Virtue Ethics

The idea that the function of a thing is what distinguishes it from other things was one of Aristotle’s main thesis. Aristotle proposed what is called a teleological view of the world. Telos means end, purpose, or goal. Aristotle’s idea was that the function, the end, or the purpose of something was essential to know that thing because that is the only way we can judge is something is good or bad. For instance, if you do not know a knife is for cutting, there is no way you will be able to know if it is a good or a bad knife. You need to know what the function of something is in order to decide whether the thing is exhibiting its function correctly. The function of something is not all you need to know to understand it, but it is one of the most important pieces of information because only with it can we judge the value of something. Therefore, if we want to know the value of life, if it is worth living, and how to live it, it will have to have something to do with its function.

In order to illustrate what he means it is useful to mention another Aristotelian idea, the idea of the four causes. Aristotle thought that in order to understand anything, there are four questions we need to ask, and only when we have an answer to each of those questions, do we get an explanation of that particular thing. These four questions he called causes. The four causes are:

• Material Cause

• Formal Cause

• Efficient Cause

• Final Cause

If I am trying to understand an object, let’s say a statue, I will use as an example the statue of Mary Wollstonecraft, who is considered the founding mother of feminism that was erected at Newington Green, we need to understand a few things. First, what is the material the statue is made of? In this case, it is a silvered bronze statue, with granite on the pedestal. Then the formal cause, this particular statue consists of an amorphous base with the image of a small naked woman appearing on top of this mass. These two characteristics together, the material and the formal cause form the object. Aristotle would argue that whenever we have a physical object we need to have both these things together since material without form and form without material do not exist (this was a jab at his teacher, Plato, who said that forms exist independently in the “world of the forms,” Aristotle did not agree with this).

After explaining the material and formal cause we have the object, but this is obviously not enough to explain the object. There are two other levels of explanation: the efficient and the final cause. The efficient cause explains how the object came to be, in this case, it would include both how the sculpture Maggi Hambling designed and created the statue, and how this statue was a result of a 10-year campaign organized by Anna Birch to raise funds to create it, which included the writing and performing of an original play by Kaethe Fine whose ticket sales raised funds for the project. That’s how the statue came to be, that is its the efficient case. But this is still not sufficient, in order to fully understand the statue and to begin to discuss if it is a good or a bad statue, we need to know what it was for. The purpose of the statue was to celebrate this often ignored philosopher and feminist at the place where she lived and worked and to celebrate women in general because even though we have come a long way since Wollstonecraft’s time, there is still much more to be done. The function of this statue is therefore to praise Mary Wollstonecraft and all women. Now we have a complete understanding of the statue, even though there are always more details that can be filled in, they will probably fall within the four categories.

Returning to the original idea, Aristotle thought that for something to be good or bad, we need to know what it is for, we need to know its function. In this case, the function is to praise a philosopher, a feminist, and the liberation of women in general. Does this statue fulfill its purpose well? Is it a good or a bad statue? When the statue was unveiled many people were disturbed because the woman depicted as a small figure on top of the amorphous mass is naked and does not have any likeness of Wollstonecraft. Some people thought that this does not praise the feminist movement, since it may be interpreted as encouraging the idea that women are fundamentally defined by their bodies, and since it does not recognize the person, Mary Wollstonecraft, but gives a general depiction of a woman instead. This is an interesting case because everyone agrees that the function of the statue is to praise a philosopher and the liberation of women she fought for, but people disagree if the statue fulfills this function properly, and therefore disagree if the statue is a good or a bad statue. However, this does not negate Aristotle, since the argument about the quality of the statue has to do with what the statue is for, people are not arguing about the material the sculpture used nor about the shape directly, they are arguing if that shape does or does not fulfill its function.

Returning to Aristotle, and how things are judged good or bad because of their functions, he thought that this applies not only to artifacts, like statues, chairs, and other man-made items but also to everything that is alive like plants, animals, and humans. In order to understand these we also have to ask the material, formal and efficient questions, but the question of purpose, the final cause, is what is going to help us pick out what is good or bad for the thing itself. In the case of plants, for instance, we saw already in the three parts of the soul, that their final purpose is to grow and reproduce, therefore, what is good for the plant, is whatever facilitates its growth and reproduction. In the case of human beings, it will be something similar, their defining characteristics, what makes them different from everything else, is thought and reflection, therefore their function will have something to do with thought and reflection. But what are thought and reflection for? Are they done for the sake of something else, or for the sake of themselves only?

Aristotle will argue that the thing that thought and reflection are typically in service of in humans is what he called eudaimonia, which can be translated as flourishing, happiness or a life well lived - a good life. If you think about it, whatever we decide to do, me when I am writing this piece, or a young student thinking what education to pursue, someone thinking about what job to apply for, what to do for entertainment, etc, there is one common goal - they are activities that we think will lead us to the good life. That is what we all want. Therefore, our function is to search for the good life using thought and reflection which is the characteristic we have that is different from anything else. What is good for us is whatever facilitates thought and reflection and maximizes the ability to produce the good life, this he will argue will be the virtues.

