Introduction

Virtue ethics is a normative ethical theory, meaning it attempts to guide our moral behaviour by identifying the criteria for determining which actions are good or bad. It was first systematised by Aristotle.

Aristotle noted that we are creatures of habit. We tend to do what we are in the habit of doing. So, ethics needs to aim people at cultivating the right sort of habits.

Aristotle claimed all humans aim at flourishing; living a good life. He thinks this involves properly functioning in what we as humans distinctively and essentially are – rational beings. The aim of ethical action should therefore be rational action aimed at cultivating a life guided by reason.

Aristotle attempted to identify the spheres of action or feeling which capture all the modes of ethical life. Human life contains various temptations that threaten to dominate our will (decision-making) and corrupt our rationality. We are tempted involve vices, which exist on a spectrum between excess and deficiency. Between these lies the virtue. E.g.:

Sphere of action or feeling	Deficiency	Golden Mean	Excess
Fear and confidence	Cowardice	Courage	Recklessness

Virtue ethics is agent centred. It claims that what makes an action good or bad is whether it is what a virtuous person would do. When deciding which action is right, we must reason about what a person in the habit of acting according to all the virtues would do. We must strive to bring our entire being into alignment with that, not just our reason, but also our non-rational emotions, since they are key to full habituation.

“To feel these feelings at the right time, on the right occasion, towards the right people, for the right purpose and in the right manner, is to feel the best amount of them, which is the mean amount – and the best amount is of course the mark of virtue.” (Aristotle ~340 BCE)

Aristotle’s virtue ethics has had enduring impact. Yet all other theories, from Kantian deontology to Mill’s utilitarianism, accept this insight that virtue refers to the habits of a rational creature. They all try to incorporate the importance of virtue in some way, even if they ultimately don’t think it has the same role in ethics that Aristotle gave it.

Full proponents of the theory itself fell out of favour in the modern age. It was seen as based on the unscientific concept of telos which assumed a universal code of virtues existed in us as a function of our biology. In the later half of the 20^th century the theory underwent a revival of interest.

Aristotelian virtue ethics

Eudaimonia. Aristotle argues that the diversity of all human action ultimately traces back to the same goal: eudaimonia, which means flourishing, living well or living a good life. Everything else can only be instrumentally desired as a means to that end. We often have intermediate goals, such as achieving a good grade in an exam.  However, such goals are merely instrumental as we adopt them only as a means to the ultimate goal of helping us to live a good life, i.e., flourishing.

E.g., if I asked why someone wanted good grades, they might say to get into university, if I asked why they wanted that they might say to get a better job etc. At some point, the line of questioning just has to end with the answer “because I think it will help me live a better life”.

So, flourishing is our ultimate end as it’s the only thing we value for its own sake. Everything else we value only insofar as we think it enabling of our flourishing. Aristotle concludes Eudaimonia is “the good” for human beings. This has ethical implications, that moral behaviour should be understood in terms of the attaining of flourishing.

Eudaimonia and pleasure. Other theories at the time like Epicureanism (influential on utilitarianism) disagreed, arguing that pleasure was our ultimate end. Aristotle responded that pleasure is good, but not the only good. This is because sometimes pleasure can be bad, e.g. it can lead to addiction to bodily pleasures. So, adopting pleasure as our end-goal is self-defeating because it actually leads to a lack of pleasure. However, Aristotle points out that when cultivating virtuous habits, that ordinarily leads to pleasure. E.g. If you discipline your habits to learn to play a musical instrument, eventually it is pleasurable.  So, the appropriate place for pleasure is not as our final ultimate goal, but as a by-product of being virtuous. Only being virtuous will enable humans to attain their final end of flourishing.

The function argument explains what living a good life (flourishing) actually involves:

Aristotle notes that we call something ‘good’ when it performs its function well.  So, our life is good and has attained eudaimonia, when we perform our function well. A thing’s function is its unique distinctive characteristic, what it is uniquely good for.  E.g., you could use an axe to play the piano, but it is uniquely good for chopping. So an axe is good when it chops well. The unique characteristic of humans is our ability to reason.  So, we flourish when we are reasoning well, when we are guided by reason, when we have good reasons for our actions.

The relationship between virtues and function. Virtues are what enable a thing to perform its function well.

E.g., the function of an axe is to chop, so a virtue of an axe would be things like sharpness or durability.

The virtues for human beings are character traits or dispositions or habits which enable us to reason well. Life involves various temptations that threaten to dominate our will and corrupt our reason.

E.g., if we lack the virtue of temperance, then greedy addiction to pleasure might control our behaviour.

E.g., if we lack the virtue of courage, then fear might control our behaviour.

So, moral behaviour should aim at cultivating all the virtues essential for being guided by reason in our actions so as to perform our function well and thereby attain eudaimonia.

The doctrine of the mean. Aristotle identified different spheres of action/feeling, such as fear and confidence. The doctrine of the mean is that within each sphere there is a spectrum. The virtue is the ‘mean’ in the middle, with the extremes of excess and deficiency on either side. Virtues are character traits which give us the disposition to choose the mean between the extremes.

Sphere of action or feeling	Deficiency	Golden Mean	Excess
Fear and confidence	Cowardice	Courage	Recklessness
Pleasure and pain	Insensibility	Temperance	Self-indulgence
Self-expression	Understatement	Truthfulness	Boastfulness
Social conduct	Unfriendliness	Friendliness	Being too friendly
Indignation	Spitefulness	Righteous indignation	Envy

A virtuous person is one who has fully developed the habit of choosing the golden mean. In life, we continually face temptations to develop unvirtuous habits, e.g., to addictive self-indulgence or cowardliness or unfriendliness.

Maintaining virtue requires continual rational appraisal and disciplining of our habits.

‘Moral’ virtues can be understood as dispositions, which refers to a tendency to behave in a certain way under certain conditions. Virtues are character traits which give us the disposition to choose the mean between the extremes. Such traits involve having the habit of choosing the actions which reflect and cultivate virtuous habits.

E.g., having a virtue of courage means our character has the trait of disposing us to behave courageously in moral situations. We will be in the habit of doing what a courageous person would do, instead of what a reckless (excess) or cowardly (deficiency) person would do.

The role of education/habituation. Aristotle thinks we are not born virtuous. We have to learn to be virtuous through experience and education. We are creatures of habit, so we tend to do what we are in the habit of doing. The habits we cultivate during childhood are especially important as they are hard to break. So, education is important for the development of a moral character, in cultivating virtuous habits.  Intellectual virtues can be learned through education, whereas ‘moral’ virtues like courage have to be learned through experience and by following the example of virtuous people. Although childhood education is especially important, this task is life lifelong. Once developed, virtuous habits require maintenance. This involves rational assessment of whether we are dealing well with the pressures of life, to continue doing what a virtuous person would be in the habit of doing.

The skill analogy. A virtuous person is one who is in the habit of choosing the mean between the extremes. Aristotle says learning to be that sort of person is analogous to learning a skill. If you want to learn how to play the piano, you have to discipline your behaviour and practice it, so that you eventually develop the habits required to master that skill.  The same is true of virtues. Cultivating them requires deliberate practice through education and habituation. Once a skill has been gained, it also requires continued practice to maintain it. This requires overcoming the difficulty of the temptation to things like laziness. Similarly, in life we continually face temptations to develop unvirtuous habits, e.g., to addictive self-indulgence or cowardliness or unfriendliness. Maintaining virtue requires continual rational appraisal and disciplining of our habits.

The importance of feelings. Human action can be accompanied by both reason and feeling. Virtuous action is no different. E.g. one can feel friendly and generous.  It’s possible to act like a virtuous person would act regarding these virtues, and yet your feelings be at odds with your action.

E.g., you could act friendly but internally feel dislike for others.

E.g., you could act generously but inside feel unhappy over giving away things you own. Cultivating a habit of choosing the mean between the extremes requires that your feelings be brought into alignment with doing what a virtuous person would do.  A person isn’t fully virtuous until that happens. Our feelings are not under direct control of our will. Nonetheless, by continually rationally reminding yourself of the virtuousness of having certain feelings, Aristotle thinks we can over time cultivate the right feelings. Thinking about the example of virtuous people and deliberating over our own behaviour can help to realign our feelings with what we rationally appreciate to be the requirements of virtue.

Practical reasoning/wisdom is a virtue. It has the role of mediating between our moral character and our actions.

