Virtue ethics, rules, and consequences
A quick comparison among the three major frameworks for ethical living
What does it mean to be ethical? There are three major frameworks to answer that question: deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics.
(In the following I will use the words ethics and morality interchangeably, since “ethics” comes from the Greek ēthos, meaning either character or custom, a word that Cicero, in De Fato 2.1, translated into Latin as moralis, meaning proper behavior as well as, again, custom.)
Virtue ethics was developed by Socrates, Aristotle, the Stoics, and a number of other Hellenistic schools of thought. It is, arguably (but debatably) also present in some form in Eastern traditions like Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. If so, virtue ethics is one of the dominant ways to think about morality, particularly after the so-called “aretaic turn” (from arete, meaning virtue) in contemporary moral philosophy, which is usually traced to the publication of Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy.”
Often enough comparative discussions of virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism go something like this: virtue ethics is about character; deontology is about duty and rules; and consequentialism is (obviously) about the consequences of one’s actions. This makes it sound like virtue ethicists don’t care about consequences and don’t recognize rules and duties. Which is not at all the case, and it is important to appreciate why. Before we can do that, let me briefly summarize the other two frameworks, with which virtue ethics is often contrasted.
According to deontologists, what determines whether an action is moral or not is the fact that it does (or does not) align with certain duties or rules. For instance, in Judaism and Christianity an action is moral if it agrees with the Ten Commandments allegedly imparted to humanity by God. In the more recent and secular Kantian deontology there is only one commandment, the so-called categorical imperative, which is usually formulated in a couple of ways:
(I) Act only according to those maxims by which you can also will that they would become universal laws;
(II) Act in such a way that you always treat people, whether your own person or any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
If you are a consequentialist, by contrast, you will say that what matters are the consequences of a given action, regardless of one’s intentions, rules, and duties. The standard example of consequentialism is the sort of utilitarianism formulated first by Jeremy Bentham and later modified by John Stuart Mill, the chief modern champion of which is Peter Singer, although the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes can reasonably be considered a forerunner, as he said “Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue” (Olynthiacs; Philippics (1930), translated by James Herbert Vince, p. 11). Bentham explained the concept in this fashion:
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.” (The Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789, chapter 1, p. 1)
So, whatever action has the consequence of increasing pleasure, or decreasing pain, for most people is thereby recognized as a moral action. Do you recognize the influence of Epicurus?
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