Transcript Document

Virtue Ethics
Return to Virtue
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The moral vacuity of duty-following
A good person should want to do the right thing not
just do their duty
The need to motivate moral action
Why should we care about doing our duty?
What is Virtue Ethics
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The important thing is to be a good person
(as opposed to doing the right thing or achieving
a good outcome)
A virtue ethics is interested in finding the
characteristics that make someone a good
person
Ends
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Every action has a goal
“Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and
rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the
good has been aptly described as that at which everything
aims.”
(1094a)
Ends
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Every action has a goal
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A hierarchy exists
Eg.
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Bridle-maker < bridles < horsemanship < war
Most ends are instrumental
Some (one) ends are final
Ends
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There is one goal for all actions
“So if what is done has some end that we want for its own
sake, and everything else we want is for the sake of this end;
and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something
else (because this would lead to an infinite progression, making
our desire fruitless and vain), then clearly this will be the good,
indeed the chief good.”
(1094a)
Ends
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There is one goal for all actions
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Aristotle can’t prove this, but he believes it
He has a candidate final end
Eudaimonia
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‘Happiness’ is the one goal for all actions
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an overall-condition of a person’s life
Not a mental state
The end for which everything is pursued
unconditionally complete
self-sufficient
Eudaimonia
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Justified in terms of our characteristic activity
“But perhaps saying that happiness is the chief good sounds
rather platitudinous, and one might want its nature to be
specified still more clearly. It is possible that we might achieve
that if we grasp the characteristic activity of a human being.
For just as the good – the doing well – of a flute-player, a
sculptor or any practitioner of a skill, or generally whatever has
some characteristic activity or action, is thought to lie in its
characteristic activity, so the same would seem to be true of a
human being, if indeed he has a characteristic activity.”
Eudaimonia
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Justified in terms of our characteristic activity
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Our capacity to reason sets us apart from all other
species.
So our characteristic activity (ergon) consists in
using reason.
Thus our use of reason is the key to our distinctive
happiness (eudaimonia).
We live a happy (eudaimonic) life only if we use
reason with great skill.
Eudaimonia
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Justified in terms of our characteristic activity
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Aristotle’s ideal life - one view
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Ends by telling us that the best kind of life is the life of
contemplation.
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Not many people think this is so desirable
It doesn’t match what he tells us elsewhere – describing a
practical and active life.
Eudaimonia
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A happy life is a life lived virtuously
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Happiness requires the excellent use of reason
Excellence in the use of reason is virtue
Virtues are character traits
Virtues
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Arete
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‘Excellence’
A functionalist concept
“For just as the good – the doing well – of a flute-player, a
sculptor or any practitioner of a skill, or generally whatever
has some characteristic activity or action, is thought to lie in
its characteristic activity, so the same would seem to be true
of a human being, if indeed he has a characteristic activity.”
(1097b)
A Virtue: Courage
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We all recognise and value courage, but there are
problems
Were the hijackers on 9/11 brave?
 Bill Maher
“[s]taying in the airplane
when it hits the building, say
what you want about it, it’s
not cowardly.”
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Is someone reckless of all danger courageous?
The Doctrine of the Mean
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Aristotle
We can experience fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and
generally any kind of pleasure and pain either too much or too
little, and in either case not properly. But to experience all this at
the right time, towards the right objects, toward the right people,
for the right reason, and in the right manner – that is the mean
and the best course, the course that is the mark of virtue
The Doctrine of the Mean
Deficiency
Mean
Excess
Cowardice
Courage
Foolhardiness
Miserliness
Generosity
Profligacy
Insolence
Respect
Obsequiousness
Callousness
Care
Pity
Problems
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Still can’t tell us what is the right thing to do
No idea how to resolve conflicts
Doesn’t cover enough cases for a moral theory