Virtue theory is an approach to
ethics which emphasizes the character of the moral
agent, rather than rules or consequences, as the key element of
ethical thinking. This contrasts with
consequentialism, which holds that the
consequences of a particular act form the basis for any valid moral
judgment about that action, and
deontology, which derives rightness or
wrongness from the character of the act itself rather than the
outcomes. The difference between these three approaches to morality
tends to lie more in the way moral dilemmas are approached than in
the moral conclusions reached. For example, a consequentialist may
argue that lying is wrong because of the negative consequences
produced by lying — though a consequentialist may allow that
certain foreseeable consequences might make lying acceptable. A
deontologist might argue that lying is
always wrong,
regardless of any potential "good" that might come from lying. A
virtue ethicist, however, would focus less on lying in any
particular instance and instead consider what a decision to tell a
lie or not tell a lie said about one's character and moral
behavior.
Although concern for virtue appears in several philosophical
traditions, in the West the roots of the tradition lie in the work
of
Plato and
Aristotle, and even today the tradition’s key
concepts derive from
ancient
Greek philosophy. These concepts include
arete (excellence or virtue),
phronesis (practical or moral wisdom), and
eudaimonia (flourishing). In
the West virtue ethics was the
prevailing approach to ethical thinking in the
ancient and
medieval
periods. The tradition suffered an eclipse during the
early modern period, as
Aristotelianism fell out of favour in the
West. Virtue theory returned to prominence in Western philosophical
thought in the twentieth century, and is today one of the three
dominant approaches to normative theories (the other two being
deontology and
consequentialism). Virtue theory is not
actually in conflict with deontology or teleology as those two
viewpoints deal with which actions a person should take in any
given scenario, virtue theorists simply argue that developing
morally desirable virtues for their own sake will help aid moral
actors when such decisions need to be made.
While virtue ethics was born with
Plato and
Aristotle, their forms of virtue ethics
are by no means the only ones. What virtue ethics refers to,
rather, is a collection of
normative
ethical philosophies that place an emphasis on being rather than
doing. Another way to say this is that in virtue ethics, morality
stems from the identity and/or character of the individual, rather
than being a reflection of the actions (or consequences thereof) of
the individual. Today, there is a great amount of debate among
various adherents of virtue ethics about what specific virtues are
morally praiseworthy. However, the one thing they all agree upon is
that morality comes as a result of intrinsic virtues—this is the
common link that unites the sometimes disparate normative
philosophies into the field known as virtue ethics.
Distinctions
Virtue ethics can be contrasted to
deontological ethics and
consequentialist ethics by an examination
of the other two (the three being together the most predominant
contemporary normative ethical theories).
Deontological ethics, sometimes
referred to as duty ethics, places the emphasis on following rules,
or doing one's "duty." Which rules to follow is often a point of
contention and criticism in deontological ethics. One of the
predominant rule schemes utilized by deontologists is the
Divine Command Theory. Deontology also
depends, at least partially, upon meta-ethical
realism, in that it postulates the
existence of moral absolutes that make an action moral. For more
information on deontological ethics refer to the work of
Immanuel Kant. The next predominant school of
thought in normative ethics is
consequentialism. While deontology places
the emphasis on doing one's duty, which is established by some kind
of moral imperative (in other words, the emphasis is on obedience
to some higher moral absolute), consequentialism bases the morality
of an action upon the consequences of the outcome. Instead of
saying that one has a moral duty to abstain from murder, a
consequentialist would say that we should abstain from murder
because it causes undesirable effects. The main contention here is
what outcomes should/can be identified as objectively desirable.
The
Greatest Happiness
Principle of
John Stuart Mill
is one of the most commonly adopted criterion. Mill asserts that
our determinant of the desirability of an action is the net amount
of happiness it brings, the number of people it brings it to, and
the duration of the happiness. He also tries to delineate classes
of happiness, some being preferable to others, but there is a great
deal of difficulty in classifying such concepts. For a more
complete outline of the niceties of Mill's classification system
see the page on
utilitarianism or
read Mill's works
Utilitarianism,
Defense of
Utilitarianism, and
On
Liberty. Examining the meta-ethical theories of
naturalism, upon which many consequentialist
theories rely, may provide further clarification. Having looked at
the other two normative ethical theories we come at last to virtue
ethics.
