504. Virtue and causality

 Virtue ethics goes back to the ancient Greek philosophers, in particular Aristotle, was neglected for a time in favour of the alternative ethics of utilitarianism, going back to Bentham, and the ‘deontology’ or duty ethics, going back to Kant, but now enjoys a revival  since it can better deal with the intricacies of moral puzzles. It is similar to utilitarianism, in that it also looks at the consequences of actions, though not only in terms of utility, and it is similar to deontology in that it looks at duties, but not only on the basis of rationality but also emotions. Several authors have identified three strands of virtue ethics (VE): van Zyl (2013) and Swanton (2013):

 1.  Eudaimonistic: aimed at the good life, taken not as incidental but across the whole of one’s life. This has been criticised as being too self-oriented. A virtuous action is the action that a virtuous virtuoso would have performed under the circumstances.

2.      2,  Agent-directed: in terms of the agent with her character, defined as durable inclinations, and emotions, feelings, routines, impulse. This has been criticised for failing to give moral evaluation of acts. It looks only at intentions, not at results

3.     3.  Action- directed: evaluating the extent to which an action is virtuous; the extent that the action ‘hits the target’ of the virtue. But intentions do also matter. One can do the right things by accident or for the wrong reasons.

 The question is: why these different strands; can’t they be brought together in a unified account, and how this is to be done My proposal is to do this on the basis of Aristotle’s multiple causality of action, as follows:

 Efficient cause: the agent, with her character, emotions, impulses, routines, drives.

Final cause (with what purpose): the good life, the interests of others, virtuous acts

Formal cause (how): character, feelings etc., and practical wisdom (Aristotle: phronesis)

Material cause (with what means): experience, other people

Conditional cause (circumstances):to be considered by practical wisdom

Exemplary cause (role model): the virtue virtuoso.

 Practical wisdom, going back to Aristotle, is needed to consider the circumstances that impact on judgement of virtue. This operates on the ‘material’ of circumstances met in interaction of the agent with others. What is virtuous in some circumstances may not be so in others. The old notion of ‘cardinal virtues’ includes: reason , courage, temperance and justice. Other vurtues have been added, such as honesty, benevolence, friendliness, even humour. In a given situation it is not always clear what virtues are relevant. The non-virtue virtuoso seldom perfectly hits the target of all relevant virtues, and then good enough is good enough.

 The philosopher David Hume distinguished natural virtue, in the form of benevolence and empathy, as innate in being human, and ‘artificial virtue’, as developed from the need for society to function (Russell, 2013). In modern thought, there is an argument for innate, instinctive virtue from evolution, in the form of benevolence and empathy; in imagining oneself in the position of another, which was needed for collaborative action, in hunting and defense, in the 400.000 years of development of humanity as hunter-gatherers. However, a moral sense of justice may also have become needed for early development of societies, becoming innate. In the enactment of innate virtuous inclinations of benevolence, a sense of fairness and justice may also have become instinctive. Natural virtue has become part of the self, and is is accompanied by emotions. David Hume already said that ‘reason is the slave of the passions’. Yet, practical wisdom requires reason, as Hume recognised, for a judicious evaluation of circumstances. This combination of reason and emotions distinguishes VE from the deontology of Kant.

 A complication that I have not yet seen in the literature on VE is that according to social psychology, much of our decision making is subconscious and involuntary. Moral evaluation of actions then cannot all be traced to deliberate, rational decision making. David Hume did allow for such involuntary action. However, that can mostly be traced to earlier times when the relevant decisions were not yet internalised as routines. Such impulsive action has indeed become part of character, which therefore is to be seen not as a state but a process, along one’s path of life, in which one learns from experience, in developing practical wisdom. The proof of an ethical pudding lies in its eating, in the judgement of actions in various conditions. Here, discussing those would go too far. Perhaps in a later item in this blog.

 Paul Russell (2013), ‘Hume’s anatomy of virtue’, in D.C.Russell (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Virtue Ethics,92-124.

 Christine Swanton (2013), ‘The definition of virtue ethics’, in D.C.Russell (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Virtue Ethics, 315-39.

 Liezl van Zyl (2013),‘Virtue ethics and the right action’, in D.C.Russell (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Virtue Ethics, 172-97.