Grim tales from down below chapter 8

477

Chapter Ten

Contemporary Perspectives

In the introduction to Chapter 8, I mentioned that the idea of a good character as one of the key elements in a moral theory was eclipsed by the general notion that all that matters is doing the right thing. With the advent of Christianity, virtue ethics was rejected in favor of an ethics of conduct —asking the kinds of questions explored in Chapters 3–7. As we saw earlier, that was in part a result of a greater social awareness: There is more fairness in asking everybody to follow rules of conduct than there is in trying to make people adapt to vague principles of how to be, and there is a greater chance of developing rational arguments for your position regarding rules of conduct than there is of getting others to agree with your viewpoint concerning what is virtu- ous. In recent years, though, philosophers have turned their attention to the ancient thoughts about character building, and virtue theory is now experiencing a revival. (See Box 10.1 for a brief overview of virtue ethics and character.) This trend has been hotly contested by scholars such as J. B. Schneewind, who believe the original reasons for adopting ethics of conduct are still valid. The revival of virtue theory has been primarily a British and American phenom- enon, and we will look at some of the proponents of this new way of approaching ethics. In continental philosophy (European philosophy excluding the British tradi- tion), there was a separate renewal of interest in Aristotle and his virtue theory in the twentieth century, but in a sense a version of virtue theory has been in effect in con- tinental philosophy ever since the nineteenth century, and we will take a look at that tradition too. Because virtue theory is now associated with the new British∕American theory, we will call its continental counterpart the “Quest for Authenticity.”

Ethics and the Morality of Virtue as Political Concepts

As we have seen, there is a subtle difference between morality and ethics, and in the debate about virtue that difference becomes very clear. In an ethics of virtue the issue is to ask yourself what kind of person you want to be, to fi nd good reasons to back up your view and to listen to possible counterarguments, and then to set forth to shape your own character, all the while being ready to justify your choice of virtue rationally or to change your mind. An ethics of virtue doesn’t specify what kind of virtue you should strive for, although it is usually assumed that it will be something benevolent or at least nothing harmful. The important thing is that you realize you can mold your character into what you believe is right. The question of whether your chosen virtue really is a morally good choice is not necessarily part of the issue.

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478 CHAPTER 10 CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

However, a morality of virtue focuses precisely on this issue: Which virtue is de- sirable to strive for, and which is no virtue at all? Parents of young children generally know that telling stories can be an excellent way to teach moral virtues, but lately politicians as well as educators have also taken notice. The politician and writer William H. Bennett has published several collections of stories with morals— didactic stories—meant to be read to young children; the best known of those collections is simply titled The Book of Virtues and contains stories from the Western cultural heritage, as well as from other cultures, all with a short added moral explanation. (Box 10.2 discusses stories that warn against following nonvirtuous role models.) In the latter half of the twentieth century, virtue ethics made another entrance on the stage of British and American philosophy. For some thinkers it was an abso- lute necessity to make the switch from an ethics of conduct to virtue ethics because, as virtue ethicists say, you can do the right thing and still be an unpleasant person; however, if you work on your character, you will become a good person and do the right thing without even having to think about it. For others, virtue ethics has be- come a much-needed supplement to an ethics of conduct. Some see virtue ethics as a way for people to explore the issue of a good character; others view it as a way to teach what a good character should be all about.

The Political Aspect of Conduct Versus Character

In the last decade of the twentieth century, the political debate in the United States became polarized in a new way—which actually turned out to be a polished and updated version of the older polarization between conduct and character. Republican politicians brought up the issue of character: Is the candidate trustworthy? Does he or she have integrity? Does he or she keep promises? In short, is the candidate a virtuous person—in his or her private life as well? Democratic politicians responded by pointing to the public policies of the candidate: What has he or she accomplished politically so far? What social policies does the candidate support, and with what

Opponents of virtue ethics often claim that for people to be praised for what they do, or blamed for it, it must be assumed that they are responsible for their actions. But are we respon- sible for our character and disposition? Virtue theory asks us to look primarily at people’s character. Suppose we ask someone to give to charity, and she doesn’t have a generous dispo- sition. Can we then blame her for her lack of virtue? If we can’t, then virtue ethics is useless as a moral theory. It may praise people for dis- positions that they already have, but it doesn’t

tell us how to improve ourselves. Virtue theo- ry’s response to that is that certain people have certain dispositions, and in that respect some are more fortunate than others, morally speak- ing; some people are just naturally thoughtful and generous, or courageous, or truthful. The rest of us have to work on these things. Just because we lack a good disposition doesn’t mean we can’t work on improving it, and just because we have a tendency toward a certain disposition doesn’t mean we can’t work on controlling it.