As stated before,
deontology focuses on
following rules, while
consequentialism focuses on the outcomes
(consequences) of actions. Here virtue ethics differs in that the
focus is instead upon being rather than doing. A virtue ethics
philosopher will identify
virtues, desirable
characteristics, which the moral or virtuous person embodies.
Possessing these virtues, in virtue ethics, is what makes one
moral, and one's actions are a mere reflection of one's inner
morality. To the virtue philosopher, action cannot be used as a
demarcation of morality, because a virtue encompasses more than
just a simple selection of action. Instead, it is about a way of
being that would cause the person exhibiting the virtue to make a
certain "virtuous" choice consistently in each situation. There is
a great deal of disagreement within virtue ethics over what are
virtues and what are not. There are also difficulties in
identifying what is the "virtuous" action to take in all
circumstances, and how does one define a virtue?
Consequentialist and deontological theories often still employ the
term 'virtue', but in a restricted sense, namely as a tendency or
disposition to adhere to the system's principles or rules. These
very different senses of what constitutes virtue, hidden behind the
same word, are a potential source of confusion. This disagreement
over the meaning of virtue points to a larger conflict between
virtue theory and its philosophical rivals. A system of virtue
theory is only intelligible if it is
teleological: that is, if it includes an
account of the purpose (
telos) of human life, or in
popular language, the
meaning of
life. Obviously, strong claims about the purpose of human life,
or of what the good life for human beings is, will be highly
controversial. Virtue theory's necessary commitment to a
teleological account of human life thus puts the tradition in sharp
tension with other dominant approaches to normative ethics, which,
because they focus on actions, do not bear this burden.
Achieving eudaimonia
Eudaimonia is a state variously translated from Greek as
'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of
virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'
Eudaimonia in this
sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state. It
characterizes the well-lived life, irrespective of the emotional
state of the person experiencing it. According to Aristotle, the
most prominent exponent of
eudaimonia in the Western
philosophical tradition,
eudaimonia is the proper goal of
human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human
quality --
reason -- as the soul's most
proper and nourishing activity. Aristotle, like Plato before him,
argued that the pursuit of
eudaimonia was an activity that
could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human
community—the
polis or
city-state.
Although
eudaimonia was first popularized by Aristotle, it
now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally. For the
virtue theorist,
eudaimonia describes that state achieved
by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome which can
be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or
quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its
purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among
the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus to identify the virtues
for human beings, one must have an account of what the human
purpose is. There is, and always has been, sharp disagreement on
this question: thus, as
Alasdair
MacIntyre observed in
After
Virtue, though thinkers as diverse as
Homer,
Aristotle, the authors
of the
New Testament,
Thomas Aquinas, and
Benjamin Franklin have all proposed lists,
and sometimes theories of the interrelation, of the virtues which
do not always overlap. ['citation needed']
Aristotle categorized the virtues as moral and
intellectual. Aristotle identified nine
intellectual virtues, the most important of which was wisdom;
sophia (theoretical wisdom) and
phronesis
(practical wisdom). The other eight moral virtues included
prudence, justice, fortitude, courage, liberality, magnificence,
magnanimity, and temperance. Aristotle argued that each of the
moral virtues was a mean (see
Golden Mean) between two
corresponding vices.
Historical origins and development
Like much of the Western tradition, virtue theory seems to have
originated in ancient
Greek
philosophy . Discussion of what were known as the
Four Cardinal Virtues - wisdom,
justice,
fortitude
and
temperance - can be found in
Plato's
Republic. The
virtues also figure prominently in Aristotle's moral theory (see
below). Virtue theory was inserted into the study of
history by moralistic historians such as
Livy,
Plutarch, and
Tacitus. The Greek idea of the virtues was passed on
in Roman philosophy through
Cicero and later
incorporated into
Christian moral theology
by
St. Ambrose of Milan. During the
scholastic period, the most
comprehensive consideration of the virtues from a theological
perspective was provided by St.
