ETHICS: ARISTOTLE’S VIRTUE ETHICS

Key features: Focuses on the development of a moral character through

education and habit Teleological world view – everything has a purpose or function The function of human beings is to flourish (achieve Eudaimonia) The virtues are excellences enabling us to flourish Practical wisdom: the capacity to make informed rational

judgments without recourse to a formal decision procedure such as the hedonic calculus or the categorical imperative

Aristotle and the Virtues

The development of a good character

Rather than examining moral actions, the focus of this theory is on the moral agent, their character and the cultivation in ourselves and others of traits that we admire. We ask, ‘what sort of person do I want to be?’, rather than ‘what should I do?’ The good person is the person of virtuous character and so the virtues are taken to be the subject matter of ethics.

To fully understand Aristotle’s virtue approach to ethics it is necessary to understand some key features of his general philosophical outlook which are vital for the development of his ethical theory.

1

The Good – Ends and Means

Aristotle starts Nicomachean Ethics with the question: ‘What is the good for human beings?’

Our different activities aim at various ‘goods’. For example, medicine aims at health; military action aims at victory. For any action or activity, there is a purpose (a ‘why’) for which we undertake it – its end. This tells us what we see as ‘good’ about the activity.

Complex activities, like medicine, have many component activities – in such cases the over-arching end (health) is better (more preferable) than the end of each component activity; because each activity is undertaken for the sake of the overall end.

We undertake actions either for the sake of something further or for their own sake. If there is some end for the sake of which we do everything else, and this end is something we desire for its own sake, and not for the sake of anything else, then this end would be the good for us.

So how are we to know when we have found an answer, when we have discovered something that really is the supreme Good, the final end we are looking for? Aristotle outlines the following criteria:

It must be an end It must be the final end It must be self-sufficient, and it needs nothing more to complete it It must be a life that we all want Finally it must be something that is related to us as human

beings, which we shall see when we come to the function argument below.

2

So his next question is: what is the ‘good life’? (The good to which we are all ultimately aiming?)

Eudaimonia (flourishing)

“What is the highest of all practical goods? Well… there is pretty general agreement. It is ‘happiness’ say both ordinary and cultured people.”

Eudaimonia is the good for human life. It is often translated as happiness but Aristotle goes deeper than this saying it is ‘living well and faring well’. We have some idea of what it is when an animal or plant is living and faring well – we talk of them ‘flourishing’. A plant or animal flourishes when its needs are met in abundance and it is a good specimen of its species. So eudaimonia is flourishing for a human: it is ‘the good’ or ‘the good life’ for human beings as the particular sort of being we are. To achieve it is to live as best a human being can live.

There are some clear differences between this idea of flourishing and happiness:

Happiness EudaimoniaRelates to a psychological state. Relates to an activity (living) and

realising the potential a human life has.

Subjective. The person who is happy / unhappy knows best whether they are truly happy / unhappy.

Objective. A judgement can be made about someones life and how truly ‘good’ it is.

Comes and goes very easily. Stable and not easily changed; it is an evaluation of a person or a life as a whole.

3

The Good and pleasure

People agree that eudaimonia is the good, but they disagree about what it is. Aristotle starts his investigation by analysing popular explanations of what the good life is. One option is the Utilitarian view - pleasure:

Pleasure

‘The masses ask for nothing better than a life of enjoyment’ (1095b15)

We took this for granted in utilitarianism, and built the ethical theory around the assumption that because we all want it, pleasure is the highest good.

Aristotle however argues that pleasure can’t be the good. A life of pleasure and enjoyment is a ‘bovine existence’ – fit only for cattle.

Despite this, he claims that pleasure does play an important part in the good life for humans, but it cannot be the goal of human life, the thing towards which all our human activity is ultimately aiming.

Teleological World View

Another key part of Aristotle’s ethics is his teleological view of the world, which means that he believed that everything has a function. He says that to be “a good X” simply means being “an X which fulfils its function well”. For example, the function of a knife is to cut things and a good knife is one which cuts things well. So, being a good person and living the good life was linked to being good at whatever role you played in society. For example, if you were a farmer then you were good if you fulfilled your function well as a farmer. However, Aristotle believed that humans had a function that went above and beyond the roles prescribed for them by society.

