Virtue Ethics

Miscellaneous General
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1

Upon examination, I have recently found that virtue ethics has had a greater and greater appeal to me.

As I understand philosophy, ethics is a subgroup of axiology, the study of values (good and bad). Thus, ethics is ultimately the study of objectively good and bad actions. Unfortunately, the ethical theories that I adhere to (rationalist approaches to human rights) do not take objective good and bad, instead, they simply attempt to prove in a negative manner.

Virtue ethics seems to strike at the root of the problem, by attempting to examine what is good and bad. The way it’s been explained to me is that one approach to virtue ethics is to look at the “ness” of a particular object. For example, what makes a dog a good dog? Most people would say loyalty, obediance, intelligence, liveliness, etc. This would be “dogness.” Likewise, one could ask “what makes a human a good human?” And the answer could be in a human’s “human-ness:” courage, intelligence, rationality, strength, etc.

These are just some random thoughts thrown together rather quickly, but hopefully I shall be expanding my understanding of the subject and posting more often about it.

2

So you’ve become an objective ethicist?

Either way, I am interested in your journey.

3

Personally I’ve moved away from it and towards more ‘rationalist’ theories, by which I mean more epistemological, negative approaches (those to which you’re attached now.) I still think virtue ethics is largely true, but that epistemological approaches are more fruitful.

4

I’ve long believed in some form of an objective ethical system, I just haven’t really been able to put my finger on one. The one problem I have with rationalist approaches to rights is “why be rational?” What’s so awful about a logically contradictory action if you’re a nihilist? In other words, rationalist approaches to rights deal with pretty straightforward logic and they’re undoubtedly true (e.g. you can’t kill someone and then claim you cannot be killed) but they don’t deal with objectively good and bad actions. They simply deal with logical and illogical actions. The presumption in these theories seem to be that one should be logical. So why be logical? I think virtue ethics might have an answer to this question.

Plato’s theory of forms provides a key insight which leads to virtue ethics. From my understanding, Plato’s theory of forms has to do with the ideal. For example, none of us have ever actually seen or experienced the perfect circle, yet we know what a perfect circle is (e.g. all points on a circle are equidistant from the center and the circumference divided by the diameter is pi, pi being another example of a perfect form). The theory of forms can be applied to discover virtues by asking “what is the perfect human?” In essence, this is asking what are the distinct properties of being human or what is “human-ness.”

The perfect human who perfectly fulfills the distinct properties of being human would be courageous, brave, intelligent, reasonable, rational, logical, and physically fit, among other things. These are virtues. Humans should try to be virtuous because by doing so they would achieve the goals of their “human-ness.”

I’m not sure I’m being clear here, but essentially my argument is that virtues stem from Platonic forms. By definition, a circle should try to have all of its points equidistant from the circle’s center. A general rule emerges here: by defintion, x should try to be y (y being x’s ideal Platonic form). So humans should try to become ideally human.

To tie up this post, an ideal human would be perfectly logical. This leads us back to the beginning of the post. If humans should attempt to be perfectly logical, then they definitely should follow rationalist approaches to rights and not initiate aggression or advocate aggression against one another.

EDIT: Okay, well there are some more thoughts wandering around in my head that I’d like to express, but they don’t really fit into the body of this post, so I’ll just add them on to the end here. Virtue ethics, combines with ethical egoism, utilitarianism, natural rights, and rationalist rights, to form what I call for lack of a better term “the ultimate ethical system.” I believe that all of these ethical systems come together perfectly to form the ultimate argument for freedom and liberty. If you are virtuous, then you must follow rationalist rights and you must be egoistic. If you are egoistic, then you must be a utilitarian and follow natural rights. If you are a utilitarian, you must follow property rights and be egoistic. All of these systems ultimately feed on each other and show why a truly free society is the only moral system of organizing human activity.

5

is it possible to be an ‘ideal human’? and can it be ones moral responsibility to do that which is impossible?

6

Is it possible to be an ideal circle? No. But, by definition, a circle aims to be an ideal circle.

Ideal forms do not exist in reality, but in theory only.

7

So I do not enact a straw-man, I will ask to you: what does “objectively” mean?

8

the problem does not enter in just at the point where we admit that the ‘ideal human’ is unachievable. it enters in when you make it immoral to do otherwise than what is impossible.

the great thing about the NAP is you can achieve it. just don’t initiate force against people. its within your power to do, or not do. its within your power to be ethical, or to not be ethical).

9

See Long’s “Happiness in Austro-Athenian Perspective,” where he discusses the tension between accommodationism (making eudaimonia too easy to achieve) and utopianism (making it too hard or impossible to achieve).

10

You are not saying that there is an objectively perfect human in the same sense that their is an objectively perfect circle, correct? Because I disagree with you regarding what constitutes the “perfect human.” Also, you say that a perfect human perfectly fulfills the distinct properties of being human. But hatred and sadness are properties of being human too. What happens when properties such as happiness and sadness conflict with each other? How does the perfect human fulfill the properties of happiness and sadness? Correct me if I am misunderstanding what your saying.

11

Or if you like reading with your ears, An Aristotelian Ethics of Virtue by Long

12

A couple of problems :

  1. human nature is not that easy to define…
  2. if you admit that ‘vices’ are part of human nature, then is the perfect human both perfectly virtuous and perfectly vicious ?
13

Can A be A and Non-A?

14

"It’s sometimes said that a fully virtuous person would experience no inner conflicts and would perform all her duties cheerfully; but that seems dubious. Aristotle, to whom this view is often mistakenly attributed, points out that the courageous person ought to feel some fear when facing danger. Of course she shouldn’t be paralysed with fear; she should recognise that the requirements of courage are more important than bodily security. But she would fail to be giving bodily security its due as a genuinely important value if she faced danger without a qualm. But fear inherently involves a desire to avoid facing whatever it is one fears; so what Aristotle shows us is that the courageous person will quite properly have a desire to do something (run away) that she nevertheless should not do.

“Here’s another example; I owe this one to Karen Stohr. Suppose that you are a fully virtuous person and the task falls to you of breaking some bad news to a friend. Now clearly you can’t perform that duty cheerfully; any decent person dislikes bearing bad news. So even the virtuous person – nay, especially the virtuous person – will desire not to perform this duty. Now it would obviously be a moral failing to give in to that desire, but it would also be a moral failing not to have it. Thus even within an individual there will be conflicts one ought to have, desires one should have but shouldn’t act on. But here too, this local conflict is licensed by a broader framework of unitary values.”

(Long, p.14)

15

It is about on par as defining horse or lion nature.

Vice is a part of being human in the same way as disease is part of being human. Should we embrace disease because it is “natural”? No, we should fight it.

16

Your obsession with quoting and referencing Long in nearly every post has become nauseating to me.

17

I can’t help it! He’s already said everything I want to say. Well, almost everything. If I’m talking about political obligation or resource economics, then I’d be quoting someone else.

18

That makes sense. Do most people who adhere to virtue ethics believe that there is an objective ideal perfect person in the sense that there is an objective ideal perfect circle? Or do they acknowledge that each individual will try to create their own ideal person?

19

Such a shame that you have nothing to add to the debate.

20

Don’t worry, I’ll be standing on his shoulders before you know it.

In which case you’d, uh, have to start worrying…