HURSTHOUSE:ON VIRTUE ETHICS PAPER

by Rosalind Hursthouse

Virtue ethics is perhaps the most important development within late twentieth-century moral philosophy. Rosalind Hursthouse, who has made notable contributions to this development, here presents a full exposition and defense of her neo-Aristotelian version of virtue ethics. She shows how virtue ethics can provide guidance for action, illuminate moral dilemmas, and bring out the moral significance of the emotions.

Genres: Philosophy

288 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 1999

Reviews

[Basilius · Rating 2 out of 5]

True, it is not easy to hold on to them sometimes; despair and misanthropy are temptations. But we should keep hope alive.

When dealing with the question "How should I act, morally speaking?", we enter into the philosophical domain of normative ethics, where three theories tend to dominate:

• Deontology: concerned with moral laws and principles. Eg, Lying is wrong.
• Consequentialism: the outcome of an action is what's important. Eg, Lying can be justified under certain circumstances.
• Virtue Ethics: character is what matters, not the specific act. Eg, Be an honest person.

Most people fall under the second category, and in fact self-identify as utilitarians (meaning they look at the net good of an action to assess its value). For those who aren't, they tend to identify as deontologists. I want to give a basic rundown of the THIRD WAY, or Virtue Ethics, and convince you of adopting this ethical paradigm.

Why Virtue Ethics?
In your daily life you've probably run into problems with the two main ethical views as espoused above. It's usually too constricting to be a deontologist (Honey do these pants make my butt look big?) and too cold & calculating to be a utilitarian (Of course we can murder the baby. Think of all the lives we'll save). Virtue Ethicists believe that morality cannot be codified or reduced to a formula. We think ethical action is messy and complicated, and as such we need a more nuanced perspective. The important thing, we stress, is to be a Virtuous Agent. (This is a fancy way of saying "be a good person".) The reasoning is that a Virtuous Agent has developed a tendency, or habit, to do good things, which serves as a better compass for moral action than trying to commit to a formula or list of duties.

A useful comparison of each view can be seen in the climactic scene of the comic and film Watchmen. Ozymandias and Dr. Manhattan were consequentialists, Rorschach was a deontologist, and Nite Owl was a Virtue Agent. The former heroes adhered to strict ethical stances that made tragedy inevitable, while Nite Owl was urging the group to review the situation more carefully. Nite Owl may not have been able to produce a better resolution, but he at least had wiggle room to consider alternatives, instead of stubbornly committing to an arbitrary standard.

What is a "Virtuous" Person?
There are two important components to this: 1.) Virtues, and 2.) phronesis—moral or practical wisdom.

Virtues are the guiding character traits that YOU FEEL a good person should have. You can have as many or as little as you want. Here are my core virtues:

A Virtuous Agent is
• Resolute
• Self-Reliant
• Just
• Industrious
• Honest
• Disciplined
• Courageous

In addition to this, a V agent displays phronesis, which is a Greek term for practical wisdom. Phronesis is debated endlessly, but a simple way of explaining it is that it's the intuitive moral behavior you display on a day to day basis. It's the simple ethical reasoning and moral action that you have been, and will continue to practice while you live your life. The logic here is that by adhering to certain character traits (be an honest person) you build the habit and inclination towards honesty, so that you are adept at being honest throughout your life. Honesty becomes your default position.

If an occasion arises where you feel you should commit dishonesty (telling my partner their butt looks okay is probably an acceptable lie) there occurs a small amount of moral residue (guilt) that is an important marker of an honest person. You feel a little tinge of regret that you're telling a lie. This separates a V agent from a utilitarian (who would feel no guilt, and therefore may be prone to justify other lies) and a deontologist (who would never lie and therefore cannot effectively navigate situations that demand dishonesty). The V agent, in other words, gets the best of both worlds: they can lobby the reasoning of other ethical paradigms with the cultivated attribute of "honesty" guiding them.

Exercising the Virtues
This demands that a person develop moral character, and not simply perform moral actions. Put another way, you need to actively exercise your virtues on a daily basis to build them up within you. For example, if you constantly practice discipline by denying yourself little pleasures--whether it's eating receptionist candy or surfing reddit at work or bitching about your partner to your friends--you cultivate a disciplined character that will better serve you for more difficult tests: such as not cheating on your girlfriend/boyfriend when presented with the opportunity. This rests on the assumption that difficult moral actions come more easily and more often to a virtuous person than an unvirtuous one. It makes the entire endeavor of living as an ethical person holistic: we don't just sporadically run into moral dilemmas that need to be solved, but we constantly mold ourselves into virtuous people that either have or lack the ability to overcome said dilemmas. In this way moral issues strengthen, rather than prohibit us.

What's in it for Me?
This suggests the self-rewarding aspect of Virtue Ethics: eudaimonia. This is a concept that roughly translates to "flourishing" or "happiness", though I more closely associate it with "self-actualization." By being a good person a V agent achieves eudaimonia, in that they become a more fulfilled human. Ergo, virtues benefit their possessor. We can see this intuitively in comparing the lives of good and bad people; the latter may be successful in material terms, but is always lacking a sort of interior gratification that good people posses (compare eudaimonia with something like serenity).

If you don't buy this, the alternative is something called a "value-laden ethical outlook." This means that virtues are worth attaining for their own sake, regardless of their merits to their possessor. It may not matter, for example, what being an honest person does for you. You should be honest because you should be honest, simple as that. (This is similar to the rational that deontologists use.)

Conclusion
Any normal person would tell you all three normative schools are important. Cultivating an ethical character, having moral principles, and considering the outcome of your actions are all essential for living a good life. That said, Virtue Ethics best fits the NUANCED position many people prefer: virtues develop strong moral fiber, phronesis allows for decision flexibility, and eudaimonia provides a good incentive.

Being a good person is less about discovering the correct "answer" to a messy situation, and more about possessing the mature ethical character that can navigate and perhaps resolve ethical frictions. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of criticisms of this claim, but I didn't mention them in fear of bloating the primer. Feel free to respond with any questions or objections you have below, and I'll do my best to answer them. If you're looking for a Virtue Ethicists take on a particular topic, check Hursthouse's essay on abortion.

[Richard Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very good book about virtue ethics, and ethical naturalism - and if those are topics which are of interest to you, then I think you could do far worse than read this book. I have to admit the reading experience was not that great for me - Hursthouse is a thorough writer making her arguments explicit, and as far as philosophers go, pretty clear in what she says. So all positive at this point of my review.

I'm afraid though that for me there is something of a spark missing from the book. When a philosopher writers about a topic that is close to their heart, perhaps even their life's work, you sometimes expect to feel their excitement or interest in the subject. I'm afraid I find Hursthouse's writing style rather dull. Still this is not a complaint at the philosophy, so if Virtue Ethics is your thing or an area of interest, then this should be on your reading list.

[Jerry Chen]

I was pretty excited to read this one since Hursthouse is apparently a big name in modern virtue ethics. Sadly though, this book didn't work for me in many ways.

Granted, some of my dislike comes down to my own biases and expectations. The book's description and table of contents imply an affinity to Kantian ethics. I assumed that meant that she was going to take a bottom-up "derivation" approach like how Kant establishes the categorical imperative in his "Groundwork". However, this book seemed to just run with the ethical naturalism established by Aristotle, and the mentions of deontology were more about pointing out similar ideas between the two frameworks. I will also admit that in general, ethical naturalism breaks the is-ought gap too much for my taste.

In terms of the book itself, I was baffled by some of her conclusions. The worst was the part explaining how to resolve scenarios when virtues conflict. She simply says that a person will have to exercise their "moral wisdom". I would be fine with that answer if "moral wisdom" weren't left so vague. You would think that one of the most important purposes of a moral framework would be to help with these very sorts of complex situations, and not the simple situations with an obvious answer that everyone already agrees on. Wouldn't knowing the specifics of "moral wisdom" (other than the fact that it grows with life experience) be extremely important to that end? And if we ultimately just defer to "moral wisdom" in the end, why bother with virtue ethics as a framework at all when we just tell everyone to be just be "morally wise" in all cases? It seemed very anti-useful for an ethical system that is supposedly more practical than deontology/utilitarianism.

Overall, Hursthouse is very faithful to Aristotle. The book dives into more minutae on certain topics, but it didn't truly help me appreciate the subject more than what I already got out of "Nicomachean Ethics".

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hursthouse's book is a modern classic that provides a definitive statement of neo-Aristotelian naturalism. Some strengths of the book include a careful elaboration of what means to act as the virtuous person would act in a way that shows how virtue ethics captures much that is plausible in Kantian and utilitarian accounts while avoiding their shortcomings, illustrating how virtue ethics can adequately address the problem of right action, without piggybacking on these other approaches. (Hursthouse avoids political questions where both modern ethical theories may be thought to have more plausibility.)

Hursthouse follows Anscombe and Foot in viewing naturalism as an approach that takes the grammar of 'good' to be largely consistent between evaluations of non-human animals and evaluations of human beings. This leads to a defense of virtue ethics in terms of its being the most plausible strategy for making one's life go well. Hursthouse's point is that adopting the virtues for their own sake will both benefit one individually and promote the wellbeing of social groups.

But the author's defense of naturalism raises a fundamental question that all forms of ethical naturalism must face. On this account. A virtuous life whereby one lives while supporting the wellbeing of one's fellows must, it seems, always be second best. One can always think, in these terms, that the best life would be one of undetected shirking, where one is perceived as virtuous but actually engages in opportunistic behavior.

While Hursthouse has given some basis for rejecting this claim, pointing toward goods such as intimate relationships that could not be achieved without a commitment to the virtues, more needs to be said to validate the claim that the virtues, simpliciter, benefit their possessor. In other words, that virtuous wellbeing is not the second best mode of life.

[Amelia Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure what it says about me that I cried at the conclusion of this book

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

The practice of ethical thought, as we know it, has to be based on the assumptions that human beings, as a species, are capable of harmony, both within themselves and with each other. If we suppose they are not, the whole practice collapses. There is no refutation of skepticism about this assumption. But the practice is worth going in for, there is no practicable alternative for us, so we have to take the assumption on board.

An eminently readable and well-reasoned book, On Virtue Ethics lays out a neo-Aristotelian ethical view that seeks to explain how virtue ethics can guide action, provide moral motivation, and accommodate a role for our moral emotions. She also explains how our characteristically rational nature can provide objective justification for a conception of certain character traits as virtues. While I greatly appreciate her clarity and keen insight, I found myself unconvinced by her naturalistic account of the virtues. It seems to me that our normative reasons are not grounded in our biological characteristics, and Hursthouse's argument to the contrary is less than convincing. However, her project is still admirable and worth serious engagement for anyone interested in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Persuasive.

[ꜱᴀʀᴀʜ]

she ate when she said there are no child prodigies in moral theory

[Sam Fonte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar. Rosalind Hursthouse is truly a modern genius.

“The practice of ethical thought, as we know it, has to be based on the assumption that human beings, as a species, are capable of harmony.”

[Luke Gompertz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I spent most of my time with this book wondering whether it was very technical or very poorly written – and the answer is that it’s both. As for the prose it's dry, obtuse, and parenthetical to the point of self-parody. And as a technical work it doesn't know what it wants to be, digressing into some points ad nauseam while being content to dismiss others as "simply absurd".

If you have an interest in virtue ethics I would recommend you stay away from this book as it will only make you wonder why you cared in the first place.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of ethical naturalism, it gives me a little bit of the creeps. But Hursthouse is such a wonderful writer. I really enjoyed Parts I and III of this book. Part II not so much, but then again I always find myself getting sleepy during the history of philosophy parts of books. All in all, it was thought provoking. I can't wait to read it with my class and see what they think.

[Félix · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book reads like 10 hours long discourse of an unmotivated speaker. Hursthouse's constant use of (Parentheses (inside parentheses)), superfluous verbalization and long sentences are probably major reasons for this book to be very dry to read, despite treating an interesting subject.