It involves general knowledge about the world and moral situations. During moral decision-making, we need to understand the practical reality of the situation we are in. Only then can we know what a virtuous person would do in it.

E.g., What a courageous person would do very much depends on their understanding of the situation.

If you see someone being wrestled to the floor, we might think we ought to help them. However, if we had the knowledge that it was a police officer apprehending a thief, our understanding of what a virtuous person would do would change.  If we were in a totalitarian country, where people were unjustly deprived and the thief was stealing to save their starving family, our moral view might change yet again. Practical wisdom/reasoning is the virtue of understanding of what virtue requires in a situation and which action would best cultivate virtuous habits.

Moral vs Intellectual virtues. Aristotle argued there is a rational part of the human soul and an irrational part. There are virtues in each part that require cultivating, but the moral virtues in the irrational part of the soul cannot be reached by reason and can therefore only be cultivated through experience and habit. E.g if you have some new recruits to an army, you can’t teach them courage by sitting them in front of a blackboard and talking about it – they have to learn it through experiences and habits. Examples of moral virtues are courage, temperance, righteous indignation. Intellectual virtues in the rational part of the soul can also be learned through experience and habit, however since they can be reached by reason, they can also be taught. Examples of intellectual virtues are reason, scientific knowledge, technical skill.

The issue of clear guidance

Aristotle says an action is right if it is what a virtuous person would do. But he doesn’t provide sufficiently clear guidance for determining that. There isn’t a clear way to infer from what the virtues are to what a virtuous person would do in a moral situation. The connection between virtue and action is not clearly guided. E.g., Aristotle says we should be courageous, but it’s not clear what we should do with our courage. More modern theories seem to provide better guidance. E.g., Kantian ethics is very precise regarding which actions are either always good or bad.

Furthermore, consider ethical dilemmas like whether the USA should have dropped the nuclear bomb on Japan in WW2. If it helped the war end faster, does that justify killing civilians? How many soldiers have to be killed over one civilian? How much does the context matter, e.g., that soldiers were conscripts? It’s hard to see how being a virtuous friendly courageous person could give you an answer to these questions. In fact, being a good person might only make you see how difficult the dilemma is. It looks like we need a clearer algorithm for figuring out the answers to moral questions.

Normative ethical theories have to be actionable. This issue attacks the ability of virtue ethics to successfully guide action, which is a necessary condition of a normative theory.

Aristotle would defend himself through what he sees as an argument for and strength of virtue ethics. He claims we need to accept that ethics is imprecise and messy. It’s not possible for a set of general rules to apply to the complex and diverse moral situations that life involves. It’s not possible for a set of general rules to actually be calibrated to particular ethical situations. The situations of life are too complex, nuanced and diverse for that to be a possibility.  This can be difficult to appreciate in our modern context where we’ve come to expect law-like precision from ethics.

For Aristotle, the best we can do ethically is to be the best person we can, which gives us the best chance of doing what a virtuous person would do in moral situations. A virtuous person will have the practical wisdom to figure out the right action for the situation. This gives virtue ethics flexibility and an ability to progress which ensures perpetual relevance in enabling whatever promotes human flourishing whatever the society or age. So, Aristotle would argue he provides the clearest guidance possible.

“Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of; for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions … Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, admit of much variety and fluctuation of opinion, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also give rise to a similar fluctuation because they bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others by reason of their courage. We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs’” (Aristotle ~340 BCE)

“The whole account of matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with the conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medicine or of navigation.” (Aristotle ~340 BCE)

The issue of clashing virtues

Aristotle says to do what a virtuous person would do. This requires cultivating all the virtues. However, what if virtues clash. E.g. In Nazi Germany, if an official asked you if you were hiding jews, and you were. You can’t simply say nothing, as that would indirectly reveal the truth. You could either be friendly and lie, or you could be truthful but unfriendly because then you get people killed. This attacks virtue ethics for setting an impossible standard of cultivating all the virtues, when in practical reality we might have to choose between them. It also means that virtue ethics cannot give us guidance about which action to choose, which is a necessary condition of a normative theory.

Virtue ethicists would defend that this criticism misunderstands their theory. Virtues are not rules or laws which have to be applied or followed absolutely. Practical wisdom must be used to assess the details of the situation.  Practical wisdom tells us that lying to the Nazi does not cultivate an unvirtuous habit of being untruthful. If we lied to someone due to selfish greedy reasons, that would be encouraging those feelings and would develop a habit of untruthfulness. But there’s no issue like that with lying to the Nazi.

