Dr. Garcia gave an outline of virtue-based moral theory, harnessing the opinions of others and engaging them through dialectic to present his own account.
(1) He maintains that it is a fundamental characteristic of a virtue ethics (or, a virtues-based moral theory, which he prefers) that the virtues are basic. All other moral claims are justified and explained on the basis of the virtues.
(2) Now, there are different versions of virtue ethics. Dr. Garcia's version is role-centered, in that role-relationships are fundamental in defining the moral life, and explaining the rest of moral claims.
(3) Also, in his virtues-based moral theory, moral reasoning is patient-focused. That is, it is focused on the needs of the other upon whom I act, not mine. There si an objective element to evaluation; it is not purely subjective.
(4) In addition, in examining action we can look at the output (the outcome or effect) and also the input--the desires, intentions that feed into the action. Consequentialism focuses on outputs; VBMT also looks at the intentions.
Now, with respect to moral vocaulary, there are three families of terms.
1. Concepts or claims about what is desirable/valuable (prominent in consequentialism/teleological ethics)
2. Concepts about what is obligatory/forbidden--deontic value notions (prominent in deontological ethics)
3. Concepts about virtuous good-making and vices
In a VBMT, the virtues are fundamental. What is desirable or right/wrong is understood in terms of the virtues.
What is the right thing to do? --> What is virtuous.
Virtue ethics is usually presented as an alternative to deontological and teleological theories. Still, the nature of virtue ethics is unclea and disputed--it seems that any adequate moral theory will have some account of the virtues.
There are two possibilities.
(1) virtues are autonomous/independent from what is desirable or right
(2) virtues are fundamental--that is to say, everything else is understood in terms of the virtues
(contrast with Richard Brandt, and utilitarian virtue ethics)
Virtues are foundational
(1) Focus of the moral agen'ts attention
(2) Focus of the theorist's attention
Dr. Garcia wishes to focus on (2).
One version makes use of value theory -- claims about intrinsic value--what is suitable/appropriate to choose, consent to, endorse, want, favor, etc.
(value theory: Garcia's reference to Scheler, Brentano[SEP], and Winan(?); my links: what is phenomenology; the philosophy of value in the 21st century )
In a virtues ethic, character/being is central, while doing is peripheral. Rules are crude maps, not precise guides or standards.
Then he responded to various ethical theorists (mostly analytics?), including Christine Korsgaaard [publications, interview], Henry Richardson, Judith Thompson, Rosalind Hursthouse [on virtue ethics], Michael Slote.
Virtues/virtuous acts help roles, bring about the good in which the role consists. Virtues make us good, but not in a causal sense; it is not an effect that virtue brings about, but it counts towards it. To be a good friend, for example, is to be trustworthy. It is constitutive, not causal.
One judges actions to be wrong by linking them to the voices or to moral inputs. Even if actions are judged to be right or wrong in terms of the moral laws or rules, laws are a crude way of talking about what is vicious.
Talk of acting from virtue is ambiguous--is one talking about from character or virtuous motivation?
Is a virtuous action would be virtuously motivated? Or generally or likely to be virtuously motivated?
A familiar case/counter-example: certain actions are virtuous, others are vicious. One doesn't need to refer to anything else in the agent's motiviation to make an evaluation.
An example from Judith Thompson, whom Dr. Garcia considers to be an ally rather than an adversary on this point--if someone is drwoning, their life is in danger. If one is passing by and sees a life preserver handy, it is right to toss it to the drowning person. The external action has certain objective characteristics.
Still, one needs to look also at the motivation or intention to evaluate.
M. Slote: right act expresses a virtuous motive (it is what a virtuous agent would do)
R. Hursthouse: right action is what a virtuous agent would do if fully informed (knowledge of circumstances)
(later view: what a virtuous agent would characteristically do)
One does need to look at the concrete aspect of situation--rightness is dependent upon what is actual, not hypothetical features of a situation. Utilitarians also look at counterfactuals; deliberation seems to be about action that has not yet come to be.
I spoke with Dr. Garcia afterwards; he said that if he were to include a discussion of community, it would fall under role-relationships--how the individual relates to the community, etc. He did not have a definition of the common good ready.
Some reflections
It seems that much of what Dr. Garcia is writing can be reconciled with Aristotle and Aquinas, though he is not sure if one needs a robust account of nature and teleology (such as found in Aristotle) to make virtue-based ethics work--but he suspects that it is the case and inevitable.
Aristotle's ethics, after all, is eudaimonistic, and it seems to go against popular understanding of human action and motivation (even if its only implicit and must be drawn out through questioning) to exclude considerations of happiness from ethics.
The focus on input is the same as the Thomistic understanding of the importance of the intention for the evaluation of the morality of human action. It does not suffice for an action to be virtuous if the external act is good--one must look also at the intention. It is virtuous if it is done out of virtue.
On the other hand, the emphasis on the patient reminds of the Thomistic teaching on the morality of the external act--one does not evaluate human action based on intention alone, but must look at the goodness (or lack thereof) intrinsic to the external act. This applies not only to justice, but to all the other virtues which order our relations to others.
One can also agree that rules, being general in nature, can take one only so far in moral reasoning; ultimately one must develop the virtue of prudence to determine what action to take.
It may seem to academics (and Dr. Garcia holds this opinion) that Aristotle and Aquinas do not talk much about roles. (Though Dr. Garcia does recognize that Aristotle wants to say that the virtues will differ among people as their function differs.) I think Aristotle and Aquinas can be read in light of "common-sense" undestandings of role differentiation. Aquinas after all distinguishes between particular justice and the potential parts of justice, and the order of charity--how we are obligated to different people in different ways, based on how they are related to us.
While one can reconcile value with the classical moral tradition's conception of the good (if one is willing to postpone the discussion of the "epistemology" that underlies and justifies the use of the word value--it would seem that there is a divide between phenomenology and Aristotelian or moderate realism on this point), I would not be so quick as to say that virtue is always prior to all notiosn of the "good." I think that some notions of "good" are prior to virtue, as the New Natural Law theorists make explicit in their writings. Which good? Not good as it is predicated of an action, but of an end. Virtues, and the actions which flow from them, are desirable for their own sake, but also for the sake of the end to which they are ordered, and these ends are prior, as final causes.
Finally...
The following is not directed to Dr. Garcia in particular, but to academic philosophers, especially those of a certain school. It is not clear to me why virtue ethicists are trying to reinvent the wheel, rather than submittingto a tradition. For Catholics, Aeterni Patris can be interpreted in this light, to call Catholic philosophers to immerse themselves in the Thomistic tradition, to making it living so as to be able to engage "modern questions" but more importantly, their contemporaries. Perhaps the overt religious character of the medieval tradition is an obstacle; that's too bad. Certainly those who are turned away from the medievals must read Aristotle as if no one read him in the two millenia who separates him from the moderns.
There is a need among many philosophers to be "original", to discover things on one's own -- is this attributable to a malaise called modernity? Or just to pride? If one is still an inquirer and a learner, what can one pass on to students? The art of thinking? But there is more to philosophy than logic--do we discard what has been left for us by our predecessors? One would expect a teacher to be a little bit more advanced on the road to knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps academic philosophers think they are more advanced, but if they do, many are rather deluded.
If we do not understand what they are saying, then should we not be silent instead of passing judgment? On the other hand, if we disagree with what they are saying, do we have a solid foundation for our own opinions? Now some may recognize that there is a value to studying previous texts, but often they read these texts in light of their philosophical preconceptions, or they are merely looking for proof texts for their own positions, either as a (secondary) argument from authority or to show that others are agreeing with what they are saying. (Or to show that those ancients were not that wrong after all, though still a bit wrong...)
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