Virtue Ethics Virtue-based vs. duty-based ethics: arguments and examples from Victor Hugo, Aristotle, Bernard Mayo, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Frankena

In the study of ethics and morality, there have been theoretical foundations in which it was argued that morality comes with being rather than doing, or that a true moral life is one that is a product of doing instead of being. Or, oftentimes, theoreticians and philosophers contend that morality must bear an existence of both concepts -- that is, that morality entails both doing and being.

In the study of the works of the philosophers and writers Victor Hugo, Aristotle, Bernard Mayo, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Frankena, it becomes evident that they have various opinions about the issue at hand: is morality simply a matter of doing good works, or one must have the right principles in order to become moral? Through their writings, each had contented their stance or position concerning this theoretical ethical problem.

Thus, in the analysis, this paper argues that in general, the cited writers have considered duty-based ethics as one that truly defines morality, although this position is tempered by another discipline, which provides a 'middle ground' to the argument, stating that one must have the ethical principles and conduct in order to become moral. Apparently, all of the philosophers believed that morality must be duty-based or a mixture or combination of virtue and duty, while none had shown preference for a purely virtue-based ethic.

The texts that follow provide the analysis and discussion of this thesis, with references to the works of each author.

Bernard Mayo, Victor Hugo, and Nathaniel Hawthorne had expressed their belief that a duty-based ethic determines a moral individual through their written works on philosophy and literature. In "Virtue and the Moral Life," Mayo expounds on his idea about what constitutes a moral life: for him, a life lived ethically is more moral than a life guided, though not necessarily lived, through ethical and moral principles. This means that the philosopher considers an individual...

The ability to transcend from the ideal to the real plane is expressed in the philosopher's explication of his preference for a duty-based ethic: "A person's character is not merely a list of dispositions; it has the organic unity of something that is more than the sum of its parts. And we can say, in answer to our morally perplexed questioner, not only "Be this" and "Be that," but also "Be like So-and-So" -- where So-and-So is either an ideal type or character, or else an actual person taken as representative of the ideal, as exemplar.
Hence, Mayo resorts to "saints and heroes" as these ideal types of individuals who have shown through their action what it means to be moral in human society. By determining these ideal types, he had successfully and concretely illustrated to his readers the main difference between 'being' and 'doing'; and how each has an altogether different idea or concept, and thus, different in their degree of morality. However, this does not mean that 'being' or having a set of moral and ethical principles is immoral, but rather, one has failed to realize his/her potential to exercise one's capability to become moral.

A similar point is expressed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Great Stone Face." In this short story, the protagonist, Ernest, embodies the individual who, despite his good works, have failed to recognize himself as the embodiment of morality primarily because he has failed to realize that he possesses the capability to become moral. Hawthorne's representation of Ernest is complicated, because he utilizes him as both a believer and doer of ethical and moral principles, though he has yet to acknowledge the fact that he is doing good works, and that, in fact, he is a moral person. In the last part of the story, the writer expresses his point on duty-based ethic as follows: "The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself…