l1 Artistotlean Ethics
l1 Artistotlean Ethics
l1 Artistotlean Ethics
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Ethics for A-Level
To seek virtue for the sake of reward is to dig for iron with a spade of gold.1
a true function or end, so Aristotle believes human beings have a telos. Aristotle
identifies what the good for a human being is in virtue of working out what
the function of a human being is, as per his Function Argument.
Function Argument
1. All objects have a telos.
2. An object is good when it properly secures its telos.
Given the above, hopefully these steps of the argument are clear so far. At this
point, Aristotle directs his thinking towards human beings specifically.
3. The telos of a human being is to reason.
4. The good for a human being is, therefore, acting in accordance with
reason.
In working out our true function, Aristotle looks to that feature that separates
man from other living animals. According to Aristotle, what separates mankind
from the rest of the world is our ability not only to reason but to act on
reasons. Thus, just as the function of a chair can be derived from its uniquely
differentiating characteristic, so the function of a human being is related to our
uniquely differentiating characteristic and we achieve the good when we act
in accordance with this true function or telos.
The notion that man has a true function may sound odd, particularly if you
do not have a religious worldview of your own. However, to you especially
Aristotle wrote that “…as eye, hand, foot and in general each of the parts
evidently has a function, may one lay it down that man similarly has a function
apart from all these?”3
On the basis that we would ascribe a function to our constituent parts — we
know what makes a good kidney for example — so too Aristotle thinks it
far from unreasonable that we have a function as a whole. Indeed, this may
be plausible if we consider other objects. The component parts of a car, for
example, have individual functions but a car itself, as a whole, has its own
function that determines whether or not it is a good car.
3. Aristotelian Goodness
On the basis of the previous argument, the good life for a human being is
achieved when we act in accordance with our telos. However, rather than
Ibid.
3
leaving the concept of goodness as general and abstract we can say more
specifically what the good for a human involves. Aristotle uses the Greek
Flourishing in life may make us happy but happiness itself is not necessarily
well aligned with acting in accordance with our telos. Perhaps, if we prefer the
term happiness as a translation for eudaimonia we mean really or truly happy,
but it may be easier to stay with the understanding of eudaimonia as flourishing
when describing the state of acting in accordance with our true function.
Aristotle concludes that a life is eudaimon (adjective of eudaimonia) when it
involves “…the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect goodness
or virtue”.4 Eudaimonia is secured not as the result exercising of our physical
or animalistic qualities but as the result of the exercise of our distinctly human
rational and cognitive aspects.
Ibid.
4
isolation, is what earns Aristotelian Virtue Ethics the label of being an agent-
centred moral theory rather than an act-centred moral theory.
Ibid.
5
Anger is a feeling and therefore is neither a virtue nor a vice. However, the
correct response to anger — the Golden Mean between two extremes — is
patience, rather than a lack of spirit or irascibility. Virtues are not feelings, but
characteristic dispositional responses that, when viewed holistically, define
our characters and who we are.
The Golden Mean ought not to be viewed as suggesting that a virtuous
disposition is always one that gives rise to a “middling” action. If someone
puts their life on the line, when unarmed, in an attempt to stop a would-be
terrorist attack, then their action may be rash rather than courageous.
However, if armed with a heavy, blunt instrument their life-risking action
may be courageously virtuous rather than rash. The Golden Mean is not to be
understood as suggesting that we always act somewhere between complete
inaction and breathless exuberance, but as suggesting that we act between the
vices of excess and deficiency; such action may well involve extreme courage
or exceptional patience.
In addition to feelings, Aristotle also suggests that we may virtuously
respond to situations. He suggests the following examples.
Virtuous Disposition
Situation Vice of Deficiency Vice of Excess
(Golden Mean)
Social conduct Cantankerousness Friendliness Self-serving flattery
Conversation Boorishness Wittiness Buffoonery
Giving money Stinginess Generosity Profligacy
as human beings, our behaviour will generally reflect our virtuous personality
traits and dispositions.
apprentices will eventually reach a point where they can stand on their own
two feet, with their personally developed sense of practical wisdom.
