The Analysts Dilemma
• Those who did well:
• Made, did not simply state, their case
• Probed what was superficially “obviously true”
• Put themselves, not a “detached MBA student” in the
situation
Character and Virtue Ethics:
2500+ years of philosophy
Paul Godfrey
Marriott School
Fall 2007
The central thesis or idea
• Rules and tools are difficult to use
– Situations are flexible and unique
– Rules can be rigid
– Doing the “utilitarian” math is really hard
• Focus on development of character or virtue
– It’s virtuous people, not virtuous rules that make decisions
– Character and virtue are flexible and can adapt to situations
• A problem: both saints and despots use virtue ethics
The moral sense and action
To say that people have a moral sense is not the same
thing as saying that they are innately good. A moral sense
must compete with other senses that are natural to
humans—the desire to survive, acquire possessions,
indulge in sex, or accumulate power—in short, with selfinterest narrowly defined. How that struggle is resolved will
differ depending on our character, our circumstances, and
the cultural and political tendencies of the day. But saying
that a moral senses exists is the same thing as saying that
humans, by their nature, are potentially good.
James Q. Wilson, The moral sense, p. 12
Adam Smith’s invisible hand
Every individual.. . .neither intends to promote the public
interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By
preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign
industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing
that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the
greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in
this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to
promote an end which was no part of his intention. . . .By
pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the
society more effectually than when he really intends to
promote it.
The invisible hand and virtue
• For Smith, the hand may be invisible, but it is not
unrestrained
• Individuals seeking their own welfare are constrained
from within by
• Benevolence, sympathy, and love
• Prudence, self-control, and discipline
Benevolence or Sympathy
• All the members of human society stand in need of each
others assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual
injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally
afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and
esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. (Theory of
Moral Sentiments)
Prudence and self-control
• The man who acts according to the rules of perfect
prudence, of strict justice, and of proper benevolence,
may be said to be perfectly virtuous. But the most perfect
knowledge of those rules will not alone enable him to act
in this manner: his own passions are very apt to mislead
him; sometimes to drive him and sometimes to seduce
him to violate all the rules which he himself, in all his
sober and cool hours, approves of. The most perfect
knowledge, if it is not supported by the most perfect selfcommand, will not always enable him to do his duty.
(Theory of Moral Sentiments)
Aristotle on virtue
Human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance
with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in
accordance with the best and most complete.
Nicomachean ethics, Bk I, Ch. 7
Aristotle on acquiring virtue
Moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also
its name ethike is one that is formed by a slight variation
from the word ethos (habit). . . the virtues we get by first
exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as
well. . . we become just by doing just acts, temperate by
doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Nicomachean ethics, Book II, Ch. 1.
The doctrine of the mean
Moral virtue is a mean, then, . . . It is a mean between two
vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency. . .
Hence it is also no easy task to be good. For in everything
it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g., to find the middle
of a circle is not for everyone but for him who knows; so,
too, any one can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend
money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent,
at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way,
that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness
is both rare and laudable and noble.
Nicomachean ethics, Bk. II, Ch. 8
Aristotle’s Virtues and vices
• Courage
• Good Temper
• Temperance
• Friendliness
• Liberality
• Truthfulness
• Magnificence
• Ready wit
• Pride
• Justice
• Ambition