Ask a question or make a comment about one of the two major theories of ethics

1. Virtue ethics.

Virtue ethics is sometimes called character ethics or other similar names. The basic idea comes from Aristotles Ethics, which some scholars believe was a textbook for his students in ancient Greece. Those students were sons of powerful elites, being brought up to continue the family business (politics). Aristotle drew upon a tradition of reverence for virtuous men in writing his textbook, and attempted to show that it was virtue that made people good, and virtue that led people to have happy lives.

Aristotle discusses ten virtues in the Ethics that he says are necessary for a person to live well. Living well, he says, is the same thing as living a good life, and so virtue is necessary to happiness. (This makes sense to me: activities that I do well make me happier than activities I do less well. Doing well makes the activities more enjoyable.)

Virtue was, for Aristotle, the right condition of the soul. There are intellectual virtues, which consist of having the right knowledge of various things, but what most virtue ethics philosophers emphasize today are the virtues of character (or moral virtues). These were the right condition of the soul with regard to something - but this means, for Aristotle, having the right response to the right things at the right moment under the right circumstances for the right reason, etc. For instance, courage is the right condition of the soul with regard to frightful things - that is, the right frightful things (death), at the right moment (in battle), under the right circumstances (nobly), for the right reason (victory).

In each case the right condition will be somewhere be tween two vices of excess and deficiency. For courage, Aristo tle calls the excess of fear cowardice and the deficiency rashness or stupidity. True courage is the middle condition, or the mean (often called the Golden Mean) between excess and deficiency. The mean varies from person to person, but it is always the one right condition.

The key is education in virtue. To become virtuous (and thus to have any shot at happiness), you have to be born into a society that values virtue and into a household that gives you the right background to become virtuous. You need a good (virtu ous) teacher or model for virtue. You need constant training in virtuous activity. Ultimately, virtuous people enjoy virtuous activity. For example, in his discussion of the virtue of modera tion, Aristotle asks which of two people is truly moderate: the person who drinks a reasonable amount of wine and is satisfied by that; or the person who drinks a reasonable amount of wine, really wants much more, but forces himself or herself to stop? Aristotles answer: the first person. Why? Because that person has become moderate, and enjoys the moderate amount. The second person isnt truly moderatewe know this, since that person really craves more than the moderate amount. So virtue feeds on itself: the more virtuous you are, the more you enjoy virtuous activity, the more virtuous you become.

The other key to virtue ethics is that it doesnt look for a hard and fast rule. What is the right amount of fear to have of death? It must vary from situation to situation and from per son to person. But everyone can look for that right amount for himself or herself, and everyone can benefit from following a virtuous model.

I think virtue ethics is optimistic about human nature. Were born with a capacity for happiness and our natures even direct us toward it (pleasure, e.g.). If genuine happiness is in deed the result of doing well and living well, it would seem that being ethical pays off in the long run. Its also a flexible theory: ethics isnt rigidly bound by absolutely inviolate principles, but a matter of doing the best thing.

Virtue ethics as typically discussed today emphasizes integ rity of individual character, and tends to de-emphasize the need for a society committed to virtue and for a virtuous model. This emphasis on the individual makes even stronger the tendency of Aristotles thought to consider people to be autonomous deci sion-makers.

Should we believe that being ethical leads to happiness? Should we believe that being ethical should give us some kind of satisfaction? Should we believe that there is a right condition of the soul? Should we believe that we are autonomous decision makers?

2. Deontology, Duty Ethics, Kantian Ethics.

Deontology comes from two Greek words. The deon part means duty, and the logy part you already know means science of. So deontology is the science of duty, or as it is often called, duty ethics, or duty-based ethics. Its also named Kantian after its primary philosophical theorist, Immanuel Kant.

In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant discusses the need for a basis for morality. Metaphysics is the study of the nature of things, so what Kant was looking for was, we might say, what makes morality morality. Note how different this question is from Aristotles: Aristotles Ethics was a textbook showing how to be virtuous. Kants works on morality are ex plaining what makes morality what it is.

The beginning of the Groundwork is one of my favorites. Kant attacks Aristotles view that ethics is for the sake of happi ness in two ways. First, he says, if ethics is for the sake of hap piness, then we would only act ethically to the extent that it made us happy - in other words, not because of morality, but for our own sakes. That doesnt seem moral. (This is worth reflection, I think: if my goal in acting morally is to be happy, then Ill only act morally when it suits me. Or think of it this way: when we are concerned about morality is precisely at those moments when what we want to do conflicts with what we be lieve we should do.)

Second, Kant says, if we were naturally meant to be happy, nature would have equipped us with some instinct for happi ness. But instead, we have reasonand reason only determines what is rational, not what is happy. Through this argument, Kant shows that happiness is irrelevant to morality, and directs his search for the essence of morality toward reason.

He begins again, analyzing what makes a good will good. The good will is the will that directs itself according to duty. So what is duty? Duty is acting out of respect for the moral law and with no other motivation at all. In short, Kant determines that what makes a good will good is that it acts only for the sake of morality itself. In other words, only actions done strictly be cause of the moral law are moral actions.

