Virtue Ethics Flashcards
The doctrine of the Golden Mean.
Aristotle states that a virtue is ‘the habit of choosing the mean between the extremes’. The idea is that each virtue exists in a sphere of action or feeling and within that sphere there can be an excess, a deficiency or the golden mean. Being virtuous is the habit of choosing the action which best manifests the golden mean in the relevant sphere.
What is the vice of excess and deficiency for Courage.
RECKLESSNESS <—‐-> COWARDICE
Moral vs Intellectual virtues
Aristotle argued there is a rational part of the human soul and an irrational part. There are virtues in each part that require cultivating, but the moral virtues in the irrational part of the soul cannot be reached by reason and can therefore only be cultivated through experience and habit
phronesis
Practical wisdom , it is not enough to know the virtues we must learn when and where to use them. When to be kind and when to be harsh.
Strengths of VE
It’s neither deontological or teleological, so can be more focused on personal development. And is neither ridiculously legalistic nor antinomialistic as it focuses on phronesis.
It’s very applicable to every situation, despite originating in ancient Greek times it can easily be applied to modern issues.
Weaknesses of VE
Virtue ethics fails to give clear guidance. Utilitarianism and Kant provide systems which explain how to figure out which action is right. Virtue ethics doesn’t do that. It doesn’t give clear guidance on how to act. For example, consider ethical dilemmas like whether the USA should have dropped the nuclear bomb on Japan in WW2. If it helped the war end faster, does that justify killing civilians? It’s hard to see how being a virtuous person could give you an answer to that. In fact being a good person might only make you see how difficult the dilemma is.
Conflicting virtues. if a friend asks you to keep a secret and someone else asks you to reveal it, there is a conflict between truthfulness and friendliness.
Moral Exemplars
Are people in our lives we can look to, who have expert use of thier virtues eg Jesus
Anscombe- modern support
Elizabeth Anscombe: the strength of virtue ethics is that it encourages people to become good people. The consequentialist theories of utilitarianism and situation ethics which came after Aristotle failed to develop a more successful ethical theory because they rely on punishment and reward either by a God or by bringing about good consequences in order to motivate good acts. Bribing or scaring someone into acting well is morally inferior to the goal of virtue ethics, which is for someone to act well because they want to be a good person.
Hierarchy of Souls
Plants, vegitative ( consumed by ) Animals, sensitive( consumed by ) Humans, rational
