is
more interested in
◦what is good for humans,
and
◦how we ought to live
Some Goods Better than
Others
 Health
$
Happiness Humor
(Eudaimonia/ F am
e
flourishing) Knowledge
Love
Job

Intrinsic Goods Instrumental Goods

Human Nature

The highest good for humans is happiness.

The good of a thing is its unique function

(not purpose):
 the function of the eye is seeing, and it’s a
good eye if it sees well
 the function of a knife is cutting, and it’s a
good knife if it cuts well (It is sharp)
What is the function of human beings?
 It is reason, and it’s a good human if it
reasons well.
Eudaimonia: The Goal of Human
Existence
If the function of human beings is
reason, and a good human is one
who reasons well.
Then the highest achievement of
humans is Flourishing
(Happiness)
Flourishing: activity exhibiting
virtue in accordance with reason.
The ideal function of a human
being is the most perfect exercise
of reason.
The Goal of Human Existence &
Eudaimonia
Human happiness is the activity of the soul
(reasoning well) in accordance with perfect
virtue (excellence).

Aristotle defines Eudaimonia (living well) as

the good.

Itis our ‘final end’, and we never seek it for

any other purpose.

But this doesn’t tell us what Eudaimonia is.

FUNCTION AND VIRTUE
 If the function of a knife is to cut, a good
knife cuts well; a good eye sees well; a
good plant flourishes (it grows well,
produces flowers well, etc., according to
its species).

 In order to fulfill its function, a thing will

need certain qualities that aid the
fulfillment of a thing’s function.

A quality is an ‘excellence’, or more

specifically, a ‘virtue’. So sharpness is a
virtue in a knife designed to cut. Good
Aristotle
applies this entire account to
human beings.

Virtues for human beings will be those

traits that enable them to fulfill their
function (reasoning well).

A human life is distinctively the life of a

being that can be guided by reason.

We are, distinctively, rational animals.

Only the virtuous person can achieve
Eudaimonia.

To fulfill our function and live well, we must be

guided by the ‘right’ reasons.

So Eudaimonia consists in the activity of the

soul which exhibits the virtues by being in
accordance with reason.

Finally, we must add that this must apply to a

person’s life as a whole. A day or even year of
living well doesn’t amount to a good life
 Virtue
To understand happiness, we must
understand virtue…
Doing something well or with excellence is
one definition of a virtue.

• Things have virtue when they perform

the function proper to them well …

• Screwdrivers drive screws; that is

their work, or, loosely speaking, their
virtue

• Also, a thing’s “work” is what only it

can do, or what nothing else can do
so well
 Intellectual Virtues
For Humans this “work” is reason (we
are rational animals), composed of
 theoretical wisdom
 scientific reasoning
 intuitive understanding
 practical wisdom/practical reason,
prudence
 craft knowledge, skill, art
The Doctrine of the Mean
Properposition between two
extremes
◦ Vice of excess
◦ Vice of deficiency

Not an arithmetic median

◦ Relative to us and not the thing
◦ Not the same for all of us, or
◦ “In this way, then, every knowledgeable
person avoids excess and deficiency,
but looks for the mean and chooses it”
(II.6)
 Anatomy of a Moral
Virtue
Courage is the mean between being a
coward and being rash.
Example:
When running into battle, the coward
lags behind, and the rash person runs
ahead. The courageous person keeps
with mates.

Notice that ‘courage’ is not in the middle

between the extremes. That is because
prudence, the intellectual virtue that finds
the mean, tells us that being courageous is
more like being rash than it is like being
cowardly.
Moral virtues are means between
two corresponding vices, one of
excess and one of deficiency.

