Lesson 3- Theory-Building Activities-Virtue Ethics

This lesson uses materials being prepared for Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to
Computer Ethics, to set up an exercise in which you will identify and spell out virtues
relevant to your professional discipline. After identifying these virtues, you will work to
contextualize them in everyday practice. Emphasis will be placed on the Aristotelian
approach to virtues which describes a virtue as the disposition toward the mean located
between the extremes of excess and defect. You will also be asked to identify common
obstacles that prevent professionals from realizing a given virtue and moral exemplars
who demonstrate consistent success in realizing these virtues and responding to obstacles
that stand in the way of their realization. In a variation on this module, you could be
asked to compare the virtues you have identified for your profession with virtues that
belong to other moral ecologies such as those of the Homeric warrior.

Three Versions of Virtue Ethics: Virtue 1, Virtue 2, and Virtue 3

Virtue ethics has gone through three historical versions. The first, Virtue 1, was set forth
by Aristotle in ancient Greece. While tied closely to practices in ancient Greece that no
longer exist today, Aristotle's version still has a lot to say to us in this day and age. In the
second half of the twentieth century, British philosophical ethicists put forth a related but
different theory of virtue ethics (virtue 2) as an alternative to the dominant ethical
theories of utilitarianism and deontology. Virtue 2 promised a new foundation of ethics
consistent with work going on at that time in the philosophy of mind. Proponents felt that
turning from the action to the agent promised to free ethical theory from the intractable
debate between utilitarianism and deontology and offered a way to expand scope and
relevance of ethics. Virtue 3 reconnects with Aristotle and virtue 1 even though it drops
the doctrine of the mean and Aristotle's emphasis on character. Using recent advances
in moral psychology and moral pedagogy, it seeks to rework key Aristotelian concepts in
modern terms. In the following, we will provide short characterizations of each of these
three versions of virtue ethics.