4

Note: The type of goodness Aristotle relates to our function, is not a moral goodness but the same type of “good” we may refer to when we talk about a good guitar player or good knife. Moral goodness is later.

Function (Ergon)

Ergon is often translated ‘function’, but as with translating eudaimonia as happiness, this is misleading. The ergon of a thing can be its function – the ergon of an eye is to see – but a more general account would be the ‘characteristic activity’ of something.

Function and Virtue

The ‘characteristic activity’ of a thing is the activity which it performs best, and that it alone can do so well, so it is what distinguishes it from other things. Something is a good x when it performs its characteristic activity well. If the ergon of a knife is to cut, a good knife cuts well; a good eye sees well; a good plant flourishes (it grows well, produces flowers well, etc., according to its species). In order to fulfil its ergon, a thing will need certain qualities. An arête is a quality that aids the fulfilment of a thing’s ergon. It can be translated generally as an ‘excellence’, or more specifically, a ‘virtue’. So sharpness is a virtue in a knife designed to cut. Good focus is a virtue in an eye.

The function of human life

Aristotle applies this entire account to human beings. Virtues for human beings will be those traits that enable them to fulfil their ergon. So, first, what is the ‘characteristic activity’ of human beings? At the most general level, we are alive. But this isn’t distinctive of just us. So we shouldn’t identify ‘life’ as our characteristic

5

activity. We are conscious, have sense perception, etc. But again, we share this with many animals. A human life is distinctively the life of a being that can be guided by reason, or rationality.

Aristotle is not claiming here that reasoning is our ergon, but that what is characteristic of us is that whatever we do, we do for reasons. Being guided by reasons is an activity of the soul (psyche – meaning something more like ‘mind’ than a spiritual soul).

Now we said above that a good x (eye, knife, etc.) is one that performs its characteristic activity well, and that it will need certain qualities – virtues – to enable it to do this. Our ergon will be living in accordance with reason, and the virtues of a human being will be what enables this. So eudaimonia consists in the activity of the soul which exhibits the virtues by being in accordance with ‘good’ or ‘right’ reasons. Finally, we must add that this must apply to a person’s life as a whole. A day or even year of living well doesn’t amount to a good life.

The Virtues & Practical Wisdom

For Aristotle, what characterises someone as virtuous is that they are able to:

“Feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right reason in the right way – that is not easy and not everyone can do it. Hence to do these things well is a rare, laudable and fine achievement.” (1109a26)]

There are two types of virtue, moral and intellectual. Intellectual virtue is being able to make informed, rational choices about the right way to act in any given situation; Aristotle generally calls this ability practical wisdom. The moral virtues meanwhile are the dispositions of character that ensure that we actually feel and actually act appropriately in these situations.

6

Virtues as Dispositions

By “dispositions of character” Aristotle means virtues are related to how someone might feel, how they think, how they react, the sorts of choices they make, and the actions they perform in different circumstances.

So as an example we might say someone has a short-tempered character if they are disposed to feel angry quickly and often or quick-witted if they can think on their feet.

Some states of character / character traits, for example being short-tempered stop us from leading a good life – these are vices, and they are often guided by our desires or passions.

Other traits of character, such as being kind, help us to lead a good life – and these are the virtues. For example: Courage, Generosity, Honesty.

Feelings

It’s also worth noting here that our dispositions are not just concerned with our actions but our feelings as well. This is part of the reason Aristotle says we can’t be simply taught to be virtuous. Dispositions or states of character consist of both feelings and actions.

This is one of the ways in which Virtue Ethics is drastically different from Kant or Utilitarianism:

• They focus on a particular action and whether it was right or wrong.

• Here we are looking at the person as a whole, their actions and their feelings (i.e. their dispositions) and asking are they correct?

7

We can say then that feelings are important for Virtue Ethics because without the correct feelings, you cannot be truly virtuous. Someone who merely acts in a virtuous way but does not feel it is not truly virtuous.

The role of education and habituation in developing a moral character

Aristotle’s claims that:

“The moral virtues are engendered in us neither by nor contrary to nature; we are constituted by nature to receive them, but their full development in us is due to habit.” (1103a23)

So nature has a role to play in developing the virtues insofar as we are born with certain dispositions or potential. But this potential only becomes actual through exercise, practice, action and habit. Excellence of character has to be developed by practice and training, rather like learning an instrument, until it becomes a habit.

However habituation alone isn’t enough to make us good, you must also act as good people act. Someone who has ethica arête has not just done one, or a few virtuous acts, they have learnt by habituation to do virtuous acts, they enjoy doing virtuous acts (they naturally want to do them) and they have a disposition (a firm character consisting of both feelings and actions) to act virtuously. They also know what they are doing, and choose to act virtuously.

Thus, the moral virtues are:

Dispositions of character Acquired by ethical training and practice Displayed by emotional response as well as action That promote excellence And enable the virtuous person and society to flourish.

8

The Skill Analogy

For Aristotle, this process of acquiring and developing a virtue is not unlike developing a new skill (playing an instrument or sport for example). He states:

“The virtues we acquire by first exercising them, just as happens in the arts. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them: people become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarly we becomes just by performing just acts… brave by performing brave ones.”

In the case of both the virtues and skills, we may start out requiring input from “experts” in the field - someone who already has the skill or virtue required. It may be difficult for us to practise that skill or virtue, it may even go against our natural character, but the more we do it the more we will come to enjoy it (and take pleasure in it). Eventually we will become an expert ourselves and be able to pass that knowledge on.

The Doctrine of the Mean

In order to flourish then, we need to fulfil our function as human beings by thinking and behaving rationally. We need to train ourselves through habituation to feel and act in the right way. But what is the right way? For Aristotle this can be worked out using the doctrine of the mean. If we apply the doctrine of the mean to Aristotle’s list of moral virtues, we see that the virtues will help us to flourish when we have them in the right amount and at the right time.

Each virtue is the mean (Golden Mean) between two vices – a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess.

9

We can again use a plant as an example here. If we think back to the flourishing plant, we can investigate a plant and identify what it is that enables it to flourish. In order to flourish plants require certain things – water, sunlight, etc. However, if we want to make sure that our plant will flourish, it is not enough to give it these things. Too much water will prevent it from flourishing, but if we only give it a few tiny drops a month, again it will be prevented from flourishing and will probably die. So, in order to flourish, a plant needs the right amount of water, not too much, not too little. The same can be said for its other needs.

Aristotle said that the same principle is true of human beings. Our actions and decisions are influenced by both the irrational and the rational parts of our soul. Often, the irrational part (our emotional reaction) has too much influence and causes us to respond badly to situations. In order to flourish, we need to use our rationality to guide our feelings to an appropriate degree, suitable to the situation. If we can use our rationality to ensure we have the right emotions at the right time and in the right degree, then we will be fulfilling our function of exercising our rational psyche, and we will thereby live a good and successful life.

Example: The virtue of courage.

This means getting the balance right between fear and confidence in the face of danger: if you tend to feel and respond with too much fear then you are cowardly; if you tend to feel and respond with too much confidence then you are rash or foolhardy; if you get the balance right, are able to temper your fear, but not do anything stupid through over-confidence, then you are courageous.

10

Not a ‘doctrine of moderation’!

‘Mean’ here refers to ‘middle’, but Aristotle is not saying that we should take the ‘middle way’ in every situation, or act moderately in every situation. Clearly there are some situations where a more (or less) emotional response is required, for example when protesting against extreme injustices a high level of anger is appropriate, whereas if someone cuts you up whilst driving it may be appropriate to get only slightly irritated.

Why is pleasure important?

Whilst Aristotle rules out the possibility of pleasure being a main aim in life, he does believe pleasure has an important role in our development as virtuous people. It is part of a positive feedback loop (not Aristotle’s term). As we start out trying to develop excellent dispositions, it is difficult and we have to force ourselves to be kind, just, courageous, generous and so on. Over time, we find that we begin to enjoy these actions, and get pleasure from acting kindly, generously, justly and so on. This pleasure makes us more inclined to do those types of actions in the future, and so we become disposed to kindness, justice, courage and the like.

Moreover, although Aristotle rules out overindulging in physical pleasures, he also rules out as a vice the avoidance of all bodily pleasures (doctrine of the mean again!). Aristotle advocates that some sensual pleasures (enjoying sport, art or music) should be actively encouraged, while acknowledging that other pleasures (food, sex, drink) are natural and necessary so long as any overindulgence is avoided.

