Virtue ethicist

Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics,^[a]^[1] from Greek ἀρετή ) is an approach that treats virtue and character as the primary subjects of ethics, in contrast to other ethical systems that put consequences of voluntary acts, principles or rules of conduct, or obedience to divine authority in the primary role.^[2]

Virtue ethics is usually contrasted with two other major approaches in ethics, consequentialism and deontology, which make the goodness of outcomes of an action (consequentialism) and the concept of moral duty (deontology) central. While virtue ethics does not necessarily deny the importance to ethics of goodness of states of affairs or of moral duties, it emphasizes virtue, and sometimes other concepts, like eudaimonia, to an extent that other ethics theories do not.

Key concepts

Virtue and vice

In virtue ethics, a virtue is a characteristic disposition to think, feel, and act well in some domain of life.^[3] In contrast, a vice is a characteristic disposition to think, feel, and act poorly. Virtues are not everyday habits; they are character traits, in the sense that they are central to someone’s personality and what they are like as a person.

In early versions and some modern versions of virtue ethics, a virtue is defined as a character trait that promotes or exhibits human excellence ("flourishing and wellbeing", eudaimonia) in the person who exhibits it.^[4] Some modern versions of virtue ethics do not define virtues in terms of human excellence or flourishing, and some go so far as to define virtues as traits that tend to promote some other good that is defined independently of the virtues, thereby subsuming virtue ethics under (or somehow merging it with) consequentialist ethics.^[5]

To Aristotle, a virtue was not a skill that made you better able to achieve eudaimonia but was itself an expression of eudaimonia—eudaimonia in activity.^[6]

In contrast with consequentialist and deontological ethical systems, in which one may be called upon to do the right thing even though it is not in one's own interests (one is to do it instead for the greater good, or out of duty), in virtue ethics, one does the right thing because it is in one's own interests. Part of training in practical virtue ethics is to come to see the coincidence of one's enlightened self-interest and the practice of the virtues, so that one is virtuous willingly, gladly, and enthusiastically because one knows that being virtuous is the best thing one can do with oneself.^[7]^: I

Virtue and emotion

In ancient Greek and modern eudaimonic virtue ethics, virtues and vices are complex dispositions that involve both affective and intellectual components.^[8] That is, they are dispositions that involve both being able to reason well about the right thing to do (see below on phronesis), and also to engage emotions and feelings correctly.

For example, a generous person can reason well about when and how to help people, and such a person also helps people with pleasure and without conflict. In this, virtuous people are contrasted not only with vicious people (who reason poorly about what to do and are emotionally attached to the wrong things) and with the incontinent (who are tempted by their feelings into doing the wrong thing even though they know what is right), but also with the merely continent (whose emotions tempt them toward doing the wrong thing but whose strength of will lets them do what they know is right).

According to Rosalind Hursthouse, in Aristotelian virtue ethics, the emotions have moral significance because "virtues (and vices) are all dispositions not only to act, but to feel emotions, as reactions as well as impulses to action... In the person with the virtues, these emotions will be felt on the right occasions, toward the right people or objects, for the right reasons, where 'right' means 'correct'..."^[9]

Phronesis and eudaimonia

Phronesis (φρόνησις; prudence, practical virtue, or practical wisdom) is an acquired trait that enables its possessor to identify the best thing to do in any given situation.^[10] Unlike theoretical wisdom, practical reason results in action or decision.^[11] As John McDowell puts it, practical wisdom involves a "perceptual sensitivity" to what a situation requires.^[12]

Eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία) is a state variously translated from Greek as 'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'.^[13] Eudaimonia in this sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state.^{[citation needed]} It characterizes the well-lived life.

According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of eudaimonia in the Western philosophical tradition, eudaimonia defines the goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality—reason—as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia is an "activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue",^[7]^: I which further could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the polis or city-state.^[14]

Although eudaimonia was first popularized by Aristotle, it now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally.^[15] For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus, to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what is the human purpose.

