Lecture 3: Virtue Ethics &
Introduction to Natural Law Theory
Basic Framework of Virtue Ethics:
Premise 1: An action is right iff it is what a
virtuous agent would do in the circumstances.
Premise 1a: A virtuous agent is one who acts
virtuously, i.e., one who has and exercises the
virtues.
Premise 2: A virtue is a character trait a human
being needs to flourish or live well.
Overview of Ethical Systems: Virtue Ethics:
Rather than focusing on what we ought to do, Virtue ethics offers a distinctive approach
whereby we focus on human character asking the question, “What should I be?” Thus, ethical
life involves envisioning ideals for human life and embodying those ideals in one’s life. Virtues
are ways in which we embody those ideals.
Virtue is an
excellence of
some sort.
Originally the
word meant
“strength”
and referred
to as
“manliness.”
In Aristotle’s
ethics (arete)
is used which
is trans. as
“excellences
of various
types.”
Aristotle says there
are 2 types of virtue:
intellectual virtues:
excellences of the
mind (e.g., ability to
understand, reason, &
judge well);
moral virtues:
learned by repetition
(e.g., practicing
honesty we become
honest. To be virtuous
requires knowledge,
practice, & consistent
effort at character
building.
Plato (c.427-347c):
To be virtuous we must
understand what
contributes to our
overall good & have
our desire (appetitive;
workers), spirit
(warriors), & reason
(ruler-guardians)
educated properly so
they will aggregate with
the guidance provided
by the rational part of
the soul (Books 2 & 3
of Republic). When
these 3 parts of the soul
conflict with each other,
it might move us to act
in ways that go against
the greater good
(become incontinent).
Aristotle: “Must have knowledge, second he must choose
the acts and choose them for their own sakes, &
finally his actions must proceed from a firm
character” (1105a).
Socrates: Virtue is Knowledge. No one
intentionally pursues what is wrong;.
Ignorance and forgetfulness are at fault
when one does.
Plato (c. 427-347) is concerned with the quality
of a person’s inner state & he prized
beauty, health, harmony, & strength of a
soul as the virtues we should emulate. We
must have a well-ordered soul whereby our
appetites (temperance), emotions
(courage), and reason (wisdom) operate in
their respective roles. When reason
governs, justice manifests itself from out of
the well-ordered person.
Aristotle (384-322): The function of man is
reason (the good of the thing is when it
performs its function well) which is
peculiar to him. Thus, the function of man
is reason and the life that is distinctive of
humans is the life in accordance with
reason. If the function of man is reason,
then the good man is the man who reasons
well This is the life of excellence
(eudaimonia; human flourishing & wellbeing).
Overview of Ethical Systems: Plato (427-347 B.C.)
Plato believed our natural desires are greedy and depraved. Thus, they must
be held in tight check by the powers of reason. He compared the human soul to
a city-state made up of ruler-guardians, guardians, and the peasants/artisans.
Every reality is an archetype of a corresponding eternal form. The goal of life is to
actualize one’s true nature together with one’s many innate potentialities.
4 primary
integrated
virtues:
Wisdom:
corresponds to
reason; courage:
corresponds to
the will:
temperance,
corresponds to
desire: justice:
links individual
to society.
So long as the
individual is
governed by
the power of
reason, and
reason is
assisted by
courage and
will power
(guardians),
the unruly
desires can be
suppressed.
If reason for
a moment
lets down its
guard, then
the desires
will exert
their power,
seize control,
and lead the
person to
corruption
and
immorality.
The highest good is
the well-ordered
whole to which
each part
contributes
according to its
own capacity. A
thing in reality is
good insofar as it
participates in &
corresponds to the
form of the good
(which is the high
point of the forms).
Main Points to Know:

Plato writes dialogues rather than philosophical
treatises. Hence, most of his philosophical
positions are voiced through the character of
Socrates. Even though Socrates was Plato's
actual teacher, the positions and doctrines
traditionally attributed to Socrates are actually
Plato's account of his teacher. Socrates never
wrote anything.

Plato advances a teleological conception of
morality, "we live the good life insofar as we
perform our distinctively human function well."
Main Points to Know:

The soul is divided into three parts: appetitive,
spirit, and reason. Each part helps us to fulfill
critical needs, but in Plato's view, only the
rational part of the soul is fit to rule.

In order to live a virtuous life, it is necessary for
the individual to cultivate balance in his/her soul.
Thus, persons ruled by appetite or spirit
(emotion) are "out of balance" and their actions
are apt to provoke personal or social
disharmony.
Main Points to Know:

Appetite: In cases where appetite rules (oligarchic and
tyrannical characters fit here) individuals are at the mercy
of the their biological or material whims. Alcohol addiction
fits this profile. Individuals who are addicted to selfdestructive patterns of behavior are apt to feed their
appetites at the expense of other life pursuits. People
can also be ruled by material greed in much the same
way. The key here is that desire is determinative; these
are cravings of the highest degree.
Main Points to Know:

Spirit: The emotional, passionate side of our
character is centered on the idea of status on a
social level. Ambition, desire for honor and glory,
moral indignation, and cravings for admiration,
all fit under the umbrella of spirit. Love
relationships fit into this category as well. Our
interactions with others provide core experiences
that influence our emotional development.
Main Points to Know:

Reason: The intellectual, thinking part of the soul
that must weigh options, decide between
alternatives, and "suppress dangerous urges.“
Plato clearly puts reason in control of the soul
because it acts as good counsel seeking
understanding and insight before acting. Rational
individuals possess a strong contemplative
faculty. They think before they act and are
unlikely to take rash action in any given situation.
Know Thyself:

Plato contends that each one of us performs/does one thing best.
We each have one best skill and it is the development of this skill
that is of paramount importance in creating a harmonious existence.
If we do not have insight into what we do best, the chances of
achieving a balanced soul are likely reduced. Hence the Socratic
imperative, "know thyself."

Just Society: First ask yourself: is it possible to have a just society?
What would it look like? How would we direct education, the
economy, leisure, and social resources? What is fair?

Plato wrestles with the idea of justice in his most famous work
entitled, The Republic.
Plato views social justice exactly parallels his notion of
individual justice. There are three parts of the soul and three
corresponding divisions in the social order. The social order is
constructed as follows:
SOUL
Reason
Spirit
Appetite
SOCIETY
Philosopher-King
Auxiliaries/Guardians
Craftsmen/Artisans/Traders
Overview of Ethical Systems:
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.):
Though we are naturally suited to moral goodness,
we don’t automatically develop such inclinations
Your
habits &
inclination
s develop
with
practice;
what you
sow is
what you
reap.
Carefully cultivate moral
goodness by rigorous
practice.
In order to desire to act
virtuously you must
carefully and consistently
practice doing right until it
becomes habitual & natural.
With practice & diligence you can develop
the habits & inclinations of a virtuous
person.
Ideal of virtue is doing the
right thing because you
want to do the right thing:
you desire to act virtuously.
If you act selfishly then you
will become a selfish person.
Eventually what feels right
to you may be very wrong.
Thus, choose to be
virtuous. Desire +
judgment must agree.
What is Virtue Ethics?
Virtue Ethics emphasizes the development of character
as its central theme rather than trying to define 'goodness'
or 'rightness'. It is a eudaimonistic theory as it holds
'happiness' to be our highest goal. According to Aristotle,
we attain happiness by cultivating both intellectual and
moral virtue. We become virtuous by habit: we
deliberately and consistently choose the mean between
excess and deficiency until it becomes second-nature.
What is Virtue Ethics?
“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a
habit.”
~ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Virtue = excellence:

Intellectual virtue can be taught.

A good person succeeds at rational activity.

Moral virtue is acquired through excellent
habits.

We become good by doing good things.