So, the virtue of truthfulness is not a rule which says we must always tell the truth. It’s simply saying we must ensure that we are a truthful person. A truthful person could lie, so long as it’s not a lie that sets them on a path to being an untruthful person. The interests of the virtue of truthfulness simply are not at stake in such a case, and your practical wisdom should tell you that. So, there is no clash or conflict between the virtues. They aren’t the sort of thing that can clash.

The issue of the cultural relativity of virtues

Aristotle presents us with a list of virtues which is objective because he claims it is rooted in human nature. However, different cultures seem to value different virtues. There doesn’t seem to be a way to figure out which culture’s values are the ‘correct’ ones. If you are raised in a culture, its values are deeply ingrained such that you might be tempted to think that its values are more than just the way you were raised to feel. Aristotle’s list of virtues thus merely reflects his culture. Seen from this view, Aristotle’s ethics does not tell us what we should do in any objective sense, it just looks like an expression of his culture’s opinion about what we should do.

Aristotle would defend himself through pointing to the strength of virtue ethics that it is that it is rooted in universal human nature. All humans seek flourishing as our natural end (telos). Martha Nussbaum adds to this defence that there are universal types of human experience and that a universal list of virtues could be developed in reference to that. She points out that many virtues are universal, such as justice.

Virtue ethics & anthropocentrism

Aristotle’s claim that the only good for human life is human flourishing is an anthropocentric view, meaning irrationally focused on human interests.

Peter singer accuses attitudes like Aristotle’s of ‘speciesism’, which means irrationally discriminating against other species out of a baseless preference for one’s own species. Humans may have greater reasoning abilities, but there is no logical basis for thinking that makes them superior. So, it must be thought due to irrational prejudice.

Furthermore, we now know more about how intelligent many animals can be. Many humans also have learning difficulties and Aristotle gets into ethically troubled waters if his standard for what gives humans moral status has such variance. His ethics could imply that humans with less reasoning capabilities have less moral status. In fact, Peter Singer argues it was Aristotle’s hierarchy of souls doctrine that led to his acceptance of slavery. Aristotle said that some humans are as far below other humans as ‘beasts’ are from humans, so enslaving them was good for them. Pro-environmentalists would argue this shows the danger of a hierarchical mindset that claims to judge which lives are more important than others. Such ‘ethics’ quickly degenerates into an ideology of selfishness.

Virtue ethics could be reformulated so that it isn’t anthropocentric. Martha Nussbaum attempts that. Justice is a central virtue in Aristotelian virtue ethics. In her book “Justice for animals” Nussbaum argues that all sentient beings are capable of flourishing in their own way. Justice requires that they be allowed to pursue their flourishing. Humans must work towards the end of animal mistreatment if they are to cultivate the virtues of justice and compassion and thereby flourish themselves.

For Aristotle, the goodness of an action consists in whether it is what a virtuous person would do. The reason such acts are good is that they cultivate virtuous habits, which enable our ‘good end’ of eudaimonia. So Aristotle understands moral good as what’s individually good for an agent’s flourishing.

The issue is, sometimes moral and individual good seem to come apart. Christine Swanton offers an illustration of this: A battlefield medic is clearly virtuous, courageous, friendly, etc. However, sometimes they can be traumatised by the experience. They might become less friendly and generous, or become an addict indicating a lack of temperance. They did what a virtuous person would do, but the result was the opposite of flourishing.

This issue attacks Aristotle’s account of what makes actions good. This suggests we can’t always understand virtue as what enables individual flourishing. We need a different account of virtue’s moral value, such as aiming at the general social good.

Virtue ethicists would respond that this criticism overlooks a few elements of their theory. Aristotle said eudamionia is measured over a lifetime. The medic could still develop virtuous habits again. Also, individual flourishing depends on an orderly society. We may not be able to understand virtue as what always enables individual flourishing. But we can still understand virtue as what aims at individual flourishing. Cases like the medic simply involve virtue being prevented from achieving its aim. This can occur in extreme scenarios like war. This isn’t showing that virtue and individual flourishing actually come apart.