Rashness Courage
Cowardliness |_______________|
___________________|
 ARISTOTLE'S TABLE OF VIRTUES AND VICES
SPHERE OF
ACTION OR EXCESS MEAN DEFICIENCY
FEELING
Fear and
Rashness Courage Cowardice
Confidence
Licentiousness/
Pleasure and Pain Temperance Insensibility
Self-indulgence
Getting and
Illiberality/
Spending Prodigality Liberality
Meanness
(minor)
Getting and
Vulgarity/ Pettiness/
Spending Magnificence
Tastelessness Stinginess
(major)
Honour and
Dishonour Vanity Magnanimity Pusillanimity
(major)
Honour and
Ambition/empty Proper Unambitiousness/
Dishonour
vanity ambition/pride undue humility
(minor)
Lack of
Patience/Good
Anger Irascibility spirit/unirascibilit
temper
y
Understatement/
Self-expression Boastfulness Truthfulness
mock modesty
Conversation Buffoonery Wittiness Boorishness
Social Conduct Obsequiousness Friendliness Cantankerousness
Shame Shyness Modesty Shamelessness
 How are Moral Virtues
Acquired?
Virtues are acquired through practice and habit
 We become just by doing just acts,
generous by generous acts, temperate by
temperate acts, etc.
So, if virtues are attained by practice and habit
how do we know what acts are just or friendly
in the first place?
1) We learn by observation
2) We ask a virtuous person
3) We use prudence to find the mean, or
the right amount of an action,
the right time for an action,
the right object (immediate and or
distant object) for an action,
the right manner of acting, etc.
Dispositions, not
Habits
Moral virtues are not habits; they are:
 dispositions to act that are
acquired by habituation.
 purposive dispositions in a mean
determined by reason
To posses a virtue is
 to hold a complex mental
framework of the right feelings,
attitudes, understanding, insight,
experience, etc.
 to have a multi-track disposition,
unlike a simple habit such as being
a tea drinker or coffee drinker.
 Take truthfulness: A truthful
person …
◦Tells the truth (but not indiscreetly)
◦Raises kids to do so
◦Encourages other to do so
◦Doesn’t find jokes about dishonesty
funny
◦Is surprised and saddened by
dishonesty in friends
◦Doesn’t provide the truth to those
intending to misuse it
◦Cares about truth for its own sake
(values it above personal feelings,
say)
◦Etcetera
 Getting and Keeping Moral
Virtues
Possessing the virtues is a matter of degree, and few
possess them all.

 If we do what is right due to a disposition

established by practice and habit, Aristotle calls
our condition virtuous.

 If we do what is right despite contrary

inclination, Aristotle calls our condition
continent, something inferior to virtuous.

 If we try but fail to do what we know we should,

we are called incontinent.

 If we have no interest even in trying to do what

we know we should, we are called vicious.
 Moral Virtue
• Virtues make their possessor good, but
what do we make of courage in, say, a
thief?

• Some virtues we might have by nature,

but unless they are multi-track, and
settled by comprehensive understanding,
they aren’t virtues strictly speaking.

• Does a thief overcome the correct fears

for the right reasons? If not, the thief
only has something like the virtue of
courage.
Other Virtue-like
Ethics
Carol Gilligan
In a Different Voice (1982)
Developmental theories have been built on
observations and assumptions about men’s
lives and thereby distort views of female
personality.
Kohlberg focused exclusively on (white)
male children and men in his studies.

Gilligan concluded through a series of

studies that males and females develop
different standards of morality: boys have a
“justice perspective,” whereas girls have a
“care and responsibility perspective”.

Because of this, she criticizes Kohlberg’s

model for focusing on the male “justice
perspective” and treating male rule-based
reasoning as morally superior.
 Hilde Lindemann
 Many believe feminism is a movement that aims to
make women the social equals of men.
◦ Which men? Poor, wealthy, white, black?
◦ Second, the definition itself treats men as a standard
by which women need to measure themselves.
 Another definition: it is about women.

◦ What is a woman?
 Gender, after all, is not a biological.
◦ Gender is about power.
 Feminism is concerned primarily with the
disproportionate power distribution between men and
women.
 Understand, criticize, and correct how gender operates
within our moral beliefs and practices. Power relations
both legitimate and illegitimate.
 This is the end of the
lecture
What are your questions?