Modern Virtue Ethics

1. Modern Virtue Ethics

2. How do you work out if someone is morally virtuous? “The fruit is good so therefore the tree must be good” “The tree is good therefore the fruit will be too”

3. How do you work out if someone is morally virtuous? “The actions are good therefore the person is virtuous” “The person is virtuous therefore the actions will be good”

4. Nussbaum (Practical Virtue Ethics) • Uses the principle of phronesis – practical wisdom, to examine particular issues – from Aristotle • A rational process of the mind which discovers the practical means for applying moral concepts to life. It is the art of deciding the best way to solve a moral problem. • Nussbaum interprets Aristotle's virtues as absolutes - she claims that Justice, Temperance, generosity etc. are essential elements of human flourishing across all societies and throughout time. • A relativist approach is incompatible with Aristotle's virtue theory. • The Fragility of Goodness – throughout history people who have campaigned for justice have often been destroyed in their pursuit of it

5. Adams • Virtue Ethics must be agent-centred – concerned with the moral agent who undertakes the decision or action. • A moral person is an individual who possesses virtue – virtue cannot be self-contained, the virtuous person has to do something. • The study of virtuous people reveals one constant feature – that humans are prone to moral weakness – Adams uses the term moral frailty. • Moral agents are supposed to be always strong-willed but life is not always like this. • An important aspect of virtue ethics should be a recognition that we all make mistakes and sin.

6. Adams • Virtue is excellence in being for the good.  To "be for" the good is to be disposed to favor it in "action, desire, emotion or feeling“ • Adams is a pluralist about the good; the goods that virtue is for include members of several ontological categories, including states of affairs, people, and beautiful objects. •  Since one can be for the good for the wrong reasons, virtue requires excellence in being for the good.  For example, one who pursues the good for selfish reasons fails to exemplify excellence in being for the good, even if that selfishness leads to good results.   • Adams is unambitious about providing guidance about what counts as an excellence; he says his view "does not provide an algorithm for virtue“. Judgments of excellence "must rely to a considerable extent on moral perceptiveness" and are "to some extent intuitionistic”).

7. Adams - weaknesses • The priest and playboy factor – the idea that the environment in which a priest lives is more conducive to a virtuous life than that of a playboy. • Virtue ethics can be criticised for not taking into account the moral situation.

8. Hursthouse • The persons virtuous state is of greater importance than the actions. • If you are by nature are virtuous then what you do will be virtuous. If you are bad then your actions can never be virtuous. • Applied her ideas to the issue of abortion: • “The morality of abortion is commonly discussed in relation to just two considerations: first, … the status of the foetus … ; secondly, … women’s rights. … Virtue theory quite transforms the discussion of abortion by dismissing the two familiar dominating considerations as, in a way, fundamentally irrelevant.” • “the status of the foetus … is, according to virtue theory, simply not relevant to the rightness or wrongness of abortion” • Even acting within “rights” you can do something vicious. • The premature termination of a pregnancy connects with all our thoughts about and emotions in relation to human life and death, parenthood, and family relationships • Whether Abortion is Right or Wrong in a Particular Case Depends on the Nature of that Case a. Acts of abortion can be non-virtuous. b. Acts of abortion are not always non-virtuous; there are cases in which abortion can be the right decision. c. Having an abortion can be the right decision and still demonstrate a lack of virtue.

9. “The weaknesses of virtue ethics outweigh it’s strengths”