We become virtuous by practicing virtuous
acts.
On Becoming Agathos & Eudaimon
From Aristotle’s Point of View:
Cited from Michael Boylan, Basic Ethics (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000), 52.
Step 1: Master the functional requirements within a given type of task or
behavior.
Step 2: Possess the habitual mastery of the functional requirements to an
appropriate degree.
Step 3: Steps 1 & 2: excellence in that task or behavior.
Step 4: Possess habitual excellence in a number of key tasks or behavior.
Step 5: Possess habitual excellence in those tasks or behavior that the
common opinion judges to be the most worthy.
Step 6: Steps 4 & 5 leads to agathos.
Step 7: Possessing Agathos leads to eudaimon.
Thus, on balance, excellent traits in human character generally produce excellent
actions.
Virtue Ethics: What kind of person should I be?
What is a virtue?
A virtue is a habit of excellence, a beneficial tendency, a skilled
disposition that enables a person to realize the crucial potentialities
that constitute proper human flourishing (eudaimonia).
What is a habit? A disposition to think, feel, desire, and act in a
certain way without having a tendency to consciously will to do so.
What is a character: The sum-total of one’s habits, tendencies, and
well-being.
Four cardinal virtues: temperance, courage, prudence, and justice.
Piety (reverence to the gods) is sometimes considered a fifth virtue.
Closer Look at Virtue:

“A virtue such as honesty or generosity is not just a tendency
to do what is honest or generous, nor is it to be helpfully
specified as a "desirable" or "morally valuable" character trait.
It is, indeed a character trait — that is, a disposition which is
well entrenched in its possessor, something that, as we say
"goes all the way down", unlike a habit such as being a teadrinker — but the disposition in question, far from being a
single track disposition to do honest actions, or even honest
actions for certain reasons, is multi-track. It is concerned with
many other actions as well, with emotions and emotional
reactions, choices, values, desires, perceptions, attitudes,
interests, expectations and sensibilities. To possess a virtue is
to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset.
(Hence the extreme recklessness of attributing a virtue on the
basis of a single action)” ~ Stanford Encyclopedia
Three Central Themes:

Three Central Themes:
A.
Virtue (arete): A habit of excellence, a beneficial tendency, a
skilled disposition that enables a person to realize the crucial
potentialities that constitute proper human flourishing.

A habit is a disposition to think, feel, desire, and act in a certain way without
having a tendency to will consciously to do so.

“Character” may be defined as the sum-total of one’s habits.
C.
Eudaimonia (Human Flourishing; Successful Living):
C.
Phronesis (practical wisdom): How?

Practice The Golden Mean: Be moderate in all things to an appropriate
degree; avoid both deficiency and excessiveness; cultivate proper virtues that
are deemed most worthy by your community;

Mimic, follow the virtuous person.
Practical Wisdom (Phronesis):

A good person consistently does the right thing
at the right time, in the right way, and for the
right reason.

There is no rule for becoming good, or for
distinguishing good from bad, right from wrong.

Practical wisdom: ability to draw the right
distinctions and tell right from wrong.
A Character Trait is a Virtue IFF it is conducive to eudaimonia: The Golden Mean:
Virtue
Excess
Deficiency
Sphere
Courage
Rashness
Cowardice
Danger
Temperance
Self-indulgence
Insensibility
Sensual pleasure
Liberality
Wasteful
Stinginess
Money
Magnificence
Vulgarity
Penny pinching
Great wealth
Pride
Vanity
Humility
Honor & self-respect
Right Ambition
Overly ambitious Lack of ambition Honor
Good temper
No emotion
Quick-temper
Insult
Ready wit
Buffoonishness
Boorishness
Humor
Truthfulness
Boastfulness
Modesty
Self-description
Friendliness
Flattery
Quarrelsome
Social association
Shame
Bashfulness
Pretense
Wrongdoing
Righteous
Spite
Envy
Fortune of others
Justice
Greed
?
Scarce goods
Virtue
(courage)
People
Degree
Vice
(cowardice)
Duration
Vice
(Rashness)
Objects
Occasions
Brutish
Virtue as a Mean:

We must give in to desire in the right
circumstances, in the right way, for the right
reason, etc.

Practical wisdom allows us to find the mean.

There’s no rule for doing this.

You must learn to see what is right
Virtue as a Mean
Virtues are means between extremes
 Virtues constrain desires
 But we may constrain too little or too much

MODERATION IN ALL THINGS IS
PARAMOUNT!
In the virtuous person, desire and judgment agree whereby the
choices and actions will be free of the conflict and pain that
inevitably accompany those who are akratic and/or enkratic:
The akratic:
The akratic is the
morally weak person
who desires to do
other than what he
knows ought to be
done and acts on this
desire against his
better judgment.
The enkratic:
The enkratic is the
morally strong
person who shares
the akratic agent’s
desire to do other
than what he knows
ought to be done, but
acts in accordance
with his better
judgment.
In neither kind of choice are desire and judgment in
Why does desire and judgment
agree for the virtuous?

The reason why the choices and actions will be
free of the conflict and pain that inevitably
accompanies those of the akratic and enkratic
agent is because the part of their soul that
governs choice and action is so disposed that
desire and judgment coincide. The disposition is
concerned with choices as would be determined
by the person of practical wisdom (phronesis);
these will be actions lying between extreme
alternatives. They will lie in a man-popularly
called the “golden mean”-relative to the talents
and stores of the agent.
Why does desire and judgment
agree for the virtuous?

Choosing in this way is not easily done. It involves, for
instance, feeling anger or extending generosity at the
right time, toward the right people, in the right way, and
for the right reasons. Intellectual virtues, such as
excellence at mathematics, can be acquired by teaching,
but moral virtues cannot. I may know what ought to be
done and even perform virtuous act without being able to
act virtuously. Nonetheless, because moral virtue is a
disposition concerning choice, deliberate performance of
virtuous acts can, ultimately, instill a disposition to
choose them in harmony and with pleasure, and hence,
to act virtuously.
What does it take to be fully virtuous?
The fully virtuous do what they should without a struggle against contrary
desire; possess practical wisdom (phronesis) which is the knowledge or
understanding that enables its possessor to do just that in any given
situation. Most contend that phronesis comes out of at least three sources:
1.
Comes only with the experience of life. The virtuous are mindful of the
consequences of possible actions. How could they fail to be reckless,
thoughtless and short-sighted if they were not? Moreover, they have
developed the capacity to recognize some features of a situation as
more important than others, or indeed, in that situation, as the only
relevant ones. The wise do not see things in the same way as the
nice adolescents who, with their imperfect virtues, still tend to see the
personally disadvantageous nature of a certain action as competing in
importance with its honesty or benevolence or justice.
2.
They mimic, follow the virtuous person.
* We might add that it also takes a certain set of external goods (e.g., right
background, right education, right financial resources, right community, etc).
3 Commonly Ascribed “Advantages” of Virtue Ethics:

Focuses on the development of habits that promote human
excellence.

Focuses on an account in which being virtuous means
recognizing how rational behavior requires being sensitive to
the social and personal dimensions of life.

Focuses on how “rational” actions are not based on abstract
principles but on moderation.
Common Criticisms of Virtue Ethics (VE):

Vast differences on what constitutes a virtue (e.g., different people, societies,
opinions, etc).
VE lacks clarity in resolving moral conflicts.

VE is self-centered because its primary concern is the agent’s own character.

“Well-being” is a master value & all other things are valuable only to the extend
that they can contribute to it.

VE is imprecise: It fails to give us any help with the practicalities of how we
should behave.

VE leaves us “hostage to luck” for only some will attain moral maturity; others
will not. Moreover, life is very fragile. One small misstep and it will cost you
everything; it will forever be beyond your reach.

New Material:

We will now turn to examine Theistic
Deontological Ethics with Natural Law
Theory:

Next Time we will explore Thomas
Aquinas’ “four cardinal virtues” and
Introduce Kant’s deontological model as a
model that became secular.
Deontological Framework:

An action is right if and only if (iff) it is in accordance with a
moral rule or principle.