This good life or eudaimonia Aristotle will argue is not a momentary feeling of pleasure, but it is a complete experience, in fact, he thinks we can only know if we have reached eudaimonia at the end of our life since at any moment we can still be facing a disaster that makes our life that seemed great, become suddenly terrible. This is not common, but it happens. The example he gives the example of King Priam of Troy who in the final years of the conflict between him and Achilles saw 13 of his sons die and when Troy fell he was butchered at his alar. No matter how happy his life was before these events. Aristotle notes that it would be disingenuous to say this person has reached eudaimonia. So there is no guarantee of reaching eudaimonia at any one point of life and we need to keep working at it until the end, however, he will argue we cannot reach it ever if we don’t develop the virtues, so even though there is no guarantee, we still have good reason to try to become virtuous so we can have a chance of eudaimonia.

What are these virtues then? Aristotle distinguishes between two types of virtues, intellectual virtues and virtues of character. Intellectual virtues are subjects and skills that can be taught, they can be pursued throughout a person’s entire life, you can never have too much knowledge, they will include scientific understanding, all arts and crafts, common sense, and philosophical wisdom. Aristotle would be in favor of seeing education and learning as someone we should engage in throughout our entire life and that it will bring us some measure of satisfaction. These are not the only virtues though, the other virtues are virtues of character, and these involve their own set of particular challenges.

Virtues of character, Aristotle thought, can not be taught. They can be exemplified, and they are indeed exemplified for children from a young age, but there is no possible formal instruction in virtues of character. This is because a virtue of character involves “doing the right thing, at the right time, towards the right person, for the right reason,” that is it is very circumstantial, it will depend on who the people are, what is at stake and what the appropriate action is will only come from thought and reflection on the specifics of each case. It is interesting to note that he is not saying that there is no right thing to do, he is saying that there is a right thing to do, but it depends on a lot of details and we cannot come up with a general formula or with general rules that apply to all cases.

One example I heard in Marianne Talbot’s lectures (Talbot, 2012) is the following. Imagine you have a good friend that has a new hairstyle that you think looks terrible. Your friend asks you, what do you think? Some people would say they would tell them they don’t like it, others will say that they will not tell their friend that, and most people say they will try to be somewhat diplomatic, saying something along the lines: “If you like it, I am happy for you.” But that’s not the entire story, imagine now that this friend has been depressed for 6 months, they have been mostly at home always extremely sad and now they are smiling and they are very happy about this new hairstyle. Most students I tell this story to will immediately say that in that case, they will tell them it looks great. They quickly judge that when the scenario changes in this way the recommended action also changes. Now assume that this same friend has a job interview a couple of days from that date, and that you know the people doing the interview will not like that hairstyle, and that it will hinder the chances of your friend getting this job. Should you then act differently then? Most people will say yes, we need to tell the friend to maybe adapt the hairstyle to a look that will be more likely to help them succeed, especially if they have been depressed, and if getting this job is very important to them. This is exactly what Aristotle was talking about when he said that we need to figure out what the right thing to do is by doing it at “the right time, towards the right person, for the right reasons.”

Is there anything that can be said about virtues of character that can guide us through this highly complex moral world? Or do we just keep this vague direction of saying we need to look at the circumstances and figure it out? Aristotle is going to say there are a few things we can say about it that can help us and that in turn will help us understand not simply what the virtues are, but how to develop them. He will actually have three guidelines to start off:

1. One should act according to the correct prescription.

2. The general account given will match the subject matter.

3. Actions that are excessive or deficient produce poor character.

Let’s see what he means by this. The first rule says we need to act for the right reasons, so whatever I say to my friends I am motivated by helping my friends be happy and flourish. This is important not just because it defines the action, but because it helps us repeat that type of action in many cases. Aristotle also argues that we are not born virtuous or unvirtuous, he says that virtue comes from habit and by repeating a certain action over and over again, we develop a virtuous character. Now, if we do not have the right motivation, the correct prescription, our actions will be random and inconsistent and will not produce good character.

The second principle says that we need an approach that is relevant for what is at stake, that is we shouldn’t look for fundamental principles. For instance, it would be wrong to decide what to do about our friend’s hairstyle by looking at the general question of whether people should have whatever hairstyle they want. This is an interesting discussion to have, but it will not be appropriate when deciding what to do in this particular instance.

The final idea is the one he is most famous for, the idea of the golden mean. He says “actions that are excessive or deficient deficient produce poor character.” This idea may seem very much just common sense, but in fact, it is quite original. Very often when thinking of character people would say that a person can be cowardly or courageous, they can be patient or impatient, generous or stingy, and so on. What Aristotle points out is that this is not the case, with virtues we do not typically have one virtue and one vice, but we have a virtue in the middle and an excess or deficiency of this virtue will be a vice. So, for instance, too much courage is rashness, too little is cowardice. Too much patience is a lack of spirit that leads to inactivity, too little is impatience. Too much generosity is prodigality, too little is stinginess, and so on.

It is interesting to note that the excesses and deficiencies of these virtues will lead to either hurting the self or hurting others, most of the time they can lead to both. If you are too patient you can both hurt yourself since you just sit waiting for something that will never happen, or you can hurt others by making them wait too long if they are waiting on your action. If you are too impatient you can get into all sorts of trouble, including not being able to develop any of the intellectual virtues - for instance, if you want to learn how to play an instrument and you are impatient, you will never learn how to play it. In some cases an excess or deficiency of virtue can mean losing your life, such as in courage, a rash person in a war can easily be killed by lounging head-on into danger. The main function of these virtues though is adaptability to circumstances, while excessive or deficiencies of these virtues will be ill-adapted to certain circumstances, a moderate approach will allow us to fine-tune the responses without great danger to us or to others.

Here is a list of virtues proposed by Aristotle, together with their excesses and deficiencies and the sphere of action they refer to: