Aristotle’s 12 moral virtues are courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, proper ambition, patience, truthfulness, wittiness, modesty, friendliness, magnanimity and righteous indignation. As moral virtues these are achieved through habit, and allow the individuals character to develop, to the point where good actions will automatically come from the individual. Also Aristotle came up with the 5 primary intellectual virtues. These are technical skill, scientific knowledge, prudence, intelligence and wisdom. Then the 4 secondary intellectual virtues, which are, resourcefulness, understanding, judgement and cleverness. We all have potential to develop both types of virtue, however only a few will cultivate potential into actual virtues. Lastly are the seven capital vices. The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, are a classification of vices used in early teachings to teach and protect followers from s. The Roman Catholic divides into two types: (forgiven through any ) and or .
In connection with eudaimonia are the three forms of happiness. These are pleasure, honour and reflection. In order to become virtuous you must find a balance between the three forms, otherwise you will become only concerned with yourself. Aristotle says that these people will enjoy a life of gratification. The best way to achieve a happy life, is to do good for the society, as in everyday life we are involved in groups. These groups can be family, or friends, regardless the society from which people live, is more important than the individual. If you can’t have a life of contemplation, then friendship becomes your path to being virtuous, as morality is expressed through friendship. Friendship can help when it comes to moral decision making, especially if your friends are virtuous.
Virtue theory is all about the individual rather than the action. However, the actions we perform may affect the type of individual we eventually will become. When making moral decisions, it is known that people can make choices that are wrong. Individuals can be rash, and not think of consequences. Therefore when making moral decisions we need reason. Aristotle links reason to virtue theory in a clear and concise way. He claims that reason is the quality which sets humankind apart, and the supreme human virtue. Reason is needed to be fully human. It requires a moral sense not just an ability to think. Therefore reason involves understanding and responding, which is why it is so closely linked to eudaimonia, as practical reason is linked to happiness. If reason is not present when making moral decisions, the wrong decisions will be made, and as such the individual will not be happy.
So in Aristotle’s opinion the chosen end is eudaimonia, and the telos is to live a life of a Greek gentlemen philosopher. His main argument is that reason will entitle the individual to happiness and the ability to make moral decisions, and reach telos.
Macintyre described a virtue as; “an acquired human quality, the possession of and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods”
The ideas of Alistair Macintyre acted directly towards the increased interest in virtue. Macintyre’s views are deeply critical of many of the same notions, like Aristotle’s. However, he also attempts to give an account of virtue. He believed that there was a destruction of moral conduct after the 18th century enlightenment. As such he rejected the three divisions formed after this enlightenment. The divisions were from Hume (morality is an expression), Kant (narrow emphasis on reason) and Kierkegaard (individual choice). Macintyre believed that we cross roads between supreme individualism and community, and community dependant on morality. He maintains that the choice is already made up as all communities depend on virtues or they will fail. Therefore in theory communities should be morally guided.
Macintyre looks at a large number of historical accounts of virtue that differ in their lists of the virtues and have incompatible theories of the virtues. He uses Homeric, Athenian and Medieval virtues to express and demonstrates ethical reasoning. He concludes that these differences are attributable to different practices that generate different conceptions of the virtues. Each account of virtue requires a prior account of social and moral features in order to be understood. Thus, for example, in order to understand Homeric virtue you need to look at its social role in Greek society. The ways in which we act will influence the way other act, mainly our friends. In return the way we act allows others to judge our characters. Similarly to Aristotle, Macintyre believes the virtues which make up our character, should be at the midpoint between vice and deficiency. These points will affect the moral decisions made by an individual, as it allows them to understand that reason is required, and situations must be understood fully before coming to consequential rash decisions.. This view equally maintained by Aristotle.
Macintyre used an analogy about series of natural disasters that turn the public against the natural sciences. Much information about the sciences is lost and science only survives by children learning small pieces of science. As such Macintyre says that this is like the state of morality. Virtues, then, are exercised within practices that are coherent. The virtues enable us to achieve these goods. There is an end (or telos) that transcends all practices and it constitutes the good of a whole human life. That end is the virtue of integrity or constancy.
These two writers have both, in their own way, argued for a radical change in the way we think about morality and they way make moral decisions. Whether they call for a change of emphasis from obligation, a return to a broad understanding of ethics or to a tradition of practices that generate virtues, their dissatisfaction with the state of modern moral philosophy remains the foundation for change.
To what extent is Virtue Theory a useful method of moral decision making? (17)
Virtue theory is widely used today in terms of moral decision making. The main contributors to this theory are Aristotle and Macintyre, to name a few. It is argued whether or not it is a useful method for the basis of decision making. Therefore in order to create a coherent conclusion it is necessary that I analyze the strengths and weaknesses of virtue theory.
Virtue theory focuses on the importance of the person, and the development of that person’s character, rather than the actions of the individual and the consequences of his or her actions. Becoming virtuous requires practice. I believe, as an ethical theory, virtue ethics better accounts for good leadership than either utilitarianism or other rule-based systems. It does so because when an individual is faced with a troubling kind of situation it is the virtues that the individual has achieved that are going to guide his or her actions. When the ways of utilitarianism or other ethical theory fail to produce a good course of action, it is the individual of good character who stands the best chance to determine the most ethical course of action. This is not to say that a virtuous individual does not appeal to utility or rules to determine what the right answer is. The point is that the virtuous individual has developed the disposition to know how and when to do that in the best way possible.
For example, a lieutenant might decide that it is better to increase the happiness of his men at the expense of fulfilling his duty to obey lawful orders. But he will also understand that people who do that must take responsibility for their actions and the bad consequences those actions might have. So to prevent the bad consequences he might turn himself over to his superiors as soon as possible and take responsibility for his action. This would send the message to his subordinates that what he did may have been necessary, but it was not good. The consequences of other ethical theories may have been that the lieutenant would actually be able to conclude that torturing the civilians was a moral act, if he concluded that rescuing his men maximized happiness. Virtue ethics allows him to conclude that this may be the best course of action, but not that it is necessarily a morally good one. Conversely, he might decide that his duty to obey lawful orders is more important than the duty to his men. But again he would not conclude that it was necessarily right.
Virtue Theory attempts to determine what the ‘right thing’ to do is in a particular situation. As we have shown. Virtue ethics determines that the right thing to do is become a virtuous person. What virtuous people will understand is that they cannot instantiate one virtue, such as caring, by failing to instantiate another virtue, such as integrity. In any particular situation, the virtuous person acts in such a way that these virtues are instantiated. This is the strength of virtue ethics as an ethical guideline for happiness. Virtue ethics recognizes that good people can be put into difficult situations where any outcome has bad consequences. Acting in such a situation, however, would not necessarily make someone a bad person, though repeatedly doing so almost certainly would. Rightness or wrongness is determined by the kind of person one is, not simply by the consequences of the acts one commits, which is the essence of virtue theory. Actions may be evidence of virtue, or lack of, but they are not in themselves virtues. As such, virtue ethics recognizes, in ways the other theories do not, that while real life situations are more troubling than we would like, this does not stop us from acting ethically.
Strength of virtue theory is that it provides the proper moral motivation, the building of good character. It provides endless happiness as an incentive to do the right thing. It allows for flexibility in being partial. We can generally recognize "bad" character when we see it. Virtue theory is easy to adapt to because it’s an extremely universal ethical theory, which does not require the belief in a higher being such as god. It therefore gives people the confidence to use the theory for decision making as they will not have an element of doubt due to conflict between other religions. It is not just religions which benefit from virtue theory, but women as well. It supports feminist concerns, which will encourage women to follow its laws.
Virtue theory has shown to have some benefits and definite advantages; however there still remains weaknesses which must be analysed in order to examine its usefulness when it comes to decision making.
A weakness which overshadows all the other criticisms is that the laws of virtue theory are outdated and not applicable in the society of today. Although there are no absolutes it means that it is difficult for the theory to become outdated. However there are claims that the contributors to virtue theory have certain prejudices. For example Aristotle was said to have been sexist and ageist. Therefore some of his views may have stemmed from this prejudice, which would essentially make some of his views unacceptable in today’s society.
Firstly, I believe that virtue theory relies too much on the morals of society. For example in one country for example abortion may be acceptable due to the followed religion in that country. However, in another country abortion may be banned due to the religion that they follow. The dilemma comes around because it is hard to say which country has the correct morals, and is abortion right or wrong? A major weakness of the virtue theory is that because it is not rule based, it is in many people’s opinions too flexible. There is no real clear correct solution when it comes to making decisions and this makes it hard when it comes to decision making, because for specific moral dilemmas there is not an absolute right action. Therefore the norms of society can become the desires of the society.
Secondly, you can’t know if an individual is truly virtuous or not. For example, if an elderly person collapsed on the pavement, and an individual ran out to help the elderly person get back up, how do you know what that individuals motive was when helping the elderly person. It may have truly been to help, as that individual may be truly virtuous. However, for certain people their motive would be so that they look good, and appear virtuous, and doing acts to appear virtuous defines virtue ethics.
In conclusion virtue theory is useful in some instances with decision making, however not useful in other instances. It is a very unclear theory which needs clear understanding before being used to make decisions. Despite being different to other ethical theories, and focusing solely on the character, there is no way to resolve conflicts within virtue theory, and there is no way to determine right actions. Therefore in terms of decision making is has limited utility.