This is actually a simple idea: the only actions that count as moral actions are those done only because of morality. Morality has nothing to do with your own personal decision making. Your subjective feeling about morality does not determine what your moral duty is. Kant goes so far as to say that if you per form an action which follows the moral law, but perform it because you enjoy it, you havent really acted on the basis of morality. For example, if you give to charity because you get a feeling of satisfaction from doing so, then morality wasnt really your motivation, and your action isnt a truly moral action. If, on the other hand, you give to charity but would really rather not, and dont enjoy giving, but do so only because its required by the moral law, then your action is moral. (Another favorite example: imagine two boy scouts. One boy scout really likes old ladies, enjoys their stories, they remind him of his grandmother, and so he is happy to help them across the street whenever he gets a chance. The other boy scout despises old ladies and has no use for them at all, thinks their stories are boring and point less, but he also helps them across the street whenever he gets a chance. Kants view is the second boy scout is acting morally, since he gets no further personal satisfaction from his action. Note that this is just the opposite of Aristotles idea.)

In sum: what makes a moral action a moral action is that it is willed for the sake of morality and for no other purpose at all. For that reason, Kants view only concerns the will, and ignores all the consequences. The consequences never matter, since what makes the act moral is what determined the action. (This is why Kants theory is sometimes called act-based ethics or an ethics of action, but I think the terms are misleading.)

How do we know what the moral law requires? Remember that for Kant the moral law is absolutely rational, because its based on reason and nothing else. Kant therefore defines the moral law in terms that are absolute and rational (logical). He calls this definition of the moral law the categorical impera tive. It is categorical in that it is exceptionless, absolute, invi olate. It is imperative in that it is required. There can only be one categorical imperative, Kant says (well skip the reasons why), and that categorical imperative is:

Act only in such a way that the maxim of your action could be willed without contradiction to be a univer sal law.

Every action of yours follows a rule: you do everything for a reason. Now, imagine the rule of your action, as a universal law that everyone must follow at all times. If you can will that with out contradicting yourself, then you have identified a moral law. Examples will clarify this.

First, consider lying versus being honest. When you lie, you are acting according to a tacit rule, which says something like thou shalt lie. Could it be moral to lie? The test is what would be the result of universalizing this law. If thou shalt lie were the universal law everyone must follow, what would be the result? No one would trust anything anyone said. In that case, nothing anyone said would be taken to be true. But then no one would be able to lie, either. If thou shalt lie were made the universal law, it would be impossible to lie. This imagined law contradicts itself.

(When I bring this example up, someone invariably asks, if were supposed to ignore the consequences, how do we use the categorical imperative as a test of a moral law? Arent we testing the consequences? Nope. Its not the consequences of everyone lying that matter, its that it would not be possible to lie if lying were the law. The law contradicts itself; we havent considered the empirical consequences at all. If thou shalt lie were the moral law everyone had to follow, lying would have no meaning - it would never deceive anyone, hence it would not function as a lie. So the law would require us to do something that the same law would make impossible.)

Second, consider murder. If you murder someone, you set up the rule thou shalt murder. But if this were made the uni versal law, it too would be impossible to follow. If everyone must murder, eventually there wouldnt be anyone around to murder. This law contradicts itself.

So what if it came down to lying in order to prevent a murder? Kant says two things relevant here. (1) No moral law can contradict another. There simply cannot be contradictory moral imperatives, no matter what the situation. But more im portant, (2) we can only control, and therefore can only be re sponsible, for our own acts. You cannot lie in order to prevent murder. A famous counter-argument posed to Kant will explain this.

A critic of Kants wrote a scenario involving lying about your brothers whereabouts in order to prevent him being mur dered. Suppose your brother comes over and tells you someones trying to murder him, and that hes going to hide in your attic. Then the would-be murderer comes to your door and says I saw your brother heading this way. Is he here? Obviously, the critic wrote, morality would require us to lie in order to save the brother.

Not so, replied Kant. (He ignores the fact that morality doesnt seem to stop us from simply not responding, or calling the cops, because he wanted to address the issue raised in the criticism.) In the first place, I can only control whether or not I lie. My will does not determine the will of the murderer. So I am only responsible for whether I break the moral law by ly ingand I am not responsible for whether the murderer kills my brother. In the second place, Kant says, morality is not about the consequences. One implication of that doctrine is the fore seeability of consequences. In brief, we cannot predict or deter mine the future. We can never really know the consequences. To illustrate: suppose, Kant wrote, that we lie to the murderer: No, hes not here. I havent seen him. Hes certainly not in the attic. The murderer leaves to look for him elsewhere. But your brother, remembering you were studying Kants moral theory, decides youre going to rat him out, so he has already left. The murderer sees him leaving, and nabs himexactly what your lie was trying to prevent.

Well see Kants view reflected in essays concerning deter mining rules of morality. But theres a more subtle way Kants theory is used today, focusing less on the results and more on the acts of morality. A Kantian approach would help us deter mine what rules there are, why there are any rules, and so on. Remember that Kants view is more to do with defining morali ty than with giving us guidance in being moral.

Should we believe there is an absolutely exceptionless, ra tional basis to morality? Should we believe that reason is the same for all of us, and that only reason should be consulted in making moral judgments? Should we ignore the consequences of actions when determining whether they are moral?