Virtue Ethics

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and “continence”, or strength of will. The fully virtuous do what they should without a struggle against contrary desires; the continent have to control a desire or temptation to do otherwise.

This creates a seeming conflict of intuitions.

The intuition that a fully virtuous person would feel no pull to do the wrong thing.

The intuition that a fully virtuous person would overcome obstacles to exercise virtue.

We can perhaps solve this by looking at the kind of obstacle that one overcomes.

If the obstacle is their own desire to do what is wrong (lack of virtue), and they overcome it by a strength of will, that is not fully virtuous.

If the obstacle is something outside of a lack of virtue that makes their exercise of virtue difficult, then that may be fully virtuous.

Poor lady and the purse: a very poor woman sees someone drop a full purse, then indeed it is particularly admirable of her to restore the purse if her poverty is what she overcomes.

If, however, what makes it hard to return the purse is an imperfection in her character—the temptation to keep what is not hers—then it is not fully virtuous (though it may still be virtuous in a continent way).

PRACTICAL WISDOM (PHRONESIS)

If we think of virtue ethics as only concerned with virtue, we run into problems such as people who possess certain virtues to a fault.

Vicki is considered compassionate by many, but Vicki’s compassion sometimes leads her to act wrongly. She has a friend, Ricardo. Ricardo wants to be a singer. Even though Ricardo is a terrible singer, in an attempt to not hurt Ricardo’s feelings, she lies to Ricardo regularly about the quality of his voice. Ricardo values Vicki’s opinion above everyone else’s, and he wastes years and lots of money pursuing his dream to be a singer.

Does Vicki have compassion or not? That is, does she possess this virtue but lack others or does she lack this virtue?

Caring about not hurting someone’s feelings may be compassionate.

Continually lying to someone as you watch them waste time and money, in part due to your lies, is not compassionate.

When we say that Vicki is compassionate, we mean that Vicki intends to help Ricardo, and does not intend to hurt him. Aristotle would not say that Vicki is compassionate because her action is not compassionate regardless of her intention. She is harming Ricardo and the reason is that she lacks the wisdom to see it.

Phronesis is the possession of all the virtues. Aristotle and even modern philosophers like Philippa Foot thought that it was not possible to possess one virtue without possessing the others.

Aristotle encourages us to understand phronesis by thinking of what the virtuous morally mature adult has that nice children, including nice adolescents, lack.

Phronesis is the ability to connect good intentions with good actions.

An example of phronesis from everyday life: you’re speeding on the highway, but you think that you are traveling below the speed limit. When you are pulled over by the police, you explain that you did not mean to speed, that you thought you were traveling within the legal limit. The police(wo)man gives you a ticket anyway. On what moral ground may you be ticketed? Is this even a moral issue?

If it is a moral issue, arguably you have failed to exercise wisdom. You have failed to know what you should know.

HAPPINESS/FLOURISHING (EUDAIMONIA)

The goal of virtue is to live a good life. A good life is a happy life, but what do we mean by happiness?

Happiness is not subjectively determined. By “happiness”, virtue ethicists do not mean that is up to each person to pronounce whether he/she is happy. Generally speaking people aren’t wrong about whether their life has been a happy one. In retrospect, if someone thinks her life has been a happy one, then she is probably correct, but people are often very wrong about what will make them happy going forward.

To avoid the subjectivity of what we mean by happiness, virtue ethicists speak of being healthy or flourishing. Here we have no difficulty in recognizing that I might think I was healthy, either physically or psychologically, or think that I was flourishing and just be plain wrong.

It is all too easy for me to be mistaken about whether my life is eudaimon (the adjective from eudaimonia) not simply because it is easy to deceive oneself, but because it is easy to have a mistaken conception of eudaimonia, or of what it is to live well as a human being, believing it to consist largely in physical pleasure or luxury for example.

In your opinion, what does the average American think it means to have a good life?

A human life devoted to physical pleasure or the acquisition of wealth is not eudaimon, but a wasted life, and also accept that they cannot produce a knock-down argument for this claim proceeding from premises that the happy hedonist would acknowledge. Why? “Reason is a slave to the passions.” The happy hedonist objectively has a reason to be virtuous, but subjectively he has no reason.

Bad Luck and Eudaimonia

What about bad luck? Someone could be a virtuous person and still suffer a bad life because of circumstances beyond their control such as bad luck. So why be virtuous if you could be virtuous and still live a bad life.

A bad life with virtue is the exception. A bad life without virtue is much more common.

A bad life with virtue will still be better than if there was no virtue.

A life with virtue may still be good even with bad luck.

Aristotle thought that a virtuous person would not be unflourishing, but still will not be flourishing. Being unflourishing consists in being vicious and there is no reason that a virtuous person should