Are Virtues the Proper Starting Point for Ethical Theory?

Introduction

Ethical theory is built around questions that require an individual to ask: How ought I to act? What is the most ethical decision in a given situation? Ethical theory is therefore concerned with acts rather than solely with the qualities of an individual. The teleological theory of ethics holds that an individual's act will be judged for its rightness based on the result it produces. Deontological ethics, by contrast, holds that the morality of an action depends on its adherence to a set of moral rules — it is, in essence, rule-based ethics. The utilitarian perspective holds that the greatest good for the greatest number of people should be achieved. Given these basic ethical perspectives, it is clear that virtue may be considered by classical utilitarians as a derivative category (Louden 201). Virtue ethics is the third approach to normative ethics employed by philosophers, and this paper argues that it is the most appropriate starting point for ethical theory.

All three positions differ in the way moral dilemmas are approached. In teleological or consequentialist ethics, for example, murder is morally wrong because it produces a negative outcome. For a deontologist, murder is morally wrong in all circumstances, regardless of whether it produces negative consequences. A virtue ethicist, however, is concerned with the personality of the murderer and with what the act of murder reveals about his or her moral character. In the virtue ethics perspective, therefore, the personality and character of a person are of greater importance than his or her isolated actions.

The Debate About Virtue Ethics

For many students of philosophy, there appear to be only two types of ethical perspectives: the deontologists' perspective of morality and the utilitarian perspective. The virtue ethics perspective has been largely ignored by researchers, with notable exceptions such as Plato and Kant. A key reason for this neglect is that Rawls's theory of justice held that there are only two types of ethical perspectives — deontological and utilitarian — corresponding to two fundamental concepts: being right and being good. On this account, virtues are merely derivatives of the good and the right, and so virtue ethics was not seen as a fully independent framework.

Many objections to virtue ethics have been raised by researchers working within utilitarian and deontological frameworks. Chief among them is the argument that virtue ethics does not provide an action-oriented solution to moral dilemmas. This problem becomes more complex when it is alleged that virtue ethics requires a detailed decision procedure: in every case, one must determine whether a morally right or wrong thing has occurred. The absence of action guidance in virtue ethics is partly a result of utilitarian scholars being critical of the approach. Within virtue ethics, researchers are concerned with the being or personality of the moral agent rather than the agent's actions.

Main Issues in Virtue Ethics

A further criticism is that virtue ethics does not provide sufficient impetus for a person to formulate actions according to moral standards. Critics have charged that rather than being action-centered, virtue ethics is merely agent-centered. Driver (113) notes that Robert Louden is a prominent critic of virtue ethics theory. Louden questioned the practicality of virtue ethics: since it does not provide a standardized set of rules on which an individual should base actions, the theory was deemed impractical (Louden 630). Gary Watson is another researcher who persistently critiqued the application of virtue ethics due to its perceived lack of action guidance.

A central issue with virtue ethics theory is that researchers have often misunderstood Aristotle's position on virtue. Swanton (8) has adopted something of Aristotle's perspective: "A virtue is a disposition in which both reason and emotion are well ordered" (Swanton 8). Swanton explains that a virtuous person possesses practical wisdom — precisely the view Aristotle advanced. Swanton thus describes virtue as a state of appropriate responsiveness to the demands the world makes upon us. While virtue and vice may not be exhaustively explained in Aristotle's own writings, contemporary researchers such as Swanton address this gap by acknowledging and working through it.

Hursthouse (645) argued that much of the criticism of virtue ethics for lacking action-oriented guidance is misplaced. The author argued that there are several rules employing the virtue and vice terminology — for instance, acting honestly and avoiding dishonesty makes clear use of virtue and vice vocabulary. The vocabulary of virtue and vice is rich, and utilitarian researchers themselves freely use these terms.