Not all modern virtue ethics theories are eudaimonic; some place another end in place of eudaimonia, while others are non-teleological: that is, they do not account for virtues in terms of the results that the practice of the virtues produce or tend to produce.^[16]

History of virtue

Like much of the Western tradition, virtue theory originated in ancient Greek philosophy.

Virtue ethics began with Socrates, and was subsequently developed further by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.^[17] Virtue ethics concentrates on the character of the individual, rather than the acts (or consequences thereof) of the individual. There is debate among adherents of virtue ethics concerning what specific virtues are praiseworthy. However, most theorists agree that ethics is demonstrated by the practice of virtues.

Plato and Aristotle's treatments of virtues are not the same. Plato believes virtue is effectively an end to be sought, for which a friend might be a useful means. Aristotle states that the virtues function more as means to safeguard human relations, particularly authentic friendship, without which one's quest for happiness is frustrated.

Discussion of what were known as the four cardinal virtues—wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance—can be found in Plato's Republic. The virtues also figure prominently in Aristotle's ethical theory found in Nicomachean Ethics.^[7]

Virtue theory was inserted into the study of history by moralistic historians such as Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus. The Greek idea of the virtues was passed on in Roman philosophy through Cicero and later incorporated into Christian moral theology by Ambrose of Milan. During the scholastic period, the most comprehensive consideration of the virtues from a theological perspective was provided by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae and his Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics.^[18]

After the Reformation, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics continued to be the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities until the late seventeenth century, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published on the Nicomachean Ethics before 1682.^[19]

Though the tradition receded into the background of European philosophical thought in the past few centuries, the term "virtue" remained current during this period, and in fact appears prominently in the tradition of classical republicanism or classical liberalism. This tradition was prominent in the intellectual life of 16th-century Italy, as well as 17th- and 18th-century Britain and America; indeed the term "virtue" appears frequently in the work of Tomás Fernández de Medrano, Niccolò Machiavelli, David Hume, the republicans of the English Civil War period, the 18th-century English Whigs, and the prominent figures among the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding Fathers.

Contemporary "aretaic turn"

Although some Enlightenment philosophers (e.g. Hume) continued to emphasise the virtues, with the ascendancy of utilitarianism and deontological ethics, virtue theory moved to the margins of Western philosophy. The contemporary revival of virtue theory is frequently traced to the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy".^[20] Following this:

In the 1976 paper "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories", Michael Stocker summarises the main aretaic criticisms of deontological and consequentialist ethics.^[21]
Philosopher, psychologist, and encyclopedist Mortimer Adler appealed to Aristotelian ethics, and the virtue theory of happiness or eudaimonia throughout his published work.
Philippa Foot, published a collection of essays in 1978 entitled Virtues and Vices.^[22]
Alasdair MacIntyre made an effort to reconstruct a virtue-based theory in dialogue with the problems of modern and postmodern thought; his works include After Virtue and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.^[23]
Paul Ricoeur accorded an important place to Aristotelian teleological ethics in his hermeneutical phenomenology of the subject, most notably in his book Oneself as Another.^[24]
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas found the language of virtue helpful in his own project.
Roger Crisp and Michael Slote edited a collection of important essays titled Virtue Ethics.^[25]
Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen employed virtue theory in theorising the capability approach to international development.
Julia Annas wrote The Morality of Happiness (1993).^[26]
Lawrence C. Becker identified current virtue theory with Greek Stoicism in A New Stoicism. (1998).^[27]
Rosalind Hursthouse published On Virtue Ethics (1999).^[28]
Psychologist Martin Seligman drew on classical virtue ethics in conceptualizing positive psychology.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman opens his book on Emotional Intelligence with a challenge from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.^[29]
Michael Sandel discusses Aristotelian ethics to support his ethical theory of justice in his book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

The aretaic turn in moral philosophy is paralleled by analogous developments in other philosophical disciplines. One of these is epistemology, where a distinctive virtue epistemology was developed by Linda Zagzebski and others. In political theory, there has been discussion of "virtue politics", and in legal theory, there is a small but growing body of literature on virtue jurisprudence. The aretaic turn also exists in American constitutional theory, where proponents argue for an emphasis on virtue and vice of constitutional adjudicators^{[clarification needed]}.^{[citation needed]}

