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II. A SPIRATION C ORNER
Modern Views on Virtue Ethics
Carmen Rodica Dobre (University of Sofia)
Abstract : This paper analyzes some influential ideas in virtue ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his work After Virtue , and Elizabeth Anscombe, in his controversial essay “Modern Moral Philosophy”, brought fresh ideas into moral philosophy of their time changing views on contempo- rary morality. They strongly influenced moral philosophers who then followed their ideas. The two philosophers criticized contemporary moral philosophies such as emotivism, utilitarianism, deontology. Elizabeth Anscombe criticized also the use of the concepts of duty and moral obligation in the absence of God as the context God had no place. For solving the quests of modern morality, both MacIntyre and Anscombe proposed that the only solution was the returning to ancient Aristotelian virtues.
Key words : virtue ethics, moral philosophy, utilitarianism, moral obli- gation, Aristotelian virtues.
1. G.E.M. Anscombe and Modern Moral Philosophy
The British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe is one of the most impor- tant philosophers of the twentieth century and the disciple of Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of them being known for their profound analytical knowledge. Her writings in ethics and moral philosophy were extremely influential, Elizabeth Anscombe being one of the first philosophers for- mulating the contemporary theory of action (subdomain of philosophy which analyzes the ultimate nature of reality). Her essay, “Modern Moral Philosophy ” , had a lasting impact on ethics with a significant contribution to the revival of the school of philosophy called virtue eth- ics influencing also the philosophical thinking in the field of moral phi- losophy. Among the philosophers influenced by Anscombe’s ideas are the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, in his work, After Virtue , Philippa Foot, in her work, Virtues and Vices , and Rosalind Hursthouse,
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in her work About Virtue Ethics , in which the philosopher contends that the virtue ethics can produce v-rules, that is rules centered on virtues and vices.^1 Writing after the World War II, Elizabeth Anscombe criticized the consequentialist morality prevailing at that time challenging the founda- tions of moral philosophy themselves and the research in the field of eth- ics of that time. The philosopher argues that there is no sense in moral philosophy as long as important concepts such as obligation, justice and virtue are not sufficiently analyzed and well understood pointing to the contemporary moral philosophy about which she claims that it uses these notions without a clear meaning. In her work, “Modern Moral Philosophy ” , Elizabeth Anscombe approaches the importance of acting ethically, the value of ethics in philosophy and concepts such as the moral obligation (an imperative over the individual to do or to refrain from do- ing something) in a society becoming more and more secularized.
1.1. The Main Themes in Modern Moral Philosophy
In Elizabeth Anscombe’s essay, “Modern Moral Philosophy”, there are three main themes: concepts of moral obligation which became irrele- vant in a secular society, the critics of the contemporary British philoso- phers, the majority of them being consequentialists (judged the moral value of an action according to its consequences and according to utili- tarian principles) concluding that without a philosophy adequate to psy- chology, moral philosophy becomes a sterile study^2. Elizabeth Anscombe invented the term “consequentialism” in or- der to describe a philosophical perspective according to which a moral judgment concerning an action can be done by its predictable conse- quences and objects regarding this perspective by Kant’s ethics accord- ing to which an action is moral if and only if it can be done in the frame of a universal law. Elizabeth Anscombe formulated new ideas which were to become a new branch in ethics: virtue ethics. Getting a Catholic education, the British philosopher posed some
(^1) Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics , (Oxford, Oxford University Press,
2001), pp.36- (^2) G.E.M. Anscombe , “ Modern Moral Philosophy,” in Philosophy 33, no.124,
1958, p.1.
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and universal morality would not depend on the fluctuation of the deci- sions of a majority. In the contemporary world, accustomed with the challenge of death of civilians in international open conflicts in the name of a higher good, the British philosopher offered a radical alterna- tive putting the accent on justice, wisdom, and the temperance of actions rather than on their consequences. The author of “ Modern Moral Philosophy” took into account four approaches of the moral philosophy: consequentialism which focused on the consequences of an action only, Kant’s ethics focused on the indi- vidual determination concerning the moral norms and rules to adopt, duty being at the basis of any moral action, the ethics of the divine commandments focused on the submission to God’s Law representing an approach of the Christian morality, and virtue ethics, the moral per- spective of the ancient Greece, focused on understanding and develop- ing the virtues, considering that the target of ethics was the development and the practice of the virtues defined as dispositions of character ex- pressed in human actions, such as wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, prudence. Elizabeth Anscombe analyzed and criticized the main phi- losophies of the ‘50s; she considered consequentialism to be profoundly morally problematic and she proposed its replacement with a return to the Aristotelian approach of ethics supported by psychology. Consequentialism, usually known as utilitarianism, was developed by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham who, in his work, An Introduction to Moral Principles and Law (1789), sustained that “pleas- ure and pain are the two masters of humanity/ mankind in competition who govern us in all that we do, in all that we say and in all that we think.”^3 Bentham also suggested a way to calculate the morality of an action according to the pleasure produced by that action or to prevented or reduced pain. Bentham’s student, Stuart Mill, developed this theory even more in his influential book, Utilitarianism (1861). According to Kant, the individual produces moral norms for him- self based on that which any rational person would do in a given situa- tion (the categorical imperative). For example, a rational person never chooses to lie, because if he lies in order to cheat somebody then implic-
(^3) Jeremy Bentham, An Itroduction to Moral Principles and Law , (Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1907).
