From James Rachels, Elements of Moral Philosophy, pp. 159-179. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978). 

 The Ethics of Virtue

The concepts of obligation, and duty--moral obligation and moral duty, that is to say--and of what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral sense of "ought," ought to be jettisoned .... It would be a great improvement if, instead of "morally wrong," one always named a genus such as "untruthful," "unchaste," "unjust."-G. E. M. Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy (1958)

THE ETHICS OF VIRTUE AND THE ETHICS OF RIGHT ACTION

In thinking about any subject it makes a great deal of difference what questions we begin with.  In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (ca. 325 B.C.), the central questions are about character.  Aristotle begins by asking "What is the good of man?" and his answer is that "The good of man is an activity of the soul in conformity with virtue."  To understand ethics, therefore, we must understand what makes someone a virtuous person, and Aristotle, with a keen eye for the details, devotes much space to discussing such particular virtues as courage, self-control, generosity, and truthfulness.  The good man is the man of virtuous character, he says, and so the virtues are taken to be the subject-matter of ethics.

Although this way of thinking is closely identified with Aristotle, it was not unique to him--it was also the approach taken by Socrates, Plato, and a host of other ancient thinkers. They all approached the subject by asking: What traits of character make one a good person? and as a result "the virtues" occupied center stage in all of their discussions.

As time passed, however, this way of thinking about ethics came to be neglected.  With the coming of Christianity a new set of ideas was introduced.  The Christians, like the Jews, were monotheists who viewed God as a lawgiver, and for them righteous living meant obedience to the divine commandments.  The Greeks had viewed reason as the source of practical wisdom--the virtuous life was, for them, inseparable from the life of reason.  But, St. Augustine, the fourth-century Christian thinker who was to be enormously influential, distrusted reason and taught that moral goodness depends on subordinating oneself to the will of God. Therefore, when the medieval philosophers discussed the virtues, it was in the context of Divine Law. The "theological virtues"--faith, hope, charity, and, of course, obedience-came to have a central place.

After the Renaissance, moral philosophy began to be secularized once again, but philosophers did not return to the Greek way of thinking. Instead, the Divine Law was replaced by its secular equivalent, something called the Moral Law. The Moral Law, which was said to spring from human reason rather than divine fiat, was conceived to be a system of rules specifying which actions are right. Our duty as moral agents, it was said, is to follow its directives. Thus modern moral philosophers approached their subject by asking a fundamentally different question than the one that had been asked by the ancients. Instead of asking: What traits of character make one a good person? they began by asking: What is the right thing to do? This led them in a different direction. They went on to develop theories, not of virtue, but of rightness and obligation:

And these are the familiar theories that have dominated modern moral philosophy from the seventeenth century on.

SHOULD WE RETURN TO THE ETHICS OF VIRTUE?

Recently a number of philosophers have advanced a radical idea; they have suggested that modern moral philosophy is bankrupt and that, in order to salvage the subject, we should return to Aristotle's way of thinking.

This idea was first put forth in 1958 when the distinguished British philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe published an article called "Modern Moral Philosophy" in the academic journal Philosophy.  In that article she suggested that modern moral philosophy is misguided because it rests on the incoherent notion of a "law" without a lawgiver.  The very concepts of obligation, duty, and rightness, on which modern moral philosophers have concentrated their attention, are inextricably linked to this nonsensical idea.  Therefore, she concluded, we should stop thinking about obligation, duty, and rightness. We should abandon the whole project that modern philosophers have pursued and return instead to Aristotle's approach.  This means that the concept of virtue should once again take center stage.

In the wake of Anscombe's article a flood of books and essays appeared discussing the virtues, and "virtue theory" soon became a major option in contemporary moral philosophy.  There is, however, no settled body of doctrine on which all these philosophers agree. Compared to such theories as Utilitarianism, virtue theory is still in a relatively undeveloped state. Yet the virtue theorists are united in believing that modern moral philosophy has been on the wrong track and that a radical reorientation of the subject is needed.

In what follows we shall first take a look at what the theory of virtue is like.  Then we shall consider some of the reasons that have been given for thinking that the ethics of virtue is superior to other, more modern ways of approaching the subject.  And at the end we will consider whether a "return to the ethics of virtue" is really a viable option.

THE VIRTUES

A theory of virtue should have several components.  First, there should be an explanation of what a virtue is.  Second, there should be a list specifying which character traits are virtues.  Third, there should be an explanation of what these virtues consist in.  Fourth, there should be an explanation of why these qualities are good ones for a person to have.  Finally, the theory should tell us whether the virtues are the same for all people or whether they differ from person to person or from culture to culture.

What Is Virtue?

