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Kants deontological theory (duty ethics) - a persons duty is to follow rules that could be consistently willed for everyone to follow in all circumstances. Here we get universal rules such as always tell the truth. Social contract theory - rational, self-interested people agree to a moral system that will protect each person from the interests of others so that we avoid the problems inherent in Hobbess state of nature. By agreeing to the contract everyone benefits.
Although virtue theorists disagree amongst themselves about certain aspects of virtue theory, they agree that all other moral theories are on the wrong track.
WHAT IS VIRTUE? I
Aristotle said that a virtue is a trait of character that is manifested in habitual actions. Thus the honest person habitually tells the truth, and does so as a matter of principle. Her truthfulness comes from her character, which is firm and unchangeable. The problem here is that a character trait can be manifested in habitual actions that is not a virtue but a vice, as when someone typically lies instead of telling the truth.
WHAT IS VIRTUE? II
Perhaps the virtuous person is one we prefer and the person of vice is one we avoid, as Edmund Pincoffs has suggested. Then virtuous character traits are those had by people whose company we would seek rather than avoid. Rachels thus says that virtue can be defined as a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that is good for a person to have. Thus the answer to the first question What is virtue? is virtue is a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that is good for a person to have.
Colin McGinn lists kindness, [benevolence] honesty, justice, and independence [self-confidence, self-control, self-discipline, selfreliance] as the four main virtues.
COURAGE I
According to Aristotle, courage is a virtue that is the mean between the excess of foolhardiness and the excess of cowardice - both of which are vices.
What about someone who displays courage in the advance of an unworthy cause. Is his courage still virtuous?
Is a Nazi soldiers courage still a virtue since he is fighting for an evil cause?
COURAGE II
Peter Geach says no: Courage in an unworthy cause is no virtue; still less is courage in an evil cause. For Geach, the Nazi soldier who faces danger cannot even be called courageous since he is fighting for an evil cause.
Rachels thinks that this is unjustified, even if he understands Geachs point - which is not wanting to praise the action by calling it courageous.
COURAGE III
Rachels thinks that Geachs view is wrong since, if the Nazi is not cowardly or foolhardy in facing danger then he must be courageous. Rachels says maybe we should say that the Nazi is courageous in facing danger and that his courage is an admirable character trait. But he is also to be deplored for following an evil regime, or his willingness to follow an evil leader and cause is a dishonorable character trait. Then, although we can call him courageous, overall we can say that his behavior is wicked since he is fighting for an evil cause.
Aristotle thought that there will be some virtues that will be needed by all people, at all places, at all times. He thought that, in spite of our differences, all people have a great deal in common.
MAJOR VIRTUES
Societies may differ greatly from one another, but there will be some basic needs that people in all societies will have. And there will be some basic problems that people in all cultures will face. For instance: a. Everyone needs courage. b. There will be considerations of personal property in every society, and as some people will be better off than others, generosity will always be a virtue. c. Because people will communicate with one another in any society, honesty will always be prized - civilization depends in large part on telling the truth. d. Man is a social animal. As social we all need friends, and as friends count on one another, loyalty is a virtue.
MORAL MOTIVATION I
Proper moral motivation means that a person does the right thing for the right motive. Rachels says that virtue ethics gives an account of moral motivation that is both attractive and natural. As other theories dont do this very well, this is an advantage of virtue ethics.
For instance, simply doing something out of a sense of duty does not seem to be the right kind of motive, as when one person visits another in the hospital out of a sense of duty rather than out of a genuine interest.
MORAL MOTIVATION II
There is a clear difference between being motivated by genuine concern and friendship and being motivated by an abstract sense of duty that lacks feeling. Wouldnt we prefer the former and not the latter if we were the one being visited? We tend to think that someone who acts only out of a sense of duty rather than interest and compassion is not a complete person, or is not the right kind of person.
IMPARTIALITY I
Recall that the idea of impartiality is the idea that all people are morally equal and should be treated as such.
Rachels says that virtue ethics doubts that there is a true ideal of impartiality. This is the second advantage of virtue ethics according to Rachels.
IMPARTIALITY II
Rachels also treats impartiality as part of the minimum of morality, but he says that it can be doubted how important impartiality is to ethics. Dont we tend to favor family and friends over strangers, and people in our own countries as being more important and deserving than those in distant lands? How impartial are we then in fact, and how impartial should we be?
IMPARTIALITY III
Is there anything wrong with a parent being more interested in her own child than in someone elses? In fact, shouldnt she be? Rachels says that the love of family and friends is an inescapable feature of the morally good life. And he says that any theory that does not recognize this but emphasizes impartiality will have a difficult time accounting for how humans actually feel and behave towards one another.
So it may be better to try to understand the nature of the different virtues, and to see that they are different, and to see how they relate to one another, rather than to demand an ideal of impartiality as a basis for ethics.
FEMINISM
According to Rachels, the third advantage for virtue ethics concerns feminism. For some feminists, much of ethical theory has shown a male bias. Feminist thinkers note that humans have traditionally divided their social lives into public and private realms that have their own concerns.
Men have been in charge of public affairs and have dominated politics and law. Women have been assigned - by men - to take care of the private life of the home and family.
MORAL CONFLICT I
Rachels calls the view that virtue ethics is complete in itself - and so not supplemented by other ethical theory - radical virtue ethics. A problem for radical virtue ethics is how to account for cases of moral conflict. For instance, how do you choose between doing something that is kind but dishonest - such as telling a friend a lie about himself in order not to hurt his feelings - and doing another thing that is unkind but honest - such as telling him the truth?
MORAL CONFLICT II
Both honesty and kindness are virtues, but in a case where they conflict it is not clear how in appealing to virtue theory alone we could know what to do. You may just have to wonder which virtue is more important. But that will not satisfy philosophy, and we need some moral theory that would resolve the issue.
HUMAN WELFARE
Rachels suggests that we begin with the notion of human welfare as the most important value. Considering human welfare means that we want a society in which everyone has the opportunity to lead happy, healthy lives.
GOODNESS
For McGinn, you ought to be a good person simply because goodness is good. McGinn recognizes that goodness is good is a tautology, namely, that it is true in virtue of its logical form. This is because to say that goodness is bad is self-contradictory. McGinn thinks that what you get from virtue or moral excellence is simply virtue or moral excellence.
WHY CARE?
McGinn says if someone asks why she ought to care about others as well as herself the answer is another question: Why should you care about yourself as well as others? And the answer to why you should care about yourself is that you are a person, and a person who deserves to be taken into account as well as others deserve to be taken into account.
MCGINNS THESES
1. People and animals have intrinsic value. 2. Since people and animals have intrinsic value, they should be taken into account. 3. Because they should be taken into account, you should be good. According to McGinn, good is good and bad is bad, and that is all that you can say - and that is all you need to know. Virtue then cannot be justified in other terms.
BEING VIRTUOUS I
For McGinn then, people ought to be virtuous. But how much effort should we put into being a good person? Given all the other things that you can do in life, that you can achieve, how much time should you spend on being good? Or where should it be on your list of important things to do? McGinn says that this will differ for different people, and will take into consideration their talents, motivations, and ambitions.
MORAL MOTIVATION
It is natural for peoples behavior to come from a variety of motives - including the desire to be a good person but McGinn does not think that the motive to be a good person should completely replace all other motives. Each human life ought to be complicated enough to accommodate all a persons motives, in addition to the motive to be virtuous. There will be conflicts in a persons life, conflicts between motives, and a person simply has to use good judgement when such conflict exists.
