Objections to Virtue Ethics: Character, Culture, and Critique

Introduction: The Case for Virtue Ethics

My ethical philosophy could be said to be defined by what is known as virtue ethics — the idea that a good person is more likely to make good ethical decisions, based upon his or her character. Character is more important than adhering to a dogmatic ethical system or engaging in the unpredictable activity of trying to predict every likely consequence of a specific action.

Of course, some philosophers might object that virtue ethics is situational in nature, and is thus very similar to Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism, which advocates a consequence-focused ethical theory. However, virtue ethicists do not focus on consequences alone: they also stress the need for a moral decision-making process. They believe that both the process and the consequences are important to consider when judging whether a particular position is ethical, and that a moral person is better able to balance the need for objective morality against the consequences of enforcing a moral system.

That is why the character of the individual is so important when selecting which principles to apply to a given situation — more so than either emphasizing results (utilitarianism) or eternal laws (such as the Kantian categorical imperative).

Objections to Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics has come under scrutiny ever since its conceptualization by great thinkers such as the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Three major objections have been raised against it: that it is self-centered, that it privileges emotion over outcomes, and that it is culturally bound to Western individualism.

The Self-Centered Objection

"Aristotle argued that our distinctive function is reasoning, and so the life 'worth living' is one in which we reason well" (Athanassoulis, 2010). Many have seen this as a kind of self-centered justification for virtue ethics — one that over-emphasizes the personal benefits of moral action to the moral actor. The focus, critics argue, should instead be upon the effects experienced by the receiver of an action, or upon society at large, depending on whether their orientation is deontological or utilitarian, respectively.

Another objection — one most vehemently articulated by philosopher Peter Singer — holds that emphasizing the character of the moral actor places too much weight upon emotions such as guilt. Singer writes: "for a utilitarian philosopher like myself — that is, one who judges whether acts are right or wrong by their consequences — if the upshot of the American's failure to donate the money [to a charity] is that one more kid dies on the streets of a Brazilian city, then it is, in some sense, just as bad as selling the kid to the organ peddlers" (Singer, 1999, p. 60).

Singer's Utilitarian Critique

We condemn someone as immoral who refuses to help a motorist stranded by the side of the road, yet we do not similarly condemn someone who refuses to help a child in need with surplus cash. In virtue ethics, personal gut instinct is prioritized morally over end results — a form of reasoning that Singer regards as fundamentally flawed.

Conclusion

In the confusion of a world with so many competing ethical systems, focusing upon the self and individual obligations between persons might be the best solution. Virtue ethics, with its emphasis on character and the moral agent's capacity for balanced judgment, offers a flexible framework that neither reduces morality to rigid rules nor to cold calculations of outcome alone.