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itly he supports others to lie to him when it is in their financial advan- tage. This way, the capacity to distinguish between truth and false would be lost and people would live in a world which no rational thinker would choose. Aristotle sustained that a good life characterized by eudaimonia (happiness or blessing) is the supreme good for the human being and it can be obtained through cultivating the virtues such as courage, honesty, justice, prudence, wisdom, temperance, compassion. But virtue ethics was not conceived on being good as a mental state, but on doing the good (doing good actions), this being the key of Aristotle’s belief in the virtuous activity. 4
1.3. The Return to Aristotle’s Ethics of Virtues
In her essay, “Modern Moral Philosophy”, Elizabeth Anscombe con- trasted all the forms of the moral philosophy with Aristotle’s view and then she suggested giving coherence to moral philosophy by in - vigorating the notion of virtue, sustaining that “After all, it is possible to advance towards the consideration of a concept of virtue with which I suppose we should begin the study of ethics.”^5 The main research in “Modern Moral Philosophy” refers to the nature and meaning of the moral obligation. The author rose the question in a challenging and unique mode showing that moral obligation and moral necessity had no meaning in philosophical discourse of her time. She argued that the term of moral obligation was remnant from the Christian belief in which the divine authority was that who gave the laws; God being the supreme au- thority, power and wisdom, the Creator of the moral obligations, we should behave according to his commandments. Consequentialists did not believe in God, or, even if they believed, however, they did not be- lieve that the divine authority created moral obligations, but they used the Christian concept of moral obligation without explaining its mean- ing. Elizabeth Anscombe suggested that the moral philosophers should have given up using the terms they took from Christian morality (a sys-
(^4) Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , (Cambridge, ed. Roger Crisp, Cambridge
University Press, 2014). (^5) G.E.M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy ” , in Philosophy 33,
no.124,195, 1958, pp.12-13.
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at the same action is different in different circumstances. For example, the destruction of one’s house is usually considered a bad thing; how- ever, if this is done in order to prevent the extending of the fire from a house to another in a village, the circumstances change and the way we look at the same action in moral terms also changes. The consequential- ists would state that the predictable consequences (the salvation of other houses in the village) makes the unjust action correct from the moral point of view, but for Anscombe, that which makes a crucial difference is the intention. The British philosopher claims that the nuanced descrip- tion of the action would mean that it is incorrect for an unjust action to be presented as being moral through its predictable consequences, as the consequentialists would claim. 8 All that Elizabeth Anscombe saw as a general moral decline in the civil society, she considered as derived from consequentialism which gave permission for any kind of action, even seeming immoral, on the basis of its predictable consequences. Her worry regarding the consequentialism reached beyond philosophy enter- ing the problematic arena of the public morality.
1.4. The Significance of Anscombe’s Philosophical Ideas in Moral Philosophy
Anscombe’s innovation in moral philosophy was the application of Ar- istotle’s thinking to our contemporary problems. She analyzed Aris- totle’s virtue ethics which constitutes an approach based on the observa- tion of the important values and concepts like wisdom, justice, courage, temperance, honesty which do not require either the concept of obliga- tion or a divine legislator. The British philosopher considered that the moral philosophers were dealing with a dilemma: to return to a form of faith in a divine legislator or to follow a version of Aristotelian ethics of virtues. Elizabeth Anscombe was the first philosopher suggesting that the moral philosophy have to return to the ethics of virtues. She was able to reconcile the rigid Roman-Catholicism with the teachings of Frege, Wittgenstein and Aristotle. Due to the fact that her thinking was so dif- ferent from other moral philosophers of that time her ideas had the status of novelty and they gradually gained support. In her essay, “Modern
(^8) Ibidem, p.
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Moral Philosophy”, the British philosopher identified two elements with universal application: the first was a general analysis of the concept of morality and of the relation between the moral obligation and a sup- posed divine legislator; the second element was the contrast between the consequentialist approach of ethics and the approach based on virtues. The moral obligation had been deprived of its original meaning through the rejection of Christianity. Elizabeth Anscombe initiated the move- ment for virtue ethics in moral philosophy and she supported the return to the ethics of virtues as a logic conclusion of the contemporary quests in clarification and substantiation of central concepts in ethics.^9 “Modern Moral Philosophy” is a key point for the beginning of the studies in virtue ethics and moral philosophy; it contributed to the trans- formation of moral philosophy in the 20th and 21st centuries, the essay having a great capacity to inspire the philosophers to initiate research in virtue ethics which continues to grow in popularity and academic rigor. The virtue ethics is the beginning point in fields such as political phi- losophy and applied ethics, a subdomain of moral philosophy centered on the application of moral principles to concrete situations containing subdivisions such as bioethics and ethics of technology investigating problems in the field of medical ethics and environmental ethics.
2. Alasdair MacIntyre and the Return to the Classical Values
The Scottish philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre is a supporter of small communities having as a purpose a good life in a social community with the others, an idea which is contrary to the endemic individualism of liberal thinking. His work, After Virtue , is addressed to the fail of capi- talism to offer a structure for a good moral life for the individual and community. After Virtue is considered the most important and the most influential work by MacIntyre offering a revolutionary perspective in the field of moral philosophy, attacking all the important thinking schools in the field of moral philosophy: liberalism (founded on rights, freedom, equality for each individual), utilitarianism (based on the idea that the best action offers the best benefit for the most of the people) and deontology (an approach of moral philosophy with accent on duty and
(^9) Daniel C. Russel, The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics , (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2013).
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that there is no moral foundation, the politicians and philosophers con- tinue to formulate statements and decisions about which they claim that are based on moral authority. Due to the fact that there is no agreement regarding what represents the basis of this moral authority, there is no coherence between the different perspectives in this sense, moral judg- ment being reduced to something a little more than an empty language based on manipulation. The Scottish philosopher calls “culture of emo- tivism” the belief that the moral statements can be reduced to emotional responses of approval or disapproval. The second argument is MacIntyre’s opinion that the affirmation that a universal approach of moral philosophy could exist is false, argu- ing that it is not possible to find an approach of the questions regarding morality which can give a definition of a concept like justice, for exam- ple, which can be applied to all societies. Contrary to this idea, John Rawls considered that a universal approach of moral philosophy can be acquired through the method of “ ignorance veil ”, people forgetting any personal interest, taking into consideration justice without prejudices. MacIntyre considers impossible the obtaining of such a “veil” offering as an original solution the returning to Aristotle’s concepts regarding the practice of virtues, morality and politics in order to replace what is con- sidered as dysfunctional system of moral philosophy with Aristotelian ethics of virtues which emphasizes the importance of virtues like pru- dence, justice, temperance, courage, compassion in the life of those able to act morally. MacIntyre specified that the ethical system known as virtue ethics is not only older than ethical systems dominating modern thinking, but it is also the most capable to solve the moral disputes which characterize the modern world. His main purpose was to promote an understanding of morality for the individual and for the western culture, as well. Aris- totle supported a moral system based on the life of a small community called polis (the Greek word for “citadel”) and this must have resonated with the small scale culture of MacIntyre’s ancestors. His work repre- sents his abstract philosophical education and also his Scottish commu- nity descent, as the author argues abstractly in the favor of the philoso- phical superiority of Aristotle’s ethics and for the fact that Aristotle’s philosophy must be applied to small societies. MacIntyre’s analysis of moral and political philosophy brought the virtue ethics formulated by Aristotle to the center of attention restoring
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its relevance in the 20th century; he followed the view of Elizabeth Anscombe, developing the concept of virtue and explaining why the vir- tue was necessary for a moral accord. His arguments regarding the na- ture of virtues, the description of virtues place in the social life and in politics, as well as his critiques of modern moral philosophy constitute a coherent moral system which must be taken into account by any phi- losopher studying virtue ethics.