Box 10.1 C A N W E C H A N G E O U R S P O T S ?

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ETHICS AND THE MORALITY OF VIRTUE AS POLITICAL CONCEPTS 479

success rate has he or she had them implemented? This is not just an interesting revival of the philosophical question of conduct versus character; it goes to the heart of how we view the importance of values. Do we think the question of personal character and integrity is the most important form of ethics—perhaps even the only form of ethics? Or do we believe that the personal standards of someone who serves the public are less important than his or her social conscience and efforts to change things presumably for the better? For some politicians, the question of character has in itself become a matter of a person’s outlook on social policies rather than a question of personal values: A person of good character is a person who supports certain social policies. Regardless of how one feels about national politics, it is philo- sophically interesting that the revived debate between ethics of conduct and virtue ethics is not always a partisan story—the virtue concept is not in itself a Republican

Virtue theory usually focuses on heroes and saints who are to be emulated, but little atten- tion is given to those characters who perhaps teach a deeper moral lesson: the negative role models. Whether we look to real-life fi gures or fi ctional characters, moral lessons can be learned by observing the destiny of “bad guys,” provided that they don’t get away with their misdeeds. (Twisted souls can, of course, learn a lesson from the evildoer who does get away with it, but that is another matter.) From child- hood we hear of people who did something they were not supposed to do and suffered the consequences. Most of these stories are issued as a warning: Don’t “cry wolf,” because in the end nobody will believe you. Look what hap- pened to Adam and Eve, who ate the fruit of the one tree they were not supposed to touch. Look what happened to the girl who stepped on a loaf of bread so she wouldn’t get her feet wet. She was pulled down into the depths of hell (in a Hans Christian Andersen story). When we grow up we learn the lesson of politicians who turned out to be crooked, of televangelists who didn’t practice what they preached, of rich and famous people who have serious drug problems. Movies and novels also bombard us with negative mod- els: Darth Vader ( Star Wars ) sells out to the Dark Side, so we learn to beware of people who have

lost their integrity. Charles Foster Kane ( Citizen Kane ) forgets his humanity and dies lonely, his heart longing for the time when he was a small boy. The Count of Monte Cristo loses his own humanity through an obsession with revenge. And Smeagol loses not only his self but even his identity as a “halfl ing” when he becomes Gol- lum through allowing the Ring to take over his spirit ( The Lord of the Rings ). Through exposure to such characters we get a warning; we live their lives vicariously and fi nd that bitterness lies at the end. Films such as Money for Noth- ing, A Simple Plan, Goodfellas, and Fargo show us that the life of selfi sh pursuits carries its own punishment. There are, however, works that fail to bring home the moral lesson because they are either too pompous or simply misin- formed. Such a fi lm is Reefer Madness, which is now a cult classic depicting the life of crime and madness that results from smoking marijuana. Another antidrug fi lm but with a far superior story and impact is Requiem for a Dream. It real- istically describes the downward spiral of drug addictions, in this case from diet pills as well as heroin. (If you remember your fallacies from Chapter 1, you’ll be able to identify Reefer Mad- ness as an example of the slippery slope fallacy, whereas Requiem depicts an actual, chilling slip- pery slope.)

Box 10.2 N E G A T I V E R O L E M O D E L S

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480 CHAPTER 10 CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

issue, and the policy issue is not by nature Democratic—it all depends on the politi- cal needs of the moment. As with so many of the moral issues we have looked at, an extreme either∕or turns out to be a bifurcation∕a false dichotomy —a false dilemma with other possible alternatives. If we assume that character is important, why should we assume that a person’s stand on social issues is less important? And if we assume that social views count, then why shouldn’t character count as well? A person can have a perfectly squeaky-clean character and yet be completely ineffective as a decision maker or a negotiator or even have little grasp of or interest in social policies and the needs of society. And a highly effective politician, well liked and radiating understanding of social and economic problems in the population, can turn out to have a personal life that is in shambles because of a lack of character. At times, though, it does seem all-important that a political leader have character and integrity—even if there is disagreement about his or her policies. The emerging pattern shows that each group focuses on what it considers most important: Conservatives have typically focused on character and liberals on a vari- ety of social policies, such as the right to abortion, affi rmative action, gun control, welfare, and other causes related to the general question of what to do. Interestingly, in the 2008 presidential campaign and the following years of the Obama presidency Conservatives often talked about policies, while some Democrats focused on the character of the candidates.