Thomas
Aquinas in his
Summa
Theologiae and his
Commentaries on the Nicomachean
Ethics.
The tradition was eclipsed in the Renaissance, and throughout the
early modern period, when the Aristotelian synthesis of ethics and
metaphysics fell into disfavour. Though the tradition receded into
the background of European philosophical thought in these
centuries, the term "virtue" remained current during this period,
and in fact appears prominently in the tradition of
classical republicanism or
classical liberalism.
This tradition was
prominent in the intellectual life of sixteenth-century Italy
, as well as
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and America; indeed the
term "virtue" appears frequently in the work of Niccolò Machiavelli, David Hume, the republicans of the English Civil War period, the
eighteenth-century English Whigs,
and the prominent figures among the Scottish Enlightenment and the
American Founding Fathers.
Despite this common term, classical republicanism should not be
conflated with virtue theory, as the two philosophical traditions
draw from different sources and often address different concerns.
Where virtue theory traces its roots to Aristotle, classical
republicanism draws primarily on Tacitus.
Virtue theory emphasizes Aristotle's belief in the
polis as the acme of political organization, and the
role of the virtues in enabling human beings to flourish in that
environment. Classical republicanism in contrast emphasizes
Tacitus's concern that power and luxury can corrupt individuals and
destroy liberty, as Tacitus perceived in the transformation of the
Roman republic into an empire; virtue
for classical republicans is a shield against this sort of
corruption and a means to preserve the good life one has, rather
than a means by which to achieve the good life one does not yet
have. Another way to put the distinction between the two traditions
is that virtue ethics relies on Aristotle's fundamental distinction
between the human-being-as-he-is from the
human-being-as-he-should-be, while classical republicanism relies
on the Tacitean distinction of the human-being-as-he-is from the
human-being-as-he-is-at-risk-of-becoming.
Contemporary virtue theory
Although some
Enlightenment
philosophers (e.g.
Hume) continued to
emphasize the virtues, with the ascendancy of
utilitarianism and
deontology, virtue theory moved to the margins of
Western philosophy. The contemporary revival of virtue theory is
frequently traced to the philosopher
G. E.
M. Anscombe's 1958 essay, 'Modern Moral
Philosophy' and to
Philippa Foot, who
published a collection of essays in 1978 entitled
Virtues and
Vices. Since the 1980s, in works like
After Virtue and
Three Rival Versions
of Moral Enquiry, philosopher
Alasdair MacIntyre has made an effort to
reconstruct a virtue-based theory in dialogue with the problems of
modern and
postmodern thought.
In
French philosophy,
Paul Ricoeur has accorded an important place to
Aristotelian
teleological ethics
in his
hermeneutical phenomenology of the subject,
most notably in his book
Oneself as Another. Following
MacIntyre,
American Methodist theologian
Stanley Hauerwas has also found the
language of virtue quite helpful in his own project. More recently,
Rosalind Hursthouse has
published
On Virtue Ethics and
Roger Crisp and
Michael
Slote have edited a collection of important essays titled
Virtue Ethics, while
Martha
Nussbaum and
Amartya Sen have
employed virtue theory in theorizing the
capability approach to
international development.
Virtue theory outside the Western tradition
Non-Western moral and religious philosophies, such as
Confucianism, also incorporate ideas that may
appear similar to those developed by the ancient Greeks.
Like
ancient Greek ethics, Chinese
ethical
thought makes an explicit connection between virtue and statecraft. However, where the
Greeks focused on the interior orientation of the soul,
Confucianism's definition of virtue emphasizes interpersonal
relations. Normally when the term virtue theory is used, it is in
reference to the western conception of virtue theory, rather than
any of the schools of East Asian ethical thought.