2.1. MacIntyre and the Main Theories of Contemporary Moral Philosophy
After Virtue tries, first of all, to answer the question ”What is a good life?” in the context of the crisis of modern morality and of the dis- agreement between the main theories of the moral philosophy (deontol- ogy, utilitarianism and virtue ethics). The deontology, developed by Kant in the 18th century, emphasizes the duties; in the 20th century, Kant’s view was reaffirmed by John Rawls in his work, A Theory of Justice , in which he argued that the justice is essentially linked to equal- ity, supporting a concept of justice that was supposed to transcend all the cultures and times. John Locke’s view reappeared in Robert Nozick’s work, Anarchy, State and Utopia , in which he argued that jus- tice was linked to the right. The British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe showed that justice was a virtue: ”In order to prove that an unjust man is bad it is necessary a presentation of justice as a vir- tue…and how it is linked to the actions in which is considered”.^11 Utili- tarianism, conceived by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham and by his student, John Stuart Mill, was based on the opinion that only the consequences of an action decide if it is right or wrong. Virtue ethics , dating from ancient times, affirmed that ethics acts firstly according to virtues that are moral qualities leading to right ac- tions. In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle of Stagira argued in favor of a moral philosophy based on virtues, this being linked to the teleological concept regarding the human nature supposing that the virtues exist for a purpose or goal; they help people to realize the be- havior characteristic to human beings. For example, the virtue of cour-
(^11) Gertrude Elizabeth Margret Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy ” , in
Philosophy 33, no.124, 1958
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can be reduced to emotional responses of approval or disapproval. De- spite the fact that he did not believe that everybody accepted emotivism consciously, the fact that he called “incommensurability” the debate in modern morality which has no rational means of resolution suggests that, in fact, our culture is emotivist in practice. In After Virtue , the philosopher argued first that modern moral phi- losophy was characterized by two factors: incommensurability (impos- sibility to solve the differences in the most simple moral formulations) and emotivism (moral judgment is nothing more than a statement of agreement or disagreement). 14 The second theme was addressed to the enlightenment project of justification of morality begun in the 18th cen- tury inside the enlightenment characterized by the return to reason. The philosophers were looking for a rational basis for morality in order not to depend on theological perspectives, that is they did not wish to sup- pose that there was an inherent goal, a destiny or a role for humanity. The third theme was the return to Aristotelian ethics of virtue in order to solve the disagreements of morality. MacIntyre presented the modern moral philosophy as being almost in total disorder.^15 The moral statements, the motifs and our daily moral life were stripped of their previous clarity and understanding by the domination of emotivism.^16 The philosopher admitted that many people made statements which cannot be justified rationally. Emotivism was the cause of disagreements and of the lack of a rational agreement. After addressing moral incoherence, the author focused his attention on its historical causes identified in the failure of the enlightenment project to explain the traditional morality and he quoted three thinkers who ap- proached this project: David Hume, who thought that the human feelings were the basis of the moral philosophy, Kant, who sought to ground the morality on reason only, while the Danish Soren Kierkegaard stated that morality can be grounded on the individual will.^17 These three philoso- phers denied the teleological conception of human nature, according to which this is decided and defined by certain goals or functions in our behavior. The last main theme was that the Aristotelian ethics of virtues
(^14) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p. (^15) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p. (^16) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p. (^17) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p.36-
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could give the necessary background and rational foundation for the moral statements. For MacIntyre, the virtues were necessary for fulfill- ing the social roles in community.^18
2.3. The Significance of MacIntyre’s Philosophical Ideas
MacIntyre affirmed that there was no morality as such.^19 Thinking in terms of traditions, the grouping of some sets of moral statements is possible and considering them from sociological point of view, as well. Among the ideas supporting this argument is that of practice which is defined in part by its social teleological nature referring to a coherent and complex form of coop- erative human activity socially established with its own set of “ internal goods ”^20 forming an intrinsic part from what makes the practice worthy, be- ing realized during the trying to acquire those standards of excellence spe- cific to that activity. For example, tennis and architecture are practices as they imply a set of internal goods, but not the driving or the profit increas- ing. In contrast, the “ external goods ” can be obtained without commitment in that specific practice. Linked to MacIntyre’s concept of practice is his understanding regarding virtue, a developed characteristic that enables the human being to obtain those goods which are internal for practice and their absence prevents him to obtain such goods.^21 For example, courage for a soldier or compassion for a nurse are vital for their practice to be successful. Therefore, virtues are crucial to reaching success in various practices or ac- tivities. Another idea is the philosopher’s concept of tradition in moral re- search which is important for his argumentation. MacIntyre thinks that moral statements and the arguments are intrinsic linked to certain his- torical, social and political conditions. In other words, in order to under- stand and analyze moral statements, first, we need to understand the context in which they appeared. According to MacIntyre, the final pur- pose of the philosopher should be to contribute to the moral and social life of community. In After Virtue , MacIntyre criticized the evils of the modern world
(^18) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p.196- (^19) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p. (^20) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p. (^21) Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue , (London, Duckworth, 2007), p.