ZITS © 1997 Zits Partnership, King Features Syndicate

Virtue ethics recommends that we emulate role models; however, in this culture we also encourage individuality and the characteristics that make people unique and natural. Immanuel Kant warns about holding siblings up as role models, because that may create resentment rather than inspira- tion to be good. In Zits, the teen Jeremy is inundated with confl icting advice to be like someone else but also to be himself—is it any wonder he is confused?

Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

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HAVE VIRTUE, AND THEN GO AHEAD: MAYO, FOOT, AND SOMMERS 481

Have Virtue, and Then Go Ahead: Mayo, Foot, and Sommers

Bernard Mayo

In 1958 the American philosopher Bernard Mayo suggested that Western ethics had reached a dead end, for it had lost contact with ordinary life. People don’t live by great principles of what to do (“Do your duty” or “Make humanity happy”); instead, they measure themselves according to their moral qualities or defi ciencies on an everyday basis. Novelists have not forgotten this, says Mayo, because the books we read tell of people who try hard to be a certain way—who sometimes succeed and sometimes fail—and we, the readers, feel that we have learned something. An ethics of conduct is not excluded from virtue ethics, says Mayo—it just takes second place, because whatever we do is included in our general standard of virtue: We pay our taxes or help animals that are injured in traffi c because we believe in the virtues of being a good citizen and fellow traveler on Planet Earth. In other words, if we have a set of virtues we believe we should live by, we will usually do the right thing as a consequence. However, an ethics of conduct without virtue may not be benevolent at all; it is entirely possible to “do your duty” and still be a bad person— you do it for gain or to spite someone. (A good example of such a person is Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, who may appear to be a pillar of society but only because it is profi table to him.) You can do something courageous without actually being courageous, says Mayo (although Aristotle would insist that if you do it often enough you actually become courageous, and utilitarians would insist that it doesn’t matter why you do something, as long as it has good results). So how should we choose our actions in an everyday situation? Mayo says we shouldn’t look for specifi c advice in a moral theory (Do such and such); we should, instead, adopt general advice (Be brave∕lenient∕patient). That will ensure that we have the “unity of character” which a moral system of principles can’t give us. Mayo advises us to select a role model, either an ideal person or an actual one. Be just, be a good American—or be like Socrates or Buddha, or choose a contemporary role model (fre- quently mentioned by my students) such as Angelina Jolie or Oprah Winfrey. There are heroes and saints throughout history we can choose from, not necessarily because of what they have done, but because of the kind of people they were. So when Mayo suggests that we learn from factual exemplars such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, or perhaps our parents, he is not saying we should emulate their actual doings but, rather, that we should live in their “spirit” and respond to everyday situations with the strength that a good character can give. This is a much more realistic approach to morality than is refl ected in the high ide- als of principles and duty that an ethics of conduct has held up for people. People have felt inadequate because nobody can live up to such ideals, says Mayo, but everyone can try to be like someone he or she admires. Critics of this enthusiasm for role models have pointed out that just emulating someone you admire doesn’t in itself solve your moral dilemmas: (1) What if your idea of a role model doesn’t correspond to what other people consider models of decent behavior? This is one of the traditional problems with virtue ethics: Who gets the fi nal word about what is to count as virtue? It provides no easy method for solving moral disputes. (2) What

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482 CHAPTER 10 CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

if your role model turns out not to be so perfect after all? We have seen famous people, role models for many, take dramatic falls from the pedestal of admiration because of personal less-than-admirable choices: Golf champion Tiger Woods and politician John Edwards come to mind, both having presented themselves as fam- ily men, and then revealed to have had extramarital affairs. And even if your role model is a historical fi gure (who can’t make any new mistakes), there is always the risk that new material will surface, showing another and less virtuous side to that person. Are you then supposed to drop your hero or fi nd ways to defend him or her? (3) The most serious complaint may be the one that comes from several phi- losophers (from different time periods) who fi nd fault with the very idea that one can be virtuous by just imitating someone else. (Mayo, of course, didn’t invent that idea; he just made it part of a modern philosophy of virtue.) One is Kant, who didn’t think virtue was a character trait as such, but rather the strength of one’s good will to follow a moral principle (see Chapter 6), and you can fi nd his thought-provoking criticism in Box 10.3. Another is the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who insisted that we ought to take responsibility for every single thing we do in order to be true to ourselves and become authentic human beings. Taking such respon- sibility precludes settling for just copying what others do, because that approach would give us a false sense of who we are and a false sense of security—by making us believe we can go through life and be good persons just by imitating others. In Sartre’s terminology, we would then be living a life of inauthenticity. We look more closely at Sartre’s moral philosophy later in this chapter.