Criticisms of virtue theory
Some criticise the theory in relation to the difficulty involved
with establishing the nature of the virtues. Different people,
cultures and societies often have vastly different opinions on what
constitutes a virtue. For example, many would have once considered
a virtuous woman to be quiet, servile, and industrious. This
conception of female virtue no longer holds true in many modern
societies (see also
cultural
relativism). Proponents of virtue theory sometimes respond to
this objection by arguing that a central feature of a virtue is its
universal applicability. In other words, any character
trait defined as a virtue must reasonably be universally regarded
as a virtue for all sentient beings. According to this view, it is
inconsistent to claim for example servility as a female virtue,
while at the same time not proposing it as a male one.
Other proponents of virtue theory, notably
Alasdair MacIntyre, respond to this
objection by arguing that any account of the virtues must indeed be
generated out of the community in which those virtues are to be
practiced: the very word 'ethics' implies 'ethos'. That is to say
that the virtues are, and necessarily must be, grounded in a
particular time and place. What counts as virtue in fourth-century
Athens would be a ludicrous guide to proper behaviour in
twenty-first-century Toronto, and vice-versa. To take this view
does not necessarily commit one to the argument that accounts of
the virtues must therefore be static: moral activity—that is,
attempts to contemplate and practice the virtues—can provide the
cultural resources that allow people to change, albeit slowly, the
ethos of their own societies.
MacIntyre appears to take this position
in his seminal work on virtue ethics,
After Virtue. One might cite (though
MacIntyre does not) the rapid
emergence of
abolitionist thought in
the
slave-holding societies of the
eighteenth-century
Atlantic world as
an example of this sort of change: over a relatively short period
of time, perhaps 1760 to 1800, in Britain, France, and British
America, slave-holding, previously thought to be morally neutral or
even virtuous, rapidly became seen as vicious among wide swathes of
society. While the emergence of abolitionist thought derived from
many sources, the work of
David Brion
Davis, among others, has established that one source was the
rapid, internal evolution of moral theory among certain sectors of
these societies, notably the
Quakers.
Another objection to virtue theory is that the school does not
focus on what
sorts of actions are morally permitted and
which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone
ought to foster in order to become a good person. In other words,
while some virtue theorists may not condemn, for example, murder as
an inherently immoral or impermissible sort of action, they may
argue that someone who commits a murder is severely lacking in
several important virtues, such as
compassion and
fairness.
Still, antagonists of the theory often object that this particular
feature of the theory makes virtue ethics useless as a universal
norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for
legislation. Some virtue theorists concede this
point, but respond by opposing the very notion of legitimate
legislative
authority instead, effectively
advocating some form of
anarchism as the
political ideal. Others argue that laws should be made by virtuous
legislators. Still others argue that it is possible to base a
judicial system on the moral notion of virtues rather than
rules.
Some virtue theorists might respond to this overall objection with
the notion of a "bad act" also being an act characteristic of
vice . That is to say that those acts which do
not aim at virtue, or stray from virtue, would constitute our
conception of "bad behavior". Although not all virtue ethicists
agree to this notion, this is one way the virtue ethicist can
re-introduce the concept of the "morally impermissible". One could
raise objection with Foot that she is committing an
argument from ignorance by
postulating that what is not virtuous is unvirtuous. In other
words, just because an action or person 'lacks of evidence' for
virtue does not,
all else constant,
imply that said action or person is unvirtuous.
Applications of virtue ethics
Virtue ethics has a number of applications. For instance, within
the field of social ethics,
Deirdre
McCloskey argues that virtue ethics can provide a basis for a
balanced approach to understanding capitalism and capitalist
societies. Within the field of
philosophy of education, James Page
argues that virtue ethics can provide a rationale and foundation
for
peace education.
Thomas Alured Faunce has argued that
whistleblowing in the healthcare setting would be more respected
within clinical governance pathways if it had a firmer academic
foundation in virtue ethics.
He has argued that whistleblowing should have
been expressly supported in the UNESCO
Universal
Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
See also
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