Ethics Midterm (2023-2024) - Virtue Ethics PDF

ETIC111 LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS WEEK 10 I SECOND YEAR, FIRST SEMESTER - MIDTERMS | A.Y. 2023-2024 I COLLEGE OF NURSING - VALENZUELA CAMPUS PPT and Discussed by: PROF. FELICIA VICTOR Transcribed by: ASHLEY G. IGLESIAS, SN | BSN 2-Y1-4 I OLFU - VAL...

ETIC111 LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS WEEK 10 I SECOND YEAR, FIRST SEMESTER - MIDTERMS | A.Y. 2023-2024 I COLLEGE OF NURSING - VALENZUELA CAMPUS PPT and Discussed by: PROF. FELICIA VICTOR Transcribed by: ASHLEY G. IGLESIAS, SN | BSN 2-Y1-4 I OLFU - VAL Judgment applies to a range of different situations which VIRTUE ETHICS is why it requires experience to acquire. The goal of life is well-being (happiness) and the means to Good judgment enables a person to make the right sort of decision in the right kind of circumstances at the right attain it is by acquiring a virtuous character. time. ORIGIN OF VIRTUE ETHICS INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL VIRTUES The theory of virtue ethics originated in Ancient Greece, though some connections can be drawn as far back as Aristotle and Aquinas distinguish between intellectual and Ancient China. moral virtues: In Greek, virtue (arete) means ‘excellence’. ○ Intellectual virtues can be taught formally. They involve knowledge and understanding of causes Socrates once claimed: “it’s the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue all day… on the grounds that the and ends (the why and how). unexamined life is not worth living” (The Apology) Examples: theoretical wisdom, scientific knowledge, insight or VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS understanding, technical skill or art, For Greeks (and all subsequent virtue theories), the goal of and practical wisdom. action is the ultimate human good: happiness ○ Moral virtues can only be acquired through (eudaimonia). practice and experience. They involve acquiring Human happiness is to be understood as the highest habits of character and have to do with the achievement of what it means to be human, of the human appropriate management of emotions. essence. It is a kind of flourishing, health, or well-being of Examples: temperance or moderation, the soul or mind. justice, courage, or fortitude, While happiness seems to be subjective, the idea of generosity, friendliness, wittiness, human flourishing implies an objective notion of truthfulness, etc. happiness. (think of it on analogy with health.) VIRTUE AND CHARACTER Virtue makes a person good, or excellent, and so it is the means by which we acquire happiness. To be virtuous is to have a virtuous character. Character is an engrained habit or disposition to act in SOCRAATES/PLATO’S THEORY OF VIRTUE certain ways. Virtue is supposed to be a kind of knowledge. Virtuous action must come from a virtuous character (as It is identified with wisdom (sophia) opposed to some external force). Wisdom is both necessary and sufficient for virtue. The virtuous person wants to act virtuously and does so Knowledge about virtue is somehow analogous to for that reason. mathematical knowledge. CHARACTER CONTINUED Both kinds of knowledge are the result of a self-reflective process called ‘recollection’ Dispositions or character traits are to be understood broadly, so that a virtuous person is virtuous in many A PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE different situations. Since virtue concerns action, it is possible to act well For example, an honest person not only tells the truth, but without knowing how to act well; doesn’t cheat, respects contracts, obeys the laws, and As long as someone has the right belief about which doesn’t misrepresent him/herself. actions are good, he or she will act virtuously And the honest person does this because he or she prefers But belief without knowledge is unstable and fleeting to be honest, not because he/she wants to avoid some This is why it is necessary to have, not just true belief, but bad consequence. knowledge, which is justified true belief For this season, it is unwise to attribute a virtue to PRACTICAL WISDOM OR PRUDENCE someone on the basis of one or a few actions. With Aristotle, we distinguish the kind of wisdom HABIT: HOW TO ACQUIRE VIRTUE necessary for ethical action from wisdom in the sciences. With respect to the moral virtues, Aristotle thinks we The wisdom necessary for action is “practical wisdom” “learn by doing”. (phronesis) or good moral judgment. Aquinas calls this Virtue requires discipline and practice. “prudence” (prudentia) Repeated virtuous actions help to engrain the character traits or dispositions that make a person virtuous. ETIC111: ETHICS LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS 1  ETIC111 LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS WEEK 10 I SECOND YEAR, FIRST SEMESTER - MIDTERMS | A.Y. 2023-2024 I COLLEGE OF NURSING - VALENZUELA CAMPUS PPT and Discussed by: PROF. FELICIA VICTOR Transcribed by: ASHLEY G. IGLESIAS, SN | BSN 2-Y1-4 I OLFU - VAL Making virtuous