1、1Forthcoming in D. Copp (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Ethical Theory.Presently at http:/www.u.arizona.edu/jannas/Virtue EthicsJulia AnnasIntroductionIn the tradition of Western philosophy since the fifth century B.C., the default form of ethical theory has been some version of what is nowadays call
2、ed virtue ethics; real theoretical alternatives emerge only with Kant and with consequentialism. This continued dominance is not very surprising, given that concern with virtue is a concern with the kind of person you are, and that this has always been important to real-life ethical matters in Weste
3、rn societies. (And, as is becoming increasingly familiar, this is also true of some non-Western societies and philosophical traditions, particularly Asian ones.)The tradition has taken several different forms, and sorting these out is useful for finding the underlying structure. I shall also say a l
4、ittle about the way that virtue ethics has been ignored or trivialized by analytical ethical philosophy for about a hundred years, only to re-emerge vigorously during the last forty. Virtue ethics is best approached by looking at the central features of what I shall call the classical version of the
5、 tradition. Its theoretical structure is first clearly stated by Aristotle, but it is wrong to think of it as peculiarly Aristotelian, since it underlies all of ancient ethical theory.1 The classical version is our best entry-point into the subject because we have a large amount of material which wa
6、s developed and refined over hundreds of years by extensive debate, and contains resources for establishing the whole theoretical structure, and for understanding what in it is basic and what more parochial. Modern virtue ethical theories have not yet achieved such a critical mass of argument and th
7、eory, and most are as yet partial or fragmentary. As we shall see, it is only when we have this whole picture in view that we can understand other theories which call themselves virtue ethics. So we shall first build up, cumulatively, a picture of the entire structure of classical virtue ethics, and
8、 then see how different versions of virtue ethics 2result from ignoring or rejecting parts of that structure. The result, while unavoidably schematic, should help to clarify the various debates that are growing up in virtue ethics, and help to orientate those less familiar with the terrain and somet
9、imes puzzled by the recent proliferation of theories with the name of virtue ethics. A. Virtue Ethics: the whole picture1. The Central Role of Practical ReasoningA virtue is a state or disposition of a person. This is a reasonable intuitive claim; if someone is generous, say, then she has a characte
10、r of a certain sort; she is dispositionally, that is, habitually and reliably, generous. A virtue, though, is not a habit in the sense in which habits can be mindless, sources of action in the agent which bypass her practical reasoning. A virtue is a disposition to act, not an entity built up within
11、 me and productive of behaviour; it is my disposition to act in certain ways and not others. A virtue, unlike a mere habit, is a disposition to act for reasons, and so a disposition which is exercised through the agents practical reasoning; it is built up by making choices and exercised in the makin
12、g of further choices. When an honest person decides not to take something to which he is not entitled, this is not the upshot of a causal build-up from previous actions, but a decision, a choice which endorses his disposition to be honest. The exercise of the agents practical reasoning is thus essen
13、tial to the way a virtue is both built up and exercised. Because of this feature, classical virtue ethics has been criticized as being overly intellectualist (even elitist) on this basis.2 However, the reasoning in question is just what everyone does, so it is hard to see how a theory which appeals
14、to what is available to everyone is elitist. Different virtue theories offer us differing ways of making our reflections more theoretically sophisticated, but virtue ethics tries to improve the reasoning we all share, rather than replacing it by a different kind. What is the role of the agents pract
15、ical reasoning? Virtue is the disposition to do the right thing for the right reason, in the appropriate way honestly, courageously and so on. This involves two aspects, the affective and the intellectual. 3What is the affective aspect of virtue? The agent may do the right thing and have a variety o
16、f feelings and reactions to it. She may hate doing the right thing, but do it anyway; may do the right thing but with conflicted feelings or with difficulty; do the right thing effortlessly and with no internal opposition. One feature of the classical version of virtue ethics is to regard doing the
17、right thing with no contrary inclination as a mark of the virtuous person, as opposed to the merely self-controlled. Mere performance of the right action still leaves open the issue of the agents overall attitude; virtue requires doing the right thing for the right reason without serious internal op
18、position, as a matter of character. This is, after all, just one implication of the thought that in an ethics of virtue it matters what kind of person you are. Of course, what it takes to develop your character in such a way that you are wholehearted about being generous, act fairly without regrets
19、and so on, is a large matter. There is no single unified theory of our affective nature which all virtue theories share, and so there is a variety of views as to how we are to become virtuous, rather than merely doing the right thing for the right reason. All theories in the classical tradition, how
20、ever, accept and emphasise the point, familiar from common sense, that there is an important moral difference between the person who merely acts rightly and the person who is wholehearted in what she does. Some modern theories implicitly deny the importance of this distinction, without giving a reas
21、on for this.The virtuous agent, then, does the right thing, undividedly, for the right reason she understands, that is, that this is the right thing to do. What is this understanding? In classical virtue ethics, we start our moral education by learning from others, both in making particular judgemen
22、ts about right and wrong, and in adopting some people as role models or teachers or following certain rules. At first, as pupils, we adopt these views because we were told to, or they seemed obvious, and we acquire a collection of moral views which are fragmented and accepted on the authority of oth
23、ers. For virtue ethics, the purpose of good moral education is to get the pupil to think for himself about the reasons on which he acts, and so the content of what he has been taught. Ideally, then, the learner will begin to reflect for himself on what he has accepted, will detect and deal with inco
24、nsistences, and will try to make his judgements and practice coherent in terms of a wider understanding which enables him to unify, explain and justify the particular 4decisions he makes. This is a process which requires the agent at every stage to use his mind, to think about what he is doing and t
25、o try to achieve understanding of it.3 We can see this from an example. In many modern societies the obvious models for courage are macho ones focussing on sports and war movies. A boy may grow up thinking that these are the paradigmatic contexts for courage, and have various views about courage and