This is a purely formal specification, forging a link between
the concepts of right and action and moral rule, and gives
one no guidance until one knows what a moral rule is.
Deontological Framework:

So, the next thing the theory needs is a premise about that: A moral rule
is one that would have been historically:
A.
Theistic:
1.
Given to us by God;
2.
Is required by Natural Law (theistic connection);
B.
Secular (though can still be connected to God):
1.
2.
3.
4.
Is laid on us by reason.
Is required by rationality;
Would command universal acceptance;
Would be the object of choice of all rational beings.
Deontological Ethics:
In sum, we should choose actions based on their
inherent, intrinsic worth; evangelical approaches to
ethics are deontological because it presupposes
Scripture as revelation.
“Deontological” comes from the Greek word
“deon”, meaning that which is binding, in particular
a binding duty. So, you are bound to your duty.
Deontological Ethics
For example, a deontologist might argue that a
promise ought to be kept simply because it is right
to keep a promise, regardless whether the doing so
will have good or bad consequences.
In contrast, a utilitarian will argue that we should
keep our promises only when keeping them results
in better consequences than the alternatives.
Deontological Ethics
It holds that acts are right or wrong in and of
themselves because of the kinds of acts they are and
not simply because of their ends or consequences.
- The ends do not justify the means.
- A good end or purpose does not justify a bad
actions.
- You are duty-bound; binding is not dependent
on consequences, no matter if it is painful or
pleasurable.
Deontological Ethics
For example:
1. You are duty-bound to keep your promise to be
faithful to your spouse, even if a more attractive
person comes along.
2. You are duty-bound to always telling the truth, even
if it cost you a job.
Duty is not based on what is pleasant or beneficial, but rather
upon the obligation itself.
Natural Law Theory:
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the
same God who has endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect has intended us to
forgo their use.”
~ Galileo Galilei.
Natural Law Theory:
1. It is moral law presumed to be grounded in nature
itself. A natural law is a norm for ethical behavior that
is deemed binding on all humans because it coheres
with the human essence or with the structure of the
universe (grounded in nature itself), perhaps because it
was legislated by God.
2. Insofar as natural law can be known by reason
alone, without special revelation, they provide
guidance for all humans, and when followed they
enhance the common good, but also render each
person morally responsible to a divine judge.
Natural Law Theory:
3. The idea initially arose among the Jews,
Greeks, and Romans, esp. promoted by
Judaism and Stoics. But it came to the
foreground in the Christian tradition as
thinkers drew from both philosophy and the
Bible to devise a theory of morality and
politics that could be understood to be
universally applicable.
Natural Rights: Entitlements with which
humans are endowed by nature or by virtue
of their status as being human.
What is natural law theory?

There are foundational moral principle
which are not only right for all, but at some
level known to all.

In other words, there exists ethical
standards which are the same for all,
meaning they are right for everyone; at
some level, everyone knows them.

It is natural law because it is “built into the
design of human nature and woven into
the fabric of the normal human mind; it is
genuine knowledge “written on the heart.”

Therefore, there are no moral skeptics;
supposed skeptics are playing makebelieve.
Clarifying Natural Law Theory:

Natural law is not innate for we are not
born knowing it. With the capability of
understanding we come to understand
what is meant by “murder” and by
“wrong.”

Natural law is not merely biological
instinct though it does take into account of
certain biological realities.

Natural law is not mere custom-though
customs of almost all times and places
more or less acknowledge it.

Natural law is not a law of nature in the
same sense that gravitation is a law of
nature.
Natural Law Theory:

The “conscience” is the
pedagogue to the soul
(teacher).

Judaism, Origen, and
Aquinas say that all ten of
the Commandments (the
Decalogue) are in some
sense self-evident. Modern
Christian scholars such as
J. Budziszewski defend this
view.
Conscience

We know that we are to pursue good
and avoid evil because natural law is
written on the heart (prescriptive, not
descriptive).

We have the ability to tell right from
wrong.

We can violate natural law, but when
we do, we personally suffer (e.g.,
guilt).