The first question that must be asked is: What is a virtue? Aristotle suggested one possible answer. He said that a virtue is a trait of character that is manifested in habitual actions.  The virtue of honesty is not possessed by someone who tells the truth only occasionally or whenever it is to his own advantage.  The honest person is truthful as a matter of principle; his actions "spring from a firm and unchangeable character. "

This is a start, but it is not enough.  It does not distinguish virtues from vices, for vices are also traits of character manifested in habitual action.  Edmund L. Pincoffs, a philosopher at the University of Texas, has made a suggestion that takes care of this problem. Pincoffs suggests that virtues and vices are qualities that we refer to in deciding whether someone is to be sought or avoided.  "Some sorts of persons we prefer; others we avoid," he says. "The properties on our list [of virtues and vices] can serve as reasons for preference or avoidance."

We seek out people for different purposes, and this makes a difference to the virtues that are relevant.  In looking for an auto mechanic, we want someone who is skillful, honest, and conscientious; in looking for a teacher, we want someone who is knowledgeable, articulate, and patient.  Thus the virtues associated with auto repair are different from the virtues associated with teaching.  But we also assess people as people, in a more general way: and so we have the concept, not just of a good mechanic or a good teacher, but of a good person.  The moral virtues are the virtues of persons as such.

Taking our cue from Pincoffs, then, we may define a virtue as a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for a person to have.

What Are the Virtues?

What, then, are the virtues?  Which traits of character should be fostered in human beings?  There is no short answer, but the following is a partial list:

The list could be expanded, of course, with other traits added. But this is a reasonable start.

What Do These Virtues Consist In?

It is one thing to say, in a general way, that we should be conscientious and compassionate; it is another thing to try to say exactly what these character traits consist in.  Each of the virtues has its own distinctive features and raises its own distinctive problems.  There isn't enough space here to consider all the items on our list, but we may examine four of them briefly.

I. Courage. According to Aristotle, virtues are means posed between extremes; a virtue is "the mean by reference to two vices: the one of excess and the other of deficiency." Courage is a mean between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness--it is cowardly to run away from all danger; yet it is foolhardy to risk too much.

Courage is sometimes said to be a military virtue because it is so obviously needed to accomplish the soldier's task.  Soldiers do battle; battles are fraught with danger; and so without courage the battle will be lost.  But soldiers are not the only ones who need courage. Courage is needed by anyone who faces danger--and at different times this includes all of us.  A scholar who spends his timid and safe life studying medieval literature might seem the very opposite of a soldier.  Yet even he might become ill and need courage to face a dangerous operation.  As Peter Geach (a contemporary British philosopher) puts it:

So long as we consider only "the ordinary course of life," the nature of courage seems unproblematic.  But unusual circumstances present more troublesome types of cases.  Consider a Nazi soldier, for example, who fights valiantly--he faces great risk without flinching--but he does so in an evil cause.  Is he courageous? Geach holds that, contrary to appearances, the Nazi soldier does not really possess the virtue of courage at all.  "Courage in an unworthy cause," he says, "is no virtue; still less is courage in an evil cause.  Indeed I prefer not to call this non­virtuous facing of danger 'courage.'"

It is easy to see Geach's point. Calling the Nazi soldier "courageous" seems to praise his performance, and we should not want to praise it. Instead we would rather he behaved differently.  Yet neither does it seem quite right to say that he is not courageous-after all, look at how he behaves in the face of danger.  To get around this problem perhaps we should just say that he displays two qualities of character, one that is admirable (steadfastness in facing danger) and one that is not (a willingness to defend a despicable regime). He is courageous all right, and courage is an admirable thing; but because his courage is deployed in an evil cause, his behavior is on the whole wicked.

2. Generosity. Generosity is the willingness to expend one's resources to help others.  Aristotle says that, like courage, it is also a mean between extremes: it stands somewhere between stinginess and extravagance.  The stingy person gives too little, the extravagant person gives too much.  But how much is enough?

The answer will depend to some extent on what general ethical view we accept.  Jesus, another important ancient teacher, said that we must give all we have to help the poor.  The possession of riches.. while the poor starve, was in his view unacceptable.  This was regarded by those who heard him as a hard teaching and it was generally rejected.  It is still rejected by most people today, even by those who consider themselves to be his followers.

The modern utilitarians, are, in this regard at least, Jesus' moral descendants.  They hold that in every circumstance it is one's duty to do whatever will have the best overall consequences for everyone concerned.  This means that we should be generous with our money until the point has been reached at which further giving would be more harmful to us than it would be helpful to others.

Why do people resist this idea?  Partly it may be 2 matter of selfishness; we do not want to make ourselves poor by giving away what we have.  But there is also the problem that adopting such a policy would prevent us from living normal lives.  Not only money but time is involved.  Our lives consist in projects and relationships that require a considerable investment of both.  An ideal of "generosity" that demands spending our money and time as Jesus and the utilitarians recommend would require that we abandon our everyday lives and live very differently.

A reasonable interpretation of the demands of generosity might, therefore, be something like this: we should be as generous with our resources as is consistent with conducting our ordinary lives in a minimally satisfying way.  Even this, though, will leave us with some awkward questions.  Some peopIe's "ordinary lives" are quite extravagant--think of a rich person whose everyday life includes luxuries without which he would feel deprived.  The virtue of generosity, it would seem, cannot exist in the context of a life that is too sumptuous, especially when there are others about whose basic needs are unmet.  To make this a "reasonable" interpretation of the demands of generosity, we need a conception of ordinary life that is itself not too extravagant.

3. Honesty. The honest person is, first of all.  Someone who does not lie. But is that enough?  There are other ways of misleading people than by lying.  Geach tells the story of St. Athanasius, who "was rowing on a river when the persecutors came rowing in the opposite direction: 'Where is the traitor Athanasius?' 'Not far away,' the Saint gaily replied, and rowed past them unsuspected."  

Geach approves of Athanasius's deception even though he thinks it would have been wrong to tell an outright lie.  Lying, Geach thinks, is always forbidden: a person possessing the virtue of honesty will not even consider it.  Indeed, on his view that is what the virtues are: they are dispositions of character that simply rule out actions that are incompatible with them.  Honest people will not lie, and so they will have to find other ways to deal with difficult situations.  Athanasius was clever enough to do so.  He told the truth, even if it was a deceptive truth.

Of course, it is hard to see why Athanasius's deception was not also dishonest. What nonarbitrary principle would approve of misleading people by one means but not by another?  But whatever we think about this, the larger question is whether virtue requires adherence to absolute rules.   Concerning honesty, we may distinguish two views of the matter:

1. That an honest person will never lie

and

2. That an honest person will never lie except in rare circumstances when there are compelling reasons why it must be done.

There is no obvious reason why the first view must be accepted.  On the contrary, there is reason to favor the second.  To see why, we need only to consider why lying is a bad thing in the first place.  The explanation might go like this:

Our ability to live together in communities depends on our capacities of communication.  We talk to one another, read one another's writing, exchange information and opinions, express our desires to one another, make promises, ask and answer questions, and much more.  Without these sorts of interchanges, social living would be impossible.  But in order for these interchanges to be successful, we must be able to assume that there are certain rules in force: we must be able to rely on one another to speak honestly.

Moreover, when we accept someone's word we make ourselves vulnerable to harm in a special way.  By accepting what they say and modifying our beliefs accordingly, we place our welfare in their hands.  If they speak truthfully, all is well.  But if they lie, we end up with false beliefs; and if we act on those beliefs, we end up doing foolish things.  It is their fault: we trusted them, and they let us down.  This explains why being given the lie is distinctively offensive.  It is at bottom a violation of trust.  (It also explains, incidentally, why lies and "deceptive truths" may seem morally indistinguishable. Both may violate trust in the same fashion.)

None of this, however, implies that honesty is the only important value or that we have an obligation to deal honestly with everyone who comes along, regardless of who they are and what they are up to.  Self-preservation is also an important matter, expecially protecting ourselves from those who would harm us unjustly.  When this comes into conflict with the rule against lying it is not unreasonable to think it takes priority.  Suppose St. Athanasius had told the persecutors "I don't know him," and as a result they went off on a wild goose chase. Later, could they sensibly complain that he had violated their trust?  Wouldn't they have forfeited any right they might have had to the truth from him when they set out unjustly to persecute him?

4. Loyalty to Family and Friends. At the beginning of Plato's dialogue Euthyphro Socrates learns that Euthyphro, whom he has encountered near the entrance to the court, has come there to prosecute his father for murder.  Socrates expresses surprise at this and wonders whether it is proper for a son to bring charges against his father.  Euthyphro sees no impropriety, however: for him, a murder is a murder. Unfortunately, the question is left unresolved as their discussion moves on to other matters.

The idea that there is something morally special about family and friends is, of course, familiar.  We do not treat our family and friends as we would treat strangers.  We are bound to them by love and affection and we do things for them that we would not do for just anybody.  But this is not merely a matter of our being nicer to people we like.  The nature of our relationships with family and friends is different from our relationships with other people, and part of the difference is that our duties and responsibilities are different.  This seems to be an integral part of what friendship is.  How could I be your friend and yet have