BEING VIRTUOUS II
McGinn says that there is also no short-cut to being virtuous. Virtue, like vice, arises out of your responses to what happens in your life. There may even be a genetic basis for being good. Perhaps it is easier for people with the right genes to be better behaved than for those who lack them. However that may be, he says how to be virtuous comes from practical experience - which either makes a person better or bitter.
KINDNESS I
McGinn lists kindness, honesty, justice, and independence as his basic or big four virtues. Kindness is a matter of having generous feelings towards others, and includes not wanting others to suffer, and acting from a concern for other people. Kind people have a good heart and are compassionate, they care about other peoples feelings.
KINDNESS II
A kind person treats anothers happiness as if it were his own happiness. Unkind people, on the other hand, go out of their way to make other people feel bad, or worse. Kindness is not the same as love, and unkindness is not the same as hate. A kind person treats others as he would like to be treated, but need not love them to do so.
KINDNESS III
In a sense kindness is purer than love because it is a more detached concern or respect for others. Kindness is less self-centered or self-serving than love is. And because you can be kind to people without loving them, kindness does not depend on personal affection. Kindness is the ultimate basis for civility and good manners. Oscar Wilde: Everything is permitted except bad manners. To be kind is to treat other people with decency and a consideration for their existence as people.
HONESTY I
To be honest is to be truthful. It is the opposite of lying or being deceitful. Honest people have a strong commitment to the truth. For a dishonest person, truth is just another option, as is lying. And a dishonest person uses truth rather than letting truth use him.
HONESTY II
Honest people are dependable and they let you know where they stand. But being honest does not mean that you must always tell the truth. For instance, a person should not be honest when doing so would harm another person, or hurt her feelings. To be honest with another person about something that you know will hurt her feelings is usually cruelty masquerading as honesty. One should be honest out of the best intentions, and so honesty must be tempered with kindness.
JUSTICE I
Justice concerns fairness, or awarding to a person what is due to a person. In a just world, innocent people should not suffer, and the guilty or evil should not prosper. The just person hates to see evil win and goodness lose.
JUSTICE II
The just person sees no excuse for injustice, whether a practical justification is given for it or not. The just person loves the innocent and detests the guilty, as he also detests false accusations and unfair punishment. Moral judgements must fit the facts and be fair to everyone in order to have justice. The just person thinks that the facts should be examined carefully and honestly.
JUSTICE III
For the person who loves justice there is nothing worse than unjust judgements. The just person will not allow herself to be swayed by bias, emotion, or selfinterest, but insist on decency and fairness. The just person will deplore the use of individual or group power.
JUSTICE IV
Since justice requires a detached and impersonal regard for moral truth, the just person will look past her feelings and will honestly assess any matter that morality concerns. Justice tells us to treat everyone fairly - even our enemies. Every proper society must be built on justice, unjust societies are rotten to the core.
INDEPENDENCE I
Independence is the capacity to make up your own mind based on the evidence and the facts, and not to let anything interfere with that - such as peer pressure or threats from others. McGinn thinks that few people are really independent, that most people are followers. They may not follow certain social groups but they will follow others. Few people are individuals, most follow a certain crowd.
INDEPENDENCE II
Ask yourself if your opinions are really yours. And ask yourself if you want to make sure that your friends and peer group would agree with your opinions. Since every member of a certain group - no matter how large - might be wrong about something, to be virtuous means making up your own mind and not thinking the way that everyone else thinks, and not doing what everyone else does. The motto of the independent person is decide for yourself.
INDEPENDENCE III
McGinn says that another word for independence is intelligence - the kind of intelligence that enables a person to make a judgement, to examine things, and to make decisions. The opposite of this then is stupidity, and this leads people to make bad judgements. With stupidity go prejudice, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and fear.
INDEPENDENCE IV
Otherwise intelligent people can become stupid when it is a question of making a correct moral judgement. McGinn emphasizes the importance of using your head in deciding about moral questions, and making up your own mind. If you think and use independent judgement you have a better chance of arriving at the truth.