26、 cowardice which presuppose this. But if he reflects about the matter, he may come to think that he is also prepared to call people in other, quite different contexts brave a child struggling with cancer, someone standing up for an unpopular person in high school, and so on. Further reflection will
27、show that the macho grasp of courage was inadequate, and will drive him to ask what links all these very diverse cases of bravery; this will lead him to ask what the reasons are on which brave people act, rather than to continue uncritically with the views and attitudes he initially found obvious. T
28、he development of ethical understanding, leading the agent to develop a disposition which is a virtue, is in the classical tradition standardly taken to proceed like the acquisition of a practical skill or expertise. As Aristotle says, becoming just is like becoming a builder. With a practical skill
29、, there is something to learn, something conveyable by teaching; the expert is the person who understands through reflection what she has been taught, and thinks for herself about it. We are familiar with the notion of practical expertise in mundane contexts like that of car repair, plumbing and so
30、on. In the classical tradition of virtue ethics, this is an important analogy, because ethical development displays something that we can see more clearly in these more limited contexts: there is a progress from the mechanical rule- or model-following of the learner to the greater understanding of t
31、he expert, whose responses are sensitive to the particularities of situations as well as expressing learning and general reflection. The skill analogy brings out two important points about ethical understanding: it requires both that you learn from others and that you come to think and understand fo
32、r yourself. (The all-important progress from the learner to the expert is lost in the modern tendency to reduce all practical knowledge to knowing how as opposed to knowing that.) Ethical reflection begins from what you have learned in your society; but it requires you to progress from that. Virtue
33、begins from following rules or models in your 5social and cultural context; but it requires that you develop a disposition to decide and act which goes through the understanding that only you can achieve in your own case. Virtue is like a skill in its structure. But the skill analogy of course has l
34、imits. One is that practical skills are devoted to achieving ends from which we can detach ourselves if we cease to want them, whereas virtue is devoted to achieving our final end, which, as we shall see, is not in this way an end we can just cease to want. Another limit is that the development of p
35、ractical understanding in a skill can be relatively independent of emotion and feeling, whereas the development of practical understanding goes along with a development in the virtuous persons affect and response. Some modern theorists have difficulty grasping the role of practical reasoning in the
36、classical version of virtue ethics because it offends against a common modern dogma to the effect that reason functions only instrumentally, to fulfil whatever desires we happen to have. The issue is too large to discuss here, but it is important to notice that the classical theory of practical reas
37、oning is a theoretical rival to this account, so that assuming it against the classical version of virtue ethics is begging the question. (One of the most interesting and fruitful modern debates in ethics is opening up the question of the tenability of the instrumentalist account.) The classical acc
38、ount can be shown to be empirically well-supported, and this makes it easier to show that virtue ethics of the classical kind is not vulnerable to some criticisms which assume the truth of an account of practical reasoning which it rejects.4The classical account has also been criticized because of t
39、he notions of disposition and character that are central to it. Some modern theories object to making character basic to ethical discourse, as opposed to single actions; this reflects a difference between types of ethical theory which focus on actions in isolation and types which emphasise the impor
40、tance of the agents life as a whole, and, relatedly, the importance of moral education and development. Recently virtue ethics of the classical kind has been attacked on the ground that its notion of a disposition is unrealistic. These attacks rely on some work in situationist social psychology whic
41、h claims that unobvious aspects of particular situations have a large role in explaining our actions. Some philosophers have claimed from this that we are not justified in thinking that people have robust character traits; for, 6if they did, these would explain their actions reliably and across a wi
42、de variety of types of situation, excluding this kind of influence.5 However, these studies assume a notion of disposition which is defined solely in terms of frequency of actions, where the actions in question are defined with no reference to the agents own reasons for acting. For virtue ethics, ho
43、wever, a virtue is a disposition to act for reasons, and claims about frequency of action are irrelevant to this until some plausible connection is established with the agents reasons, something none of the situationists have done.6 2. Virtues and my flourishingVirtues, then, are character traits of
44、 the kind discussed. There are character traits, however, which are not virtues. To qualify as a virtue, a character trait must embody a commitment to some ethical value, such as justice, or benevolence. Moreover, this commitment is not merely a matter of performing actions which happen to be just,
45、benevolent or whatever; a disposition, as already stressed, works through the agents practical reasoning. The virtues are dispositions to be just, benevolent and so on, to give others their fair share, treat others in considerate ways, stand up for others rights. So far I have talked of virtue, but
46、of course in everyday life we encounter a number of different virtues fairness, generosity, courage and so on. The virtues, as we ordinarily think of them, embody commitments to a number of values, and this comes out in the ways in which different kinds of situation are typically thought of as requi
47、ring different virtues. What makes such diverse virtues as courage and generosity virtues, dispositions which it is ethically admirable to have? Any theory of virtue will have something to say about the way the different virtues are valuable. Since the virtues are dispositions of me, they are ways t
48、hat I am, traits of my character; so they contribute to my living my life as a whole in a certain way. So thinking about the virtues leads to thinking of my life as a whole. This notion is crucial, and is prominent in all forms of classical virtue ethics, because the virtues make sense only within a
49、 conception of living which takes the life I live to be an overall unity, rather than a succession of more or less unconnected states. And further, cultivating the virtues is worthwhile because living virtuously will constitute 7my living my life as a whole in a way which lives it well, in a way which it is valuable to live.The final end to which the virtues contribute is often called eudaimonia, since this is the term found in ancient Greek theories (which are hence, unsurprisingly, called eudaimonist). The least unsatisfactory modern English equivalent is flourish