Virtue 1: Aristotle's Virtue Ethics

 Eudaimonia. Happiness, for Aristotle, consists of a life spent fulfilling the

intellectual and moral virtues. These modes of action are auto-telic, that is, they
are self-justifying and contain their own ends. By carrying out the moral and
intellectual virtues for a lifetime, we realize ourselves fully as humans. Because we
are doing what we were meant to do, we are happy in this special sense of
eudaimonia.
 Arete. Arete is the Greek word we usually translate as "virtue". But arete is more
faithfully translated as excellence. For Aristotle, the moral and intellectual virtues
represent excellences. So the moral life is more than just staying out of trouble.
Under Aristotle, it is centered in pursuing and achieving excellence for a lifetime.
 Virtue as the Mean. Aristotle also characterizes virtue as a settled disposition to
choose the mean between the extremes of excess and defect, all relative to person
and situation. Courage (the virtue) is the mean between the extremes of excess
(too much courage or recklessness) and defect (too little courage or cowardice).
Aristotle's claim that most or all of the virtues can be specified as the mean
between extremes is controversial. While the doctrine of the mean is dropped in
Virtue 2 and Virtue 3, we will still use it in developing virtue tables. (See exercise
1 below.) You may not find both extremes for the virtues you have been assigned
but make the effort nonetheless.
 Ethos. "Ethos" translates as character which, for Aristotle, composes the seat of
the virtues. Virtues are well settled dispositions or habits that have been
incorporated into our characters. Because our characters are manifested in our
actions, the patterns formed by these over time reveal who we are. This can be
formulated as a decision-making test, the public identification test. Because we
reveal who we are through our actions we can ask, when considering an action,
whether we would care to be publicly identified with this action. "Would I want to
be publicly known as the kind of person who would perform that kind of action?
Would I, through my cowardly action, want to be publicly identified as a coward?
Would I, through my responsible action, want to be publicly identified as a
responsible person? Because actions provide others with a window into our
characters, we must make sure be sure that they portray us as we want to be
portrayed.
 Aisthesis of the Phronimos. This Greek phrase, roughly translated as the
perception of the morally experienced agent, reveals how important practice and
experience are to Aristotle in his conception of moral development. One major
difference between Aristotle and other ethicists (utilitarians and deontologists) is
the emphasis that Aristotle places on developing into or becoming a moral person.
For Aristotle, one becomes good by first repeatedly performing good actions. So
morality is more like an acquired skill than a mechanical process. Through practice
we develop sensitivities to what is morally relevant in a situation, we learn how to
structure our situations to see moral problems and possibilities, and we develop
the skill of "hitting" consistently on the mean between the extremes. All of these
are skills that are cultivated in much the same way as a basketball player develops
through practice the skill of shooting the ball through the hoop.
 Bouleusis. This word translates as "deliberation." For Aristotle, moral skill is not
the product of extensive deliberation (careful, exhaustive thinking about reasons,
actions, principles, concepts, etc.) but of practice. Those who have developed the
skill to find the mean can do so with very little thought and effort. Virtuous
individuals, for Aristotle, are surprisingly unreflective. They act virtuously without
thought because it has become second nature to them.
 Akrasia. Ross translates this word as "incontinence" which is outmoded. A better
translation is weakness of will. For Aristotle, knowing where virtue lies is not the
same as doing what virtue demands. There are those who are unable to translate
 knowledge into resolution and then into action. Because akrasis (weakness of will)
is very real for Aristotle, he also places emphasis in his theory of moral
development on the cultivation of proper emotions to help motivate virtuous
action. Later ethicists seek to oppose emotion and right action; Aristotle sees
properly trained and cultivated emotions as strong motives to doing what virtue
requires.
 Logos Aristotle's full definition of virtue is "a state of character concerned with
choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a
rational principle, and by that principle by which [a person] of practical wisdom
would determine it." (Ross's translation in Nichomachean Ethics, 1106b, 36.) We
have talked about character, the mean, and the person of practical wisdom. The
last key term is "logos" which in this definition is translated by reason. This is a
good translation if we take reason in its fullest sense so that it is not just the
capacity to construct valid arguments but also includes the practical wisdom to
assess the truth of the premises used in constructing these arguments. In this
way, Aristotle expands reason beyond logic to include a fuller set of intellectual,
practical, emotional, and perceptual skills that together form a practical kind of
wisdom.

Virtue 2

 The following summary of Virtue 2 is taken largely from Rosalind Hursthouse.

While she extensively qualifies each of these theses in her own version of virtue
ethics, these points comprise an excellent summary of Virtue 2 which starts with
G.E.M. Anscombe's article, "Modern Moral Philosophy," and continues on into the
present. Hursthouse presents this characterization of Virtue 2 in her book, On
Virtue Ethics (2001) U.K.: Oxford University Press: 17.
 Virtue 2 is agent-centered. Contrary to deontology and utilitarianism which
focus on whether actions are good or right, V2 is agent-centered in that it sees
the action as an expression of the goodness or badness of the agent. Utilitarianism
focuses on actions which bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest
number; deontology seeks those actions that respect the autonomy of individuals
and carry out moral obligations, especially duties. These theories emphasize doing
what is good or right. Virtue 2, on the other hand, focuses on the agent's becoming
or being good.
 Can Virtue 2 tell us how to act? Because V2 is agent-centered, critics claim
that it cannot provide insight into how to act in a given situation. All it can say is,
"Act the way a moral exemplar would act." But what moral standards do moral
exemplars use or embody in their actions? And what moral standards do we use
to pick out the moral exemplars themselves? Hursthouse acknowledges that this
criticism hits home. However, she points out that the moral standards come from
the moral concepts that we apply to moral exemplars; they are individuals who act
courageously, exercise justice, and realize honesty. The moral concepts "courage,"
"justice," and "honesty" all have independent content that helps guide us. She also
 calls this criticism unfair: while virtue 2 may not provide any more guidance than
deontology or utilitarianism, it doesn't provide any less. Virtue 2 may not provide
perfect guidance, but what it does provide is favorably comparable to what
utilitarianism and deontology provide.
 Virtue 2 replaces Deontic concepts (right, duty, obligation) with Aretaic
concepts (good, virtue). This greatly changes the scope of ethics. Deontic
concepts serve to establish our minimum obligations. On the other hand, aretaic
concepts bring the pursuit of excellence within the purview of ethics. Virtue ethics
produces a change in our moral language that makes the pursuit of excellence an
essential part of moral inquiry.
 Finally, there is a somewhat different account of virtue 2 (call it virtue
2a) that can be attributed to Alisdair MacIntyre. This version "historicizes"
the virtues, that is, looks at how our concepts of key virtues have changed over
time. (MacIntyre argues that the concept of justice, for example, varies greatly
depending on whether one views justice in Homeric Greece, Aristotle's Greece, or
Medieval Europe.) Because he argues that skills and actions are considered
virtuous only in relation to a particular historical and community context, he
redefines virtues as those skill sets necessary to realize the goods or values around
which social practices are built and maintained. This notion fits in well with
professional ethics because virtues can be derived from the habits, attitudes, and
skills needed to maintain the cardinal ideals of the profession.

Virtue 3

Virtue 3 can best be outlined by showing how the basic concepts of Virtue 1 can be
reformulated to reflect current research in moral psychology.

1. Reformulating Happiness (Eudaimonia). Mihaly Csikcszentmihalyi has

described flow experiences (see text box below) in which autotelic activities play
a central role. For Aristotle, the virtues also are autotelic. They represent faculties
whose exercise is key to realizing our fullest potentialities as human beings. Thus,
virtues are self-validating activities carried out for themselves as well as for the
ends they bring about. Flow experiences are also important in helping us to
conceptualize the virtues in a professional context because they represent a well
practiced integration of skill, knowledge, and moral sensitivity.
2. Reformulating Values (Into Arete or Excellence). To carry out the full
project set forth by virtue 3, it is necessary to reinterpret as excellence key moral
values such as honesty, justice, responsibility, reasonableness, and integrity. For
example, moral responsibility has often been described as carrying out basic,
minimal moral obligations. As an excellence, responsibility becomes refocused on
extending knowledge and power to expand our range of effective, moral action.
Responsibility reformulated as an excellence also implies a high level of care that
goes well beyond what is minimally required.
 3. De-emphasizing Character. The notion of character drops out to be replaced
by more or less enduring and integrated skills sets such as moral imagination,
moral creativity, reasonableness, and perseverance. Character emerges from the
activities of integrating personality traits, acquired skills, and deepening knowledge
around situational demands. The unity character represents is always complex and
changing.
4. Practical Skill Replaces Deliberation. Moral exemplars develop skills which,
through practice, become second nature. These skills obviate the need for
extensive moral deliberation. Moral exemplars resemble more skillful athletes who
quickly develop responses to dynamic situations than Hamlets stepping back from
action for prolonged and agonizing deliberation.
5. Greater Role for Emotions. Nancy Sherman discusses how, for Aristotle,
emotion is not treated as an irrational force but as an effective tool for moral action
once it has been shaped and cultivated through proper moral education. To step
beyond the controversy of what Aristotle did and did not say about the emotions
(and where he said it) we place this enhanced role for emotions within virtue 3.
Emotions carry out four essential functions: (a) they serve as modes of attention;
(b) they also serve as modes of responding to or signaling value; (c) they fulfill a
revelatory function; and (d) they provide strong motives to moral action. Nancy
Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (1997), U.K.:
Cambridge University Press: 39-50.

Flow Experiences

The psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has carried out fascinating research on what
he terms "flow experiences." Mike Martin in Meaningful Work (2000) U.K.: Oxford,: 24,
summarizes these in the following bullets:
 "clear goals as one proceeds"
 "immediate feedback about progress"
 "a balance between challenges and our skills to respond to them"
 "immersion of awareness in the activity without disruptive distractions"
 "lack of worry about failure"
 loss of anxious self-consciousness"
 time distortions (either time flying or time slowing pleasurably)"
 the activity becomes autotelic: an end in itself, enjoyed as such"