For Aristotle then, the good life cannot ignore pleasure, but nor is the good life a life of pure pleasure.

11

It’s also worth noting here that Aristotle does not define pleasure as one ‘thing’ - he thinks there are as many pleasures as there are activities. I aim to do an activity, and if it goes well, I get pleasure from the activity. Thus the hedonist is not saying anything concrete when they say we aim at pleasure, because ‘pleasure’ is a vague term and depends on the activity being done. He also distinguishes between ‘good’ pleasure and ‘bad’ pleasure – if we get pleasure from an activity that habituates the vices, we can say it is the wrong type of pleasure. Only the type of pleasure that comes from virtuous activities is good.

Practical Reasoning

According to Aristotle the soul is divided into two parts: the rational and the non-rational.

In order to flourish we must excel in both parts of the soul. We have already looked at the most significant part of the non-rational part of the soul, our character, and how we can develop excellence of character through developing good habits and moral virtues.

But what about the rational part?

This in turn is also divided into two – practical reason and theoretical reason. Whilst theoretical reason is part of achieving Eudaimonia, you do not need to worry about it here. Practical reason however, is useful in understanding Aristotle’s theory.

It is practical reason that lies behind making correct choices, so it involves deliberation and the skills of decision making.

This means that practical wisdom and moral virtues are bound up in one another:

• We cannot develop the right dispositions/virtues if we do not have the practical wisdom that tells us how it is appropriate to act in different circumstances. In other words, the desire to be excellent is useless without the ability to choose the correct way to achieve it.

12

• But by the same token having the ability to reason and determine lines of action without being disposed towards particular goals or aims is equally useless.

• According to Aristotle the two excellences (of character and practical reasoning) are therefore inseparable.

Virtues and Actions

Similarly to Kant, Aristotle distinguishes between what he terms acting in accordance with virtue and doing a “fully virtuous action”. He accepts that someone may have good inclinations and dispositions at birth and that they will be likely to do good things accordingly. But without practical wisdom they are only acting in “accordance” with virtue. This does not amount to “full virtue”.

For example a naturally kind child doesn’t fully comprehend the nature of their action, and could easily be misled into being kind for the wrong reasons or at the wrong times.

On the other hand someone who is fully virtuous is an agent who knows what they are doing and chooses each action for its own sake.

Therefore, to fulfil the criteria for a fully virtuous action we must employ practical wisdom to deliberate and actively choose the right thing to do in any particular situation. This means that simply having the disposition to be good is not enough for full virtue (although it may lead us to act in accordance with virtue), we need practical wisdom to identify the means to our virtuous ends.

Moral responsibility

A final point to discuss is what types of actions we can hold someone morally responsible for and which are out of their hands. This in turn can then be used to judge whether someone is acting virtuously or not. There are four types of action according to Aristotle: Voluntary, Involuntary, Non-voluntary and mixed.

13

Voluntary actions

In Book 3 Aristotle asserts that people can be praised and blamed for voluntary acts but not for acts done contrary to intention. What we intended to do reveals our dispositions and desires, and thus our moral character. Things that we did accidentally do not reveal our character.

Aristotle believes that an action cannot be intended when its cause lies outside us, or when we are acting in ignorance. An action is intended when its origin lies in us, in other words there is a clear line we can trace between our internal decision-making process and the action itself in the world. Because of this clear connection between the action and our choice we are responsible for our intended actions. However, we shall now see that this clear connection between our actions and our responsibility for these actions becomes more complex.

Involuntary actions: compulsion and responsibility

“Actions are regarded as involuntary when they are performed under compulsion or through ignorance” (1109a1)

Compulsion

Should we be held responsible for acts done as a result of an external force or compulsion?

Aristotle gives a straightforward example of two actions that are the result of forces external to us, in the first, a sailor is blown off course by winds; in the second, a sailor is kidnapped and taken somewhere. In both instances, the sailor contributes nothing (no intentions, no deliberate movement) to the outcome, and takes no responsibility for these acts.

