笔记：IEP“Virtue Ethics”词条
1. Changing Modern Moral Philosophy
a. Anscombe
In 1958 Elisabeth Anscombe criticized modern moral philosophy’s pre-occupation with a law conception of ethics.
b. Williams
Williams criticized how moral philosophy had developed.
He drew a distinction between morality and ethics.
Morality is characterized mainly by the work of Kant and notions such as duty and obligation. Crucially associated with the notion of obligation is the notion of blame. Blame is appropriate because we are obliged to behave in a certain way and if we are capable of conforming our conduct and fail to, we have violated our duty.
Williams was also concerned that such a conception for morality rejects the possibility of luck. If morality is about what we are obliged to do, then there is no room for what is outside of our control. But sometimes attainment of the good life is dependant on things outside of our control.
In response, Williams takes a wider concept, ethics, and rejects the narrow and restricting concept of morality. Ethics encompasses many emotions that are rejected by morality as irrelevant. Ethical concerns are wider, encompassing friends, family and society and make room for ideals such as social justice. This view of ethics is compatible with the Ancient Greek interpretation of the good life as found in Aristotle and Plato.
c. MacIntyre
MacIntyre looks at a large number of historical accounts of virtue that differ in their lists of the virtues and have incompatible theories of the virtues. Each account of virtue requires a prior account of social and moral features in order to be understood.
2. A Rival for Deontology and Utilitarianism
a. How Should One Live?
略。
b. Character and Virtue
Aristotelian character is about having the appropriate inner states. Character is also about doing. Character traits are stable, fixed, and reliable dispositions.
It is important to recognize that moral character develops over a long period of time. Virtue is chosen knowingly for its own sake.
Virtue “lies in a mean” because the right response to each situation is neither too much nor too little. Virtue is the appropriate response to different situations and different agents.
The virtues are associated with feelings.
Virtue is determined by the right reason.
c. Anti-Theory and the Uncodifiability of Ethics
Virtue ethicists have challenged consequentialist and deontological theories because they fail to accommodate the insight that the study of ethics is imprecise.
The idea that ethics cannot be captured in one rule or principle is the “uncodifiability of ethics thesis.”
d. Conclusion
略。
3. Virtue Ethical Theories
There are three main strands of development for virtue ethics: Eudaimonism, agent-based theories and the ethics of care.
a. Eudaimonism
In eudaimonist virtue ethics the virtues are justified because they are constitutive elements of eudaimonia (that is, human flourishing and wellbeing), which is good in itself.
b. Agent-Based Accounts of Virtue Ethics
Michael Slote has developed an account of virtue based on our common-sense intuitions about which character traits are admirable.
Slote makes a distinction between agent-focused and agent-based theories. Agent-focused theories understand the moral life in terms of what it is to be a virtuous individual, where the virtues are inner dispositions. Aristotelian theory is an example of an agent-focused theory. By contrast, agent-based theories are more radical in that their evaluation of actions is dependent on ethical judgments about the inner life of the agents who perform those actions. There are a variety of human traits that we find admirable, such as benevolence, kindness, compassion, etc. and we can identify these by looking at the people we admire, our moral exemplars.
c. The Ethics of Care
These theorists call for a change in how we view morality and the virtues, shifting towards virtues exemplified by women, such as taking care of others, patience, the ability to nurture, self-sacrifice, etc.
d. Conclusion
Christine Swanton has developed a pluralist account of virtue ethics with connections to Nietzsche.
Other accounts of virtue ethics are inspired from Christian writers such as Aquinas and Augustine (see the work of David Oderberg). Aquinas’ account of the virtues is distinctive because it allows a role for the will. To possess a virtue is to have the will to apply it and the knowledge of how to do so.
4. Objections to Virtue Ethics
a. Self-Centeredness
Morality is supposed to be about other people. But virtue ethics seems to be essentially interested in the acquisition of the virtues as part of the agent’s own well-being and flourishing.
This objection fails to appreciate the role of the virtues within the theory. The virtues are other-regarding. Kindness, for example, is about how we respond to the needs of others.
b. Action-Guiding
Virtue ethics, it is objected, with its emphasis on the imprecise nature of ethics, fails to give us any help with the practicalities of how we should behave.
The main response to this criticism is to stress the role of the virtuous agent as an exemplar.
c. Moral Luck
If the development of virtue (and vice) is subject to luck, is it fair to praise the virtuous (and blame the vicious) for something that was outside of their control?
Rather than try to make morality immune to matters that are outside of our control, virtue ethics recognizes the fragility of the good life and makes it a feature of morality. Many things can go wrong on the road to virtue, such that the possibility that virtue is lost, but this vulnerability is an essential feature of the human condition, which makes the attainment of the good life all the more valuable.
5. Virtue in Deontology and Consequentialism
Virtue ethics caused consequentialists and deontologists to re-examine their own theories with view to taking advantage of the insights of virtue.
For Kantians, the main role of virtue and appropriate character development is that a virtuous character will help one formulate appropriate maxims for testing.
In other respects, Kantian virtue remains rather dissimilar from other conceptions of virtue. Differences are based on at least three ideas: First, Kantian virtue is a struggle against emotions. Second, for Kant there is no such thing as weakness of will. Finally, Kantians need to give an account of the relationship between virtue as occurring in the empirical world and Kant’s remarks about moral worth in the noumenal world.
Consequentialists have found a role for virtue as a disposition that tends to promote good consequences. Virtue is not valuable in itself, but rather valuable for the good consequences it tends to bring about.