decisions requires good moral judgment Moral virtues involve acquiring a character through (reason), so there is an essential rational component as practice, by engraining habits or dispositions to act well. well. Making good choices, practicing good habits, and acting AN ANALOGY: well all involve good moral judgment (the application of reason to changing, practical situations). One of the easiest ways to think of how to acquire moral character is by comparing it to skills like the ability to play Good moral judgment, good actions, and a good character a sport or a musical instrument. ultimately make a person happy. They lead to the well-being of the soul. A person who practices hard and trains her body acquires the skills to be able to do that skill well. WHY SHOULD I BE MORAL? BECAUSE OF MY CHARACTER! The skilled athlete or musician is also the one who is better able to practice, reinforcing her skill. ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS The skilled athlete or musician actually physically changes 384-322 B.C. his or her body through repetitious actions. The Nicomachean Ethics In the same way, the virtuous person finds it easier to act Two Kinds of Persons virtuously; she actually changes her physical and ○ Continent emotional characteristics. Do what is right, but not necessarily CHARACTER AND THE WILL because they want to Aquinas emphasizes the importance of will in his account ○ Temperate of the moral virtues. Do what is right because they want to; the more holistic person For Aquinas, even if a person has the right characteristics and is inclined by nature to do the right thing, that person THE GOAL OF HUMAN EXISTENCE still has a choice either to follow commands of reason or Eudaimonia not. Flourishing, happiness The individual, human will is right when it conforms to A lifelong pursuit, accomplished divine will. Rationally, through theoretical wisdom and contemplation Divine will is the ultimate lawgiver: God ordained right and Functionally, through practical wisdom and politics wrong, good and bad, when God created the world. So, THE GOAL OF HUMAN EXISTENCE AND EUDAIMONIA failure to conform to God’s will is to violate the natural Aimed at the “perfect happiness” which is the perfect law. activity. SUPERNATURAL GRACE AND BEATIFIC VISION An excellence in any activity in accordance with the nature Aquinas recognizes Aristotle’s idea that virtue leads to of that activity. happiness, but he sees this as an imperfect, natural, or Thus, “Human happiness is the activity of the soul in human form of happiness. accordance with perfect virtue (excellence).” (I.8; Pojman, Complete and perfect happiness is not to be found in this 394) life, for Aquinas. It is the beatific vision: complete THE VIRTUES intellectual union with the Divine (seeing God in God’s INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES essence). ○ Wisdom, understanding, prudence This sort of blessed happiness is impossible as long as our ○ Taught through instruction intellect is embodied and operates through the senses MORAL VIRTUES (since God’s true essence is not perceivable by the ○ Prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance senses). ○ The result of habit Additionally, human beings are unable to obtain this ○ Not natural or inborn but acquired through perfection without the grace of God. So, this ultimate end practice or purpose of humanity is supernatural, it requires divine ○ Habit or disposition of the soul (our intervention. fundamental character) which involves both REVIEW feeling and action Virtue ethics is the theory that moral goods involve ○ “Those strengths of character that enable us to acquiring a virtuous character. flourish” (Hinman) Virtues are either moral or intellectual. ETIC111: ETHICS LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS 2  ETIC111 LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS WEEK 10 I SECOND YEAR, FIRST SEMESTER - MIDTERMS | A.Y. 2023-2024 I COLLEGE OF NURSING - VALENZUELA CAMPUS PPT and Discussed by: PROF. FELICIA VICTOR Transcribed by: ASHLEY G. IGLESIAS, SN | BSN 2-Y1-4 I OLFU - VAL defined/understood in terms of spheres of human Courage without a clear sense of your experience. own abilities is foolhardy “The virtuous person has practical wisdom, the ability to Fear of important Courage damages know when and how best to apply these various moral perspectives.” (Hinman) Bodily appetites and their Moderation VIRTUES AND COMMUNITY pleasures Virtues are defined and lived in community Sharing a common identity and story. Distribution of limited Justice resources Modelling the Virtues ○ Importance of moral exemplars (saints and Attitude to slights and Mildness of temper heroes) damages Practicing the virtues - habit is crucial! ○ “In a word, then, like activities produce like dispositions. Hence we must give our activities a THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN certain quality, because it is their characteristics Proper position between two extremes that determine the resulting dispositions. So it is ○ Vice of excess a matter of no little importance what sort of ○ Vice of deficiency habits we form from the earliest age—it makes a Not an arithmetic median vast difference, or rather all the difference in the ○ Relative to us and not the thing world.” (II.i) (Pojman, 396) ○ Not the same for all of us or Reinforcing the virtues ○ Any of us, at various occasions OTHER VIRTUE ETHICISTS ○ “In this way, then, every knowledgeable person avoids excess and deficiency, but looks for the G.E.M (ELIZABETH) ANSCOMBE mean and chooses it.” (II.6) In 1958 she published an article called Modern Moral THE MEAN Philosophy arguing that we should return to the virtues as the idea of a law without a lawgiver. ALASDAIR MACINTYRE VICE OF VIRTUE VICE OF EXCESS DEFICIENCY After Virtue (1981) Modern moral philosophy is bankrupt; it must recover the cowardice Courage Foolhardiness tradition of virtue. Importance of narrative as a “live tradition” – you need to stinginess Generosity Prodigality know where ethics has come from. Virtues change over time. shamelessness Modesty Bashfulness PHILIPPA FOOT maliciousness Righteous Nervousness Tries to modernize Aristotle. indignation Ethics should not be about dry theorizing, but about making the world a better place (she was one of the VIRTUES AND THE MEAN founders of Oxfam) Virtue contributes to the good life. Defined through reason ○ Education, contemplation, reflection ROSALIND HURSTHOUSE Balanced with other virtues and applied using phronesis: A neo-Aristotelian — Aristotle was wrong on women and ○ To have any single strength of character in full slaves, and there is no need to be limited to his list of measure, a person must have the other ones as virtues. well We acquire virtues individually, and so flourish, but we do Courage without good judgment is so together and not at each other’s expense. blind CAROL GILLIGAN Courage without perseverance is In a Different Voice (1982) short-lived ETIC111: ETHICS LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS 3  ETIC111 LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS WEEK 10 I SECOND YEAR, FIRST SEMESTER - MIDTERMS | A.Y. 2023-2024 I COLLEGE OF NURSING - VALENZUELA CAMPUS PPT and Discussed by: PROF. FELICIA VICTOR Transcribed by: ASHLEY G. IGLESIAS, SN | BSN 2-Y1-4 I OLFU - VAL ○ Developmental theories have been built on The more we develop a virtuous character & acquire observations and assumptions about men’s lives practical wisdom. and thereby distort views of female VIRTUE & HABIT responsibility. For Aristotle, virtue is something that is practiced and ○ The kinds of virtues one honors depend on the thereby learned—it is habit (hexis). power brokers of one’s society. This has clear implications for moral education, for ○ The Ethics of Care. Aristotle obviously thinks that you can teach people to be MICHAEL SLOTE virtuous. Develops the feminist ‘ethics of care’ and links it to a Role models become very important. virtue ethics inspired more by Hume and Hutcheson’s VIRTUE AS THE GOLDEN MEAN moral sentimentalism than by Aristotle. Aristotle says virtue involves finding the proper balance Slote’s version of virtue ethics is agent-based (as opposed between two extremes. to more Aristotelian forms which are said to be agent ○ Excess: having too much of something. focused) i.e, The moral rightness of acts is based on the ○ Deficiency: having too little of something. virtuous motives or characters of the agent. Not mediocrity, but harmony and balance. The motives are all important. The mean varies from person to person. MARTHA NUSSBAUM There are many ways of behaving & thus many ways to be She interprets Aristotle’s views as absolutes… justice, happy. temperance, generosity, etc. are essential to human A VIRTUOUS LIFE MEANS BALANCE flourishing in all societies and in all times. Take one of the cardinal virtues away, then one happens? Nussbaum sees a relativist approach as being At school? incompatible with Aristotle’s virtue theory. ○ Competence ARE THE VIRTUES THE SAME FOR EVERYONE? ○ Teamwork People are very different. ○ Social justice But we face the same basic problems and have the same ○ Mellowness of heart basic needs. Everyone needs courage as danger can always arise. Some people are less well off, so we will need generosity. Everyone needs friends so we need loyalty. STRENGTHS OF VIRTUE ETHICS Importance of the Person, Motive, Heart, Conscience Connection to community Realization that morality is not defined by moments but by a long-term process. Allowance for gray areas, varying contexts, different levels of moral maturity and life contexts. WEAKNESSES OF VIRTUE ETHICS Dependence on strong communities. Not easily applied to ethical issues or to give us practical solutions. Demands time. Can be turned into a really poor duty-based ethics. Might be taken as situational ethics. HOW DO WE ACQUIRE VIRTUE? Practical wisdom ○ Comes from observing human affairs carefully ○ Comes from remembering how our actions & the actions of others have played out. ETIC111: ETHICS LESSON 9: VIRTUE ETHICS 4