Adams seems to think that our own moral improvement and that of our children depends upon a stable character trait, but I do not think this is the case. On pg. 118 Adams suggests that using Hurka's conception of virtues being in occurent attitudes instead of in long standing traits of character would be to "give up on all aspiration for improvement of our own character" and to give up the "project of moral education of the young". But I do not see how these two endeavours must rely on long standing character traits. It seems that if virtue was solely how we acted in given situations and how we acted based on occurent attitudes we could still improve upon our character and teach our children to be virtuous.
We could improve upon our own character by acting virtuously in situations which might normally tempt us to act viciously. Acting in this way would not only be virtuous but it would be correcting an action which without thought would have been vicious. We may not be able to claim that this action improves our character, if we were to assume that character traits are not as stable as was once thought, but it would be hard to deny that we are not improving ourselves in some manner.
And the same goes for our children, we would want them to improve upon themselves and act virtuously regardless of whether or not this improvement was directed towards character traits. Even if virtues were not stable dispositions, we would still be able to educate the young by teaching them virtuous actions and virtuous states of mind or emotions.
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Hurka’s theory of virtue was heavily reliant on the recursive clauses and attitudes towards other attitudes or events. You could teach your child to stay on the virtuous side of the clauses – love what is good and hate what is bad or pain-inducing. But would you really be teaching your child how to act morally?
The main difference is what is thought of as a virtue for Hurka and Adams. Hurka’s view on virtue has already been stated (it’s all based on attitudes or dispositions). In order for suffice as a way to teach your child how to act, you would have to add another layer requiring that you act in some way upon these attitudes. Even if you do add this layer, you’re still adding something that Hurka wouldn’t count as necessary for virtue. If you do decide to add actions onto the recursive account, it might even be that you’re conceding long-term character traits because you’re saying “you should feel this way and act upon it every time you can.” Hurka’s account was limited to “if you feel this way, your attitude is virtuous.”
You’re definitely right when you say we don’t require stable dispositions to want our children to act better in each situation that arises. However, that’s adding more to Hurka’s theory than he gave – Adams is basing his statement on this particular theory.
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