Bernard Mayo points out that Kant rejected the idea of imitating others as a moral rule and called it “fatal to morality.” Kant deplored holding up an example of an ideal, rather than striving for the ideal itself. Mayo thinks striving for the ideal itself is too much to ask of ordinary people. If we read Kant’s Lectures on Ethics, we fi nd an interesting argument for why it is not a good idea to point to people as worth emulat- ing: If I try to compare myself with someone else who is better than I am, I can either try to be as good or try to diminish that other person; this second choice is actually much easier than trying to be as good as the other person, and it invariably leads to jealousy. So when parents hold up one sibling for the other to emulate, they are paving the way for sibling rivalry; the

one who is being set up as a paragon will be re- sented by the other one. Kant suggests that we should recommend goodness as such and not proffer individuals to be emulated, because we all have a tendency to be jealous of people we think we can’t measure up to. So the Kantian rejection of role models is not merely an ab- stract preference for an ideal but also a realistic appreciation of family relationships and petty grudges. It may even serve as a valid psycho- logical explanation for why some people have a profound dislike for so-called heroes and make consistent efforts to diminish the deeds of all persons regarded as role models by society. Such an attitude may just be another reaction against being told that someone else is a better person than you are.

Box 10.3 K A N T ’ S R E J E C T I O N O F R O L E M O D E L S

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HAVE VIRTUE, AND THEN GO AHEAD: MAYO, FOOT, AND SOMMERS 483

Philippa Foot

Opponents of virtue theory ask how we can call benefi cial human traits “virtues” when some humans are born with such traits and others don’t have them at all. In other words, human responsibility for those dispositions doesn’t enter into the pic- ture at all. Good health and an excellent memory are great to have, but can we blame those who are sick and forgetful for not being virtuous? The British philosopher Philippa Foot—who invented the famous Trolley Prob- lem which you read about in Chapter 1—counters that argument in her book Virtues and Vices (1978) by stressing that virtues aren’t merely dispositions we either have or don’t have. A virtue is not just a benefi cial disposition but also a matter of our inten- tions. If we couple our willpower with our disposition to achieve some goal that is benefi cial, then we are virtuous. So having a virtue is not the same as having a skill; it is having the proper intention to do something good—and being able to follow it up with an appropriate action. For Foot, virtues are not just something we are equipped with. Rather, we are equipped with some tendency to go astray, and virtue is our capacity to correct that tendency. Human nature makes us want to run and hide when there is danger; that is why there is the virtue of courage. And we may want to indulge in more pleasure than is good for us; that is why there is the virtue of temperance. Foot points out that virtue theories seem to assume human nature is by and large sensual and fearful, but there actually may be other character defi ciencies that are more prevalent and more interesting to try to correct through virtue—such as the desire to be put upon and dissatisfi ed or the unwillingness to accept good things as they come along. But what about people who are naturally virtuous? The philosophical tradition has had a tendency to judge them rather oddly. Suppose we have two people who make the decision to lend a hand to someone in need. Person A likes to do things for others and jumps at the chance to be helpful. Person B really couldn’t care less about other people but knows that benevolence is a virtue, so he makes an effort to help in spite of his natural inclination. For Kant the person who makes an effort to overcome his or her inclination is a morally better person than the one to whom

Philippa Foot (1920–2010), a British ethicist, is credited with being one of a handful of 20th century philosophers who have revived and modernized the concept of virtue ethics. For years she held the position of Griffi n Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her works include Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (1978), Natural Goodness (2001), and Moral Dilemmas: And Other Topics in Moral Philosophy (2002).

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484 CHAPTER 10 CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

virtue comes easily. But surely there is something strange about that judgment, be- cause in real life we appreciate the naturally benevolent person so much more than the surly one who grudgingly tries to be good for the sake of a principle. As a matter of fact, those are the people we love, because they like to do things for the sake of other people. Many schools of thought agree that it takes a greater effort to over- come than to follow your inclination, so it must be more morally worthy. Aristotle, however, believed that the person who takes pleasure in doing a virtuous action is the one who is truly virtuous. Foot sides here with Aristotle: The person who likes to do good, or to whom it comes easily, is a morally better person than the one who succeeds through struggle. Why? Because the fact that there is a struggle is a sign that the person is lacking in vir- tue in the fi rst place. Not that the successful struggler isn’t good, or virtuous, but the one who did it with no effort is just a little bit better, because the virtue was already there to begin with. Foot’s own example, in Virtues and Vices, is honesty:

For one man it is hard to refrain from stealing and for another man it is not: which shows the greater virtue in acting as he should? . . . The fact that a man is tempted to steal is some- thing about him that shows a certain lack of honesty: of the thoroughly honest man we say that it “never entered his head,” meaning that it was never a real possibility for him.