Aretaic approaches to morality, epistemology, and jurisprudence have been the subject of intense debates. One criticism focuses on the problem of guidance; opponents, such as Robert Louden in his article "Some Vices of Virtue Ethics", question whether the idea of a virtuous moral actor, believer, or judge can provide the guidance necessary for action, belief formation, or the resolution of legal disputes.^[30]

Lists of virtues

There are several lists of virtues. Socrates argued that virtue is knowledge, which suggests that there is really only one virtue.^[31] The Stoics identified four cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. Wisdom is subdivided into good sense, good calculation, quick-wittedness, discretion, and resourcefulness. Justice is subdivided into piety, honesty, equity, and fair dealing. Courage is subdivided into endurance, confidence, high-mindedness, cheerfulness, and industriousness. Temperance or moderation is subdivided into good discipline, seemliness, modesty, and self-control.^[32]

John McDowell argues that virtue is a "perceptual capacity" to identify how one ought to act, and that all particular virtues are merely "specialized sensitivities" to a range of reasons for acting.^[33]

Aristotle's list

Aristotle identifies approximately 18 virtues that demonstrate a person is performing their human function well.^[7] He distinguished virtues pertaining to emotion and desire from those relating to the mind.^[7]^: II The first he calls moral virtues, and the second intellectual virtues (though both are "moral" in the modern sense of the word).

Moral virtues

Aristotle suggested that each moral virtue was a mean (see golden mean) between two corresponding vices, one of excess and one of deficiency. Each intellectual virtue is a mental skill or habit by which the mind arrives at truth, affirming what is or denying what is not.^[7]^: VI In the Nicomachean Ethics he discusses about 11 moral virtues:

SPHERE OF ACTION OR FEELING	EXCESS	MEAN: MORAL VIRTUE	DEFICIENCY
Fear and confidence	Rashness	Courage in the face of fear^[7]^{: III.6–9}	Cowardice
Pleasure and pain	Licentiousness / self-indulgence	Temperance in the face of pleasure and pain^[7]^{: III.10–12}	Insensibility
Getting and spending (minor)	Prodigality	Liberality with wealth and possessions^[7]^: IV.1	Illiberality / meanness
Getting and spending (major)	Vulgarity / tastelessness	Magnificence with great wealth and possessions^[7]^: IV.2	Pettiness / stinginess Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Virtue_ethicist Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších podmienok. Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky použitia. Navigácia: Veda > Analytika Antropológia Aplikované vedy Bibliometria Dejiny vedy Encyklopédie Filozofia vedy Forenzné vedy Humanitné vedy Knižničná veda Kryogenika Kryptológia Kulturológia Literárna veda Medzidisciplinárne oblasti Metódy kvantitatívnej analýzy Metavedy Metodika Metodológia vedy Náboženstvo a veda Náučná literatúra Podvody vo vede Popularizácia vedy Potravinárstvo Prírodné vedy Pseudoveda Scientometria Spoločenské vedy Teórie Teatrológia Technické vedy Technika Terminológia Umenie Výskum Veda Veda a technika podľa štátu Veda a technika podľa kontinentu Veda a technika podľa roka Veda v kozme Vedci Vedecká literatúra Vedecké databázy Vedecké experimenty Vedecké konferencie Vedecké metódy Vedecké ocenenia Vedecké organizácie Vedecké parky Vedeckí spisovatelia Vzdelávanie Záhady Príbuzné výrazy: Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších podmienok. Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky použitia. www.astronomia.sk \| www.biologia.sk \| www.botanika.sk \| www.dejiny.sk \| www.economy.sk \| www.elektrotechnika.sk \| www.estetika.sk \| www.farmakologia.sk \| www.filozofia.sk \| Fyzika \| www.futurologia.sk \| www.genetika.sk \| www.chemia.sk \| www.lingvistika.sk \| www.politologia.sk \| www.psychologia.sk \| www.sexuologia.sk \| www.sociologia.sk \| www.veda.sk I www.zoologia.sk

[a]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]