14

Mixed acts

However, there are actions done under compulsion which are partly contrary to our intentions, and partly intended. Aristotle gives the example of dumping your cargo overboard in a storm. If asked whether you intended to throw the cargo overboard, you might answer ‘no’ it was never your long-term intention. However Aristotle argues that strictly speaking, in the short term, you did intend to lose the cargo. The origin of the action lies within you, unlike the sailor who was kidnapped and had no control at all over where she was heading. But, it is also true that you felt you had no choice, because you wanted to live. Such actions are mixed because they are both intended (in the short term) and contrary to intention (in the long term).

Involuntary Actions and Moral Responsibility

The difference between acts done under full compulsion and mixed acts lies in how much responsibility the agent must take. With the first type, Aristotle argues that we are not responsible (and should neither be praised nor blamed) because there is no choice. But with the second type, Aristotle believes that, despite the compelling circumstances, there is an element of choice: so we are responsible for those actions and so can be praised, blamed or judged for them. After all, it was we who performed the action and we could have chosen to do otherwise.

What is important is that such mixed acts demand understanding and perhaps pardoning by those around us, or by a judge or jury.

So where there is no agency, there is no responsibility; and where there is agency, and the origins of the action lie within you, there is responsibility, but you may be pardoned if the action is mixed.

15

Non-Voluntary Actions and Ignorance

A final category of action are those that Aristotle deems “not voluntary” or more commonly non-voluntary. These are actions done in ignorance of all the facts but that we would have done anyway were we aware of said facts. An easy way of working this out is to ask “Do you regret the action, and would you have acted differently if you had been in full possession of the facts?” If the answer is no then the action can be said to be non-voluntary and similar to mixed actions we are morally responsible but with some caveats – there was information unknown to us when we acted and this should be taken into account.

NB: These actions can’t be truly voluntary as you are not fully informed of the consequences of your actions and intentions, but you are acting of your own volition and would have done it regardless.

Suppose you are on the ship mentioned in the previous section, and once again forced to throw cargo overboard. In one of the boxes you throw from the ship is a pile of golden statues, extremely heavy and extremely valuable. You are unaware of this however, and throw them overboard with everything else. Despite the fact you are ignorant of the statues’ existence, the chances are had you known they were there you still would have thrown the cargo anyway. They were dragging the ship down. This is a prime example of a non-voluntary action, one in which we did not know all the information, but do not regret our actions either.

Those actions in which we do not know all the information and feel regret once it is revealed, Aristotle deems involuntary (through ignorance). His reasoning for this is simple: we would not have carried out the action were we aware of all the information, so the result is contrary to our intention. An example of this may be the aforementioned cargo being thrown overboard but containing a family of sedated puppies – surely most of us would regret such an action if we were to be made aware of their existence? In these cases, we can usually say the agent is not morally responsible for their actions.

16

Summary of Virtue Ethics as a whole:

All our activities aim at some good. The ultimate good (final aim) for humans is Eudaimonia – to flourish.

Everything in the world has a function (ergon). Therefore humans must also have a function.

Our function is our characteristic activity, determined by our soul (psyche). For humans this is the ability to act according to rationality.

To be a good X requires X fulfilling its function well through the exercise of the appropriate virtue/excellence (arête)

Therefore to be a good human requires exercising those virtues through the rational aspects of the soul.

Virtues can be divided into two – moral virtues which are states of character or dispositions and intellectual virtues which are the capacity to reason and choose the correct action in any given circumstance.

Our dispositions involve both feelings and actions and they are acquired and developed through a process not unlike learning a new skill. Habituation and training is required to make them part of our character. Through this we will also learn to take pleasure in our virtuous actions, meaning we are more likely to do them in future.

Moral virtues lie in the mean (doctrine of the mean) – a disposition to feel passions neither too much nor too little, but ‘at the right times, with references to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way.’ In practice this mean is relative to the situation and the person involved.

Practical wisdom meanwhile is a virtue of practical reason. It involves insight in to what is good and bad in general, insight in to what is good in a particular situation, and the ability to deliberate well and act on that deliberation.

To do a fully virtuous action therefore, we must aim at the right end (moral virtue) but we must also know what we are doing and how to choose the right thing to do – this is provided by practical wisdom.

A judgement about how virtuous someone is can only be carried out when their action is voluntary. Involuntary actions are not the fault of the agent. Non-voluntary actions may tell us something about the agent but may need to allow for extenuating circumstances.

17