In addition, Foot offers a solution to another problem plaguing virtue ethics: Can we say that someone who is committing an evil act is somehow doing it with virtue? Say that a criminal has to remain cool, calm, and collected to open a safe or has to muster courage to fulfi ll a contract and kill someone. Is that person virtuous in the sense of having self-control or courage? Foot borrows an argument from the one ethicist who is most often identifi ed with an ethics of conduct, even though his work also includes the topic of virtue—Kant: An act or a disposition can’t be called good if it isn’t backed by a good will. Foot interprets it this way: If the act is morally wrong, or, rather, if the intentions behind the act are bad, then cool-headedness and courage cease to be virtues. Virtue is not something static; it is a dynamic power that appears when the intention is to do something good. The “virtue” value is simply switched off when the good intention is absent. And here we have an answer to the study question raised at the end of Chapter 9, after Aristotle’s text on courage p. 468: Can a terrorist be courageous? Should we acknowledge that the September 11 hijack- ers were somehow brave, in spite of their evil intentions? Foot would probably say no: A virtue is nullifi ed if it is done with an evil intention. The hijackers may have experienced some kind of spiritual fortitude, but it doesn’t deserve the name courage if we view courage as a virtue. And saying that their intention may have been to do something good for somebody other than the victims doesn’t count, in any moral theory: not in the religion of Islam, which forbids the killing of innocents; nor in Christianity and Judaism, which forbid the same thing; nor in utilitarianism, which sees the immensity of the massacre and psychological turmoil that followed through- out the world as unjustifi ed by any local cause the hijackers may have had; nor in Kant’s theory, which says we should never use any other person merely as a means to an end; nor in virtue theory, which, as we can now see, holds that it is motivation that determines whether or not a character trait can be called virtuous.

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HAVE VIRTUE, AND THEN GO AHEAD: MAYO, FOOT, AND SOMMERS 485

We fi nd parallels in other situations in which there may not be any evil or crimi- nal element. Hope, for example, is generally supposed to be a virtue, but if someone is being unrealistic and daydreams about wish fulfi llment, hope is no longer a virtue. And temperance may be a virtue, but not if a person is simply afraid to throw herself into the stream of life. In that case it is a shield and not a virtue. Critics of Foot’s positive attitude toward the person who is naturally good with few selfi sh inclinations often point to Kant’s argument against the storekeeper who decides not to cheat customers (similar to the version of the argument you know from Chapter 6): To say you like your customers so much that you would never cheat them is not enough, because what if you stopped liking your customers? Similarly, the per- son who has never been tempted because susceptibility to temptation is not in her or his nature may seem a higher moral person to Foot; but perhaps it is just because that person has never come across temptation before, and in that case it is easy enough to be virtuous. True virtue, say Kant’s followers, shows itself precisely in the face of temptation—and not in its absence. However, when we have the choice between a store where they have a strict policy against cheating but the personnel are cold and grumpy and the store where they’ve known us for years and ask us how we’re doing, don’t we prefer to shop at the friendly place rather than at the unfriendly, but morally correct, place? Kant may think we should choose the unfriendly place, but Foot disagrees: We prefer friendliness, not principles. But what makes being friendly morally superior to being principled, in Foot’s view? Remember, Kant rejected the storekeeper’s third option because someone who wouldn’t cheat his or her customers because of a sunny disposition toward them is really just doing what he or she wants, out of self-gratifi cation, not out of principles. Of course, it is possible to be of a sunny disposition and be principled, but that is not the issue here. The issue is whether a sunny disposition is enough to make someone a moral person or whether having a character that isn’t tempted is morally superior to being a person who encounters temptation and fi ghts it. Foot says yes: The storekeeper who wouldn’t dream of cheat- ing her customers is a better person than the one who has had a moment’s temptation and rejected it, because temptation simply wasn’t a factor. Foot’s assumption is that it takes a weak character to be tempted. But, realistically, perhaps all that was missing was exposure and opportunity. So perhaps Kant has a point after all.