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Virtue goals: Week 10

To think more before I speak; I found myself saying things this week which I immediately regretted expressing in that particular situation.

Have the courage and stamina to face my current challenges and survive my current trials with my head up.

Be more excellently for the good of my best friend. Offer her more emotionally.

I'm going to be disciplined and for once do more than the minimum amount of work this week.

There is something that does not exactly sit right with Adams's description of virtue as something that we should admire. (p. 19) Adams states that virtue could be partially described as perspectives in thinking about what kind of person "we would want to be."
I do not believe this is a reliable method of identifying moral virtue. People are capable of admiring the wrong things, and often do: someone might admire the promiscuous accomplishments of his friend, or his capacity while binge drinking, though these behaviors are clearly not virtuous.
People are also capable of scorning what would normally be considered virtuous (or at any rate, moral) actions, and again, they often do: One can hate another's honesty and initiative when the results mean he will learn the unpleasant truth: if this were not the case the scenario of "shooting the messenger" would not exist.
Adams, fortunately, does not make this the central or even an overall important factor for determining a moral virtue; it is more supplementary than anything else. Though it is ideal that one admires what is good and scorns what is bad, this is not always the case. Thus, this method is not a reliable one for determining moral virtue simply due to the fact that people are fallible.

More than one way to be right

On page 11, Adams states that there is probably only one thing to do that is truly right, whereas there are many things that are good. This seems like a very different take from Taylor’s, who discussed the idea of supereragatory virtue: virtue that goes above and beyond the concept of rightness, in an effort to maximize the good. The two ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but Taylor’s view seems to set the bar higher for goodness, whereas Adams’s view seems to set the bar higher for rightness. Adams seems to argue that the right action is the one that fulfills someone’s duty and obligation, but this seems to assume that there will always be only one right action, no more, and no less, when in fact obligations cannot always be fulfilled and there can be more than one way to fulfill an obligation (for instance, you may owe someone a favor, and a valid way of paying back that favor might be taking them out to the movies or taking them out to the restaurant). Contrast this with Taylor’s idea of virtue, which doesn’t view virtue as a binary thing, but rather, as something that can occur in greater and lesser amounts. This scale of virtue should apply to rightness to, with actions being more and less right, not simply right or wrong.

Morality and the Good Person

I am not sure that I agree with Adams' insistence that moral goodness should not tyrannize over other sorts of value in terms of what we should prize (26). I think this claim would make more sense if we were talking about value in general, but he limits this claim to persons. I think moral goodness can plausibly be said to be more important for persons than other kinds of goodness. The examples of other kinds of human goodness Adams says should not be tyrannized over include physical beauty, graceful movement, and mathematical intelligence. It might not sound that strange to say these things have value for persons. If these things are valuable for persons as persons, I would say they are valuable because some things like beauty and knowledge are part of the good for persons and thus contribute to well-being. But Adams does not seem to be talking about goods for persons, but instead what makes a good person. I would not say that a person is a good person because her well-being is high. Whereas a painting can be good as a painting because it is beautiful, I do not think a person is good as a person because she is beautiful. Personhood brings something new into existence which makes moral value something we should prize over other types of value like aesthetic value. At the same time, I agree with Adams that moral virtue does not make you "worth more" in terms of elevating your moral status. But suppose we were going to include desert in our theory, and it was shown to be inconsistent with changes in moral status. I think the most relevant thing to consider to determine the desert of persons would be moral goodness and not beauty or knowledge.

Good and Morally Virtuous

Adams defines moral virtue as persisting excellence in being for the good. That is to say he believes virtuous character traits are instilled because they are intrinsically good. He will also separate being a good person and being a morally good person. While I can see the distinction he makes, there seems to be something counter intuitive about this.
The distinction made by Adams’s is that a life filled with non-moral excellence like dance is a good life, because dance is excellent but not moral. A morally good person would have moral virtues as their focus but it would not tyrannize over other excellences. Being morally virtuous is being a morally good person (26). But couldn’t a life fulfilled with dance also be a morally virtuous life? Adams’s seems to imply it can only be one or the other and never both. I find that the person whose life is focused on dance would also have some amount of dedication, hard work, and self-sacrifice. These are virtues which would leave to a morally virtuous life. Adams’s will argue since it is not the intent behind the virtues to be virtuous then the dance cannot lead a morally virtuous life. But, isn’t it possible for there to exist two of the goals, being morally virtuous and a good dancer.
Therefore, it would seem that if a person is living a good life, then his life would also be a morally virtuous life. So, I don’t necessary see how it is important to make this distinction. I’m unsure how much of this would change the groundwork of Adams’s argument. But I’m assuming since he makes a note to tell us this, there is some kind of relevance behind it.

Obligation of Virtue

It seems Adams wants to make a distinction between ethics centered around virtues and ethics centered around actions. This distinction is that while virtue ethics deals with a commitment of character, ethics based on the moral rightness and/or wrongness of actions is committed to obligation. His example is of a shopkeeper who is honest because morality obliges him to do so, not because honesty is a part of his character. Although Adams, acknowledge that these concepts intertwine at times, I think for the most part he wants to keep these two notions separate. He says on page 7 that guilt and the feeling of owing something to someone is not a trait that comes from “excellent personal character” or virtues. But in the very next paragraph Adams groups the concept of “respect[ing] the rights of others” along with other virtues such as justice and conscientiousness. My complaint is that aren’t these the same? Is it really not a virtue to feel remorse or guilt for one’s actions because you respect them and wronged them in some way? If Adams feels that way because he believes the virtuous person would never put themselves in a position to feel guilt for an action, then I think that his arguments on virtue ethics are a moot point because no one is 100% virtuous and perfect all the time; which is why I feel obligation and virtue are more closely connected that Adams wants to believe. When a person is born into this world, they are obliged to have certain intentions in order to be virtuous by Adam’s account and pretty much every other author’s account we read so far. If someone wants to be totally good whether it be through virtues or actions then they are obliged to do so at some point because no has had the “perfectly right” intentions and/or made the “perfectly right” choices all throughout his or her life.

What is Adams trying to say?

There are two statements that Adams makes on pages 28-29 that seem to directly conflict with each other. I am not sure if I simply misunderstand what he is talking about, but when he says it can be excellent "to care more about the good of one person or project than about the good of other similar persons or projects" and then on the next page talks about how it would be completely vicious to favor one child over the other and says "the deepest appreciation of anything that is excellent is noncomparitive", it seems that he is saying two things which go against each other. It is excellent to care more about one thing than another because we as humans are limited in the amount we can care and love, and thus if we tried to care equally for all things our love would be stretched thin and could not be excellent. But he also says that it is excellence is noncomparitive.
How can he say both of these things? It seems to love someone more than another because that person is your spouse or child is in a sense comparing that person with strangers whom you do not love as much because they are not so closely connected with you. He does admit that there is some good that comes of rank-ordering, but there "is something unappreciative about the exercise". How can he think dividing up your love with more going to those who are closer is excellent but also think that rank ordering is inappropriate? Isn't dividing up your love and giving more to those who are more important to you considered rank-ordering?

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Motives Make Rightness

On page 224-225, Hurka argues that a person who accidentally kills someone, though with good intentions, can be morally wrong. I would like to extend this example: rather than simply trying to save someone's life via a drug that kills someone, an individual has a choice: give a drug to someone, where it is known that the drug will either save the life of a patient or kill that patient. The individual administering the drug is, for whatever reason, led to believe that the patient does in fact need the drug. If the individual administering the drug has every reason to believe that the patient needs the drug, then administering the drug seems like a moral imperative and the right thing to do, even if the action turns out to end up taking a life.

Rightness comes from doing what one genuinely believes should be done to cause good in the world. Even if this action ends up being harmful, as long as the individual had good intentions, the individual was doing something morally right. Doing both what seems morally right and what actually causes good in the world is, perhaps, the virtuous thing to do. Defining the two adjectives, virtuous and right, in these ways shows proper appreciation for both good intentions and good actions.

Vicious Intent

Though I beleive Hurka has taken the correct standpoint with regards to this aspect of virtue theory in the final chapter of Virtue, Vice and Value, I also feel that Hurka is mistaken on pp. 236-237 when he states that rationality is crucial to one's beliefs, or how one "perfoms an intentional action." While this line from Hurka's book, by itself, seems acceptable, Hurka later states on p. 238 that "goodness is the proper aim of desire, and practical rationality is directed to this aim." It is when these two quotes are read together that makes me beleive Hurka is incorrect, since intention, and therefore rationality, does not necessarily lead to virtue.
Taken together, one can infer from Hurka's quotes that one who acts with an intention is using his or her sense of rationality, however developed. Additionally, according to Hurka's requirements, one would have to assume that since one is using their sense of rationality, then he or she is working toward goodness. Thus, anyone who acts with an intention is acting towards goodness.
I do not agree with this reasoning, since I feel this rules out the possibility of vice. One can most certainly carry out vicious actions with the exact intention of doing so. One can attack someone with the vindictive intent of hurting him or her; of causing them pain, a fact in which the attacker will delight. Though intention is certainly involved in the performance of such a vicious action (maybe even under a rationality that hittting someone will give the attacker pleasure), one can hardly argue that the attacker is working towards goodness.
When one acts with intention, they do not necessarily act rationally, and by no means do they necessarily work towards goodness. However, according to Hurka, one who acts with intent would have to be acting with rationality, and therefore also towards goodness. Though I agree with Hurka on his overall argument (in which this particular conflict was found, regarding substantive flourishing), this inconsistency between lthese two wuotes and the rest of Hurka's work is one that requires addressing.

Base Goods

Hurka in this last chapter explains why his recursive account of the theory of the good is much more complete than virtue theory. He says on page 246 that they cannot give people any reason to act rightly. But I would like to note that Hurka never makes any arguments regarding why the base goods are base goods.
He, in fact, lists three: pleasure, knowledge, and achievement. It would seem to complete his theory of the good; he would need to explain these are the base goods. In chapter seven, he extended his account as to showing how other base values, or perhaps values could be added to the machinery without much work. So, perhaps Hurka does not care about what are in the base goods and only needed there to be base goods. This is because nearly any argued upon good could be added from chapter 7.
But, I don’t believe this to be the case. I believe when Hurka made his selection of the base goods, he told care to pick certain ones. This is important; otherwise, how would the reader know that pleasure, knowledge, and achievement are base goods and evil isn’t a base good.
I’m not sure if there is an underlying premise which states this is the furthest it goes. But I do believe there needs to be some kind of argument for why these are base goods, much like Taylor explains in her book. She explains why vice is an evil thing. Or even what are qualifications for base goods, because I don’t think it can be assumed that at least knowledge and achievement are base goods. But once again, I’m not entirely sure that in matters. However, in earlier chapters, Hurka makes it clear that he is not a hedonist.

What Would Hurka Say

When I was reading the chapter I began to wonder what Hurka would think about Gabrielle Taylor’s virtue-ethical theory. Taylor’s account can be categorized into Hurka’s definition of a substantive flourishing account. According to Hurka a flourishing account “defines virtue as those traits a person needs to flourish or live well and the vices as traits destructive of flourishing.” He separates the flourishing account into two versions, one being the substantive one which uses “one fundamental good F to explain simultaneously what unifies the virtues”. Taylor’s theory uses the fundamental good of the self to unify the virtues.
Hurka than mentions the obstacles facing this account and there were three main ones; virtuous actions must provide evidence of the self as having that aim, the account must have plausible judgements about the degrees of virtues and it must justify the priority it gives virtue over other elements of flourishing by “showing [the self] is not instantiated by other states of persons.” It seems that Taylor certainly did not do the second. I don’t remember anywhere in her book where she clearly defines the degrees of virtues or vices. In fact it seems that she focused mostly on the extremely vicious actions and never mention any degree and the relation to harming of the self. And it also seems that the last obstacle was not overcome by Taylors theory either, for it seems there are other things that provide evidence of the self aside from just virtue.
Because she does not “pass” the later two obstacles, it seems that Hurka would see Taylor’s theory as incomplete and flawed.

While attempting to decipher Anscombe and Hursthouse’s virtue theories (mainly Anscombe’s), Hurka sees a flaw. Anscombe doesn’t necessarily include morality in her theory of virtue but instead opts to center virtue around rationality. I think Hurka sees this as false because he wants to believe there is some moral rightness and goodness by following virtues as well as some form of moral wrongness by following vices. Hurka claims that someone living through Anscombe’s theory of virtue can’t decipher what is right or wrong through morality, but instead what someone should or shouldn’t do through rationality. But there is a kind of obvious premise that Hurka’s claim implies. The premise Hurka is proposing is that someone cannot use rationality to come to a conclusion about morality, which I think is false. And I definitely think it’s untrue since Hurka does acknowledge that virtue plays a role in Anscombe’s thinking. How could someone use virtues in rational thinking and not be able to come to some moral conclusion? An example I bring up is the virtue of generosity. Someone can think generosity is a virtue because logically they come to the conclusion that being generous leads to others being happy and the more people that are happy then the more pleasure exists in the world. Using more rational thinking, that person can then come to the conclusion that if generosity leads to pleasure then generosity is morally good because (according to Hurka) pleasure is morally an intrinsic base good. I might just have misunderstood what Hurka was trying to get at with Anscombe’s theory, but I don’t see how he can say morality has no role in it at all.

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Virtue goals: Week 9

Time is infinite until you have something to do. Time manage better.

Be the ball, Danny.