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Virtue Ethics, Value-centredness, and Consequentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Christine Swanton
Christine Swanton
Affiliation:
University of Auckland, c.swanton@auckland.ac.nz
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Abstract

This paper argues against two major features of consequentialist conceptions of virtue: Value-centredness and the Hegemony of Promotion as a mode of moral acknowledgement or responsiveness. In relation to the first feature, I argue against two ideas: (a) Value should be understood entirely independently of virtue; and (b) The only right-making respects which serve to make an action better than another is degree of value. I argue that what I call the bases of moral response are several, including also status, the good for, and bonds. Against the Hegemony of Promotion thesis I argue for several modes of moral responsiveness constitutive of virtue.

Type
Character and Consequentialism
Information
Utilitas , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , July 2001 , pp. 213 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

1 For examples of theorists who assume the existence of ‘objective lists’ of values (disvalues) see Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights, Oxford, 1980Google Scholar; Griffin, James, Well-being, Oxford, 1986Google Scholar; Hurka, Thomas, Perfectionism, Oxford, 1993Google Scholar.

2 , Hurka, ‘Virtue as Loving the Good’, Social Philosophy and Policy, ix (1992)Google Scholar.

3 , Chappell, Understanding Human Goods: A Theory of Ethics, Edinburgh. 1998, p. 91Google Scholar.

4 , Driver, ‘The Virtues and Human Nature’, How Should One Live?: Essays on the Virtues, ed. Crisp, Roger, Oxford, 1996, p. 122Google Scholar. Notice that for Driver a virtuous agent need not always aim at promoting good consequences.

5 See Hurka, “Virtue as Loving the Good’.

6 This is a formulation derived from Philip Pettit. See Pettit, Philip, ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’ in Baron, Marcia W., Pettit, Philip, Slote, Michael, Three Methods of Ethics: A Debate, Oxford, 1997, p. 107Google Scholar.

7 See note 1.

8 See Hurka, ‘Virtue as Loving the Good’.

9 See Hursthouse, Rosalind, On Virtue Ethics, Oxford, 1999Google Scholar.

10 See Nicomachean Ethics, 1104b20–1105a9.

11 Understanding Human Goods, p. 34.

12 This difficulty for Hurka's view is recognized by , Hurka in ‘How Great a Good is Virtue?’ Journal of Philosophy, XCV (1998)Google Scholar. In this article, Hurka considers and rejects two opposing views, namely that (a) only pleasures with good objects are good and (b) pleasures with neutral intentional objects can't be good. The first view Hurka regards as counter-intuitive because it denies that ‘nonintentional pleasures, such as those of suntanning or eating icecream are good’ (197). The second implies that a sports fan's pleasure at his team's winning a championship isn't good. However, the view that pleasure suffused with vice (or sufficient vice, or certain kinds of vice) can't be good, does not have these unwanted implications, for pleasure in suntanning and sports' fans pleasure need not be suffused with any vice. Hurka then hypothesizes a revised account of the base level goods: pleasure is good except when directed at pain, false belief, and failure. He then argues that this view has difficulties. But the revised account is still wedded to the thesis of Non-aretaic Value: on a virtue ethical account pleasure at certain kinds of failure and pain may not be vicious in certain contexts, and at any rate, failure, false belief and so forth need not themselves be intrinsically evil.

13 For an example of an explicit virtue ethical rejection of the idea that pleasure (and other so-called goods) are valuable or good independently of virtue, see Slote, Michael, ‘The Virtue in Self-Interest’ Social Philosophy and Policy, xiv (1997)Google Scholar.

14 See Homey, Karen, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization, New York, p. 180Google Scholar.

15 Harmondsworth, 1983, p. 103.

16 Cambridge, 1996, p. 320.

17 New York, 1996.

18 See Cupit, Geoffrey, ‘Justice, Age, and Veneration’ Ethics, cviii (1998)Google Scholar for a discussion of this issue.

19 Ibid.

20 People may think this is too specific to be a virtue of character. But just as the general virtue of benevolence has specific forms of concern, promotion of good, etc., according to differing status and bonds, so the general virtue of respectfulness takes specific forms according to those differing features.

21 See, for example, O'Neill, Onora, Towards Justice and Virtue, Cambridge, 1996CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 5.

22 Ibid., p. 91.

23 Ibid.

24 , Buss, ‘Appearing Respectful: The Moral Significance of Manners’ Ethics, cix (1999)Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 810.

26 See further, Johnson, Conrad, ‘The Authority of the Moral Agent’ repr. Consequentialism and its Critics, ed. Scheffler, Samuel, New York, 1988Google Scholar.

27 ‘Principle Ethics, Particularism and Another Possibility’ Philosophy, lxxii (1997), 284Google Scholar.

28 214, above.

29 See further on the idea of plurality in responsiveness Anderson, Elizabeth, Value in Ethics and Economics, Cambridge, MA, 1993Google Scholar.

30 The notion of ‘honouring value’ is Pettit's, Philip – see ‘Consequentialism’ in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Singer, Peter, Oxford, 1991Google Scholar.

31 , Darwall, ‘Rational Agent, Rational Act’ Philosophical Topics, xiv (1986), 41Google Scholar.

32 Ibid.

33 In Jennings, Paul, The Jenguin Pennings, Baltimore, MD, 1963, pp. 196–206Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 206.

35 , Darwall, ‘Rational Agent, Rational Act’ p. 41Google Scholar.

36 , Foot, ‘Utilitarianism and the Virtues’ Mind, xciv (1985), 198Google Scholar.

37 , Darwall, ‘Agent-Centred Restrictions from the Inside Out’ Philosophical Studies, (1986), 292Google Scholar.

38 In The Sovereignty of Good, London, 1970Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., 5.

40 Note that vice terms have to be used here, to allow for the possibility that some forms of love, e.g., ‘tough love’ are compatible with the intentional infliction of harm.