NORMATIVE ETHICS
Physical Force
Imagine that Reuben is driving his car on his way home from work. Out of the
blue, his passenger grabs his hand and forces him to turn the steering wheel,
sending the car into oncoming traffic. Without this physical force, Reuben
would not have turned the wheel and he very much regrets the damage that is
caused. According to Aristotle, Reuben’s action is involuntary because of this
external physical force and so he is not morally responsible for the crash.
Psychological Force
Think of David, working at a bank when a group of thieves break in armed
with guns. David is told that if he does not open the safe then he will be
killed. Under this extreme psychological pressure, Aristotle would accept that
David’s opening of the safe is involuntary, because David would not have
opened the safe otherwise and he very much regrets doing so. On this basis,
David is not morally responsible in any way for the theft.
In addition to force, ignorance of a certain type can also support an action
being labelled as involuntary.
Action in Ignorance
Laurence has had too much to drink and chooses to climb a traffic light with
a traffic cone on his head. Laurence’s alcohol consumption has made him
ignorant, at least temporarily, of the consequences of this action in terms of
social relationships, employment and police action. However, for Aristotle
this would not mean that his action was involuntary because Laurence
acts in ignorance rather than from ignorance due to an external epistemic
(or knowledge-based) barrier. Laurence does not, therefore, escape moral
responsibility as a result of his self-created ignorance.
Finally, Aristotle also identifies a third form of action — non-voluntary
action — that is also related to ignorant action.
The detail above is important and your own examples will help your
understanding and explanations. The summary, however, is refreshingly
NORMATIVE ETHICS
simple. If an action is voluntary, then it is completed free from force and ignorance
and we can hold the actor morally responsible. However, if the action is involuntary
then the actor is not morally responsible as they act on the basis of force or from
ignorance.
expense, and potential financial risk, to the tax-payer (to take a deliberately
specific example).
Ibid.
9
In this case, there does not seem to be any troubling circularity in reasoning.
It is not the case that whatever a great pianist plays will be great, but rather
that great pianists have the skills to make great music. So too it is with virtues,
for virtuous people are not virtuous just because of their actual actions but
because of who they are and how their actions are motivated. It is their
skills and character traits that mean that, in practice, they provide a clear
guide as to which actions are properly aligned with virtues. Thus, if we wish
to decide whether or not an act is virtuous we can assess what a virtuous
person would do in that circumstance, but this does not mean that what is
virtuous is determined by the actions of a specifically virtuous individual. The
issue is whether or not a person, with virtuous characteristics in the abstract,
would actually carry that action out. Virtuous people are living and breathing
concrete guides, helping us to understand the actions associated with abstract
virtuous character dispositions.
Responses to this initial statement of the objection are not hard to imagine.
We may say that Shelley has either succumbed to a vice of excess and is
SUMMARY
NORMATIVE ETHICS
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
1. Who has the better life — the happy hedonist or the virtuous
individual?
2. Are the virtues fixed and absolute? Or can virtues be relative to culture
and time?
3. Is becoming moral a skill? Is morality based on “knowing that” or
“knowing how”?
4. Can Virtue Ethics offer useful guidance?
KEY TERMINOLOGY
Act-centred Phronesis
Agent-centred Virtue
Dispositions Telos
References
Annas, Julia, Intelligent Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, translated by William David Ross (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1908), freely available at http://sacred-texts.com/cla/ari/
nico/index.htm
Hursthouse, Rosalind, ‘Normative Virtue Ethics’, in Ethical Theory, ed. by
Russ Shafer-Landau (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), pp. 701–09.
Panin, Ivan, Thoughts (Grafton: Ivan Panin, 1887), freely available at https://ia6
01405.us.archive.org/8/items/thoughts00panigoog/thoughts00panigoog.pdf