Why Virtue Ethics

Ethics is the lighthouse shining in the dark misty night, projecting guidance into the vast unclear space before it in an attempt to avoid the worst outcome. As in all subjects where the final answer is unclear there are many theories with which one can work with. Of the ethical theories for study virtue ethics is the best because it is the most adaptable to the complexities of life.

The essential aspect of virtue ethics is character building cultivating within oneself the virtues, being the good. What are virtues and the contrast what are vices? Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics doesn’t look to an abstract source to establish virtue but at the actions we see manifest in society. Off these actions certain traits can be labeled and can be observed to regularly occur, or example a merchant who always deal fairly we call honest or the firefighter who enters the burning building we call courageous. As Aristotle surmised in the Ethic there are excessive and the deficiency of these traits, the deficiency being what is called vice. Virtue then is the right balance between the excessive and the deficiency of these traits which occur in societal relationships. As one cultivates these various virtues one becomes the good, in other words they will habituate the propensity to do the good acts because they want to. The problem with other systems in the aim of creating a set rule for morality that guides a person in every situation. Morality is not a physical law, there is not rigorous proof that provides the guaranteed correct answer in every situation because life is complex. It must be recognized that morals are manifested through societal relations, that is the relation of each individual with the society. Each individual is incredible complex and with all the interrelation connections that occur throughout society that complexity is compounded like a factorization. Each and every situation is different and indeed unique because of the factors that contribute to that particular outcome in the world. Morality is not about have a black and white outlook, it is not about have a rule set in stone, morality is about making the proper judgment in a given situation to the best of one’s ability. The exercise of virtuous character is the best guidance towards cultivating quality judgement.

Virtue ethics is not necessarily just about the character of the person but also the acts, there is debate as to what is more important the correct character or the correct action but neither of the two is more important than the other. In the Nicomachean Ethic Aristotle addresses this issue briefly throughout the entire work for him character is what mattered since even a bad person can do the right action and in vein the textbook for this class presents the example of a bad person having virtues, for example a robber who is courageous. There is no problem to be resolved here per se but again there must be further recognition of lack of neatness in the universe. If there are attempts to place virtuous people in a category where they don’t commit these acts or bad people who don’t have these qualities then the thinking has reverted once again to black and white thinking. Black and white thinking is a failure to recognize and appreciate complexity. There is no issue simply the recognition that good actions and good character are compliments, in other words the compliment of doing good and being good. Good actions based on maims is just as good as those based off of virtue indeed they are one and the same. The difference that in the actions are in the intention. A person following a maxim carries out their duty because the duty is right, the person of virtuous character does the right action because it is what they want to do. Virtues are related to the social relationships among the people of a given area or culture, so are maxims. The end goal is to make the right choice but among those whom you live with. Thus virtue in manifest in the character of individuals and in individual acts. The virtuous person is one who has practiced choosing the right actions consistently but not merely choices the act internalizes the right action, internalizes the good. Aristotle discusses often how the virtue ethic is a practical philosophy, a philosophy based on experience and practice, that is making the right choice in different yet similar situations and using that experience and reason to determine why that is the correct action. In this way doing the good leads to being the good and in this way right action and virtuous character are the same.

Having outlined what the virtues are and what right actions or duties are there may be a problem the reader may present, that there is hardly any detail at all as to what these qualities or actions actually are. Here is where this issue addressed. The thesis of this essay is that virtue ethics is the best in dealing with complexity which is actually experienced in the world where morality is to be applied. While it may be established that virtue is the mean between the excessive and the deficiency of a character trait that still does not make it clear how one is to know what that quality is. Further while there are maxims and moral duties that can be established it is clear that in some instances there is doubt as to whether they apply or not . The question then becomes what is the good and how does virtue ethics supply one with an answer. A theme carried throughout this essay has been the need to recognize that morality is not a clear cut enterprise, there is no one size fits all in moral choices. Virtues may not be defined clearly, but to have an understanding that there is a mean an equal point between two extremes is a good mark from which one can proceed to do the best that can be done. Maxims are excellent rules of thumb and do apply in the many permutations of moral situations but are black and white thinking and falter in the grey situations. Morality is a reasoning driven aspect of human life in requires an intellectual understanding of the world as well as emotional intelligence to appreciate life’s complexities. What it comes down to is the fact that no one really knows what the good life is. Some things can be established as not being the good life or part of it like Aristotle’s disproving of instrumental means toward happiness. Emotionally and intellectually we may establish what has intrinsic value in regards to happiness and while that is good it still doesn’t tell us what is right. The best that can be aimed for are guidelines, something that can give us a view in the direction of the good but judgments are made by the individual themselves. As a society the aim should be to inculcate the the right motivation to know what is right, to feel what is right and to see it demonstrated. Of course there are problems with this but we are human our existence is a struggle of making the right choice, of the being the good, and of survival. There is no one off rule or principle there is not knowing what is right all the time because that requires a realm with constants, with perfection something inconceivable in the human world. Our aim should be to live the best life that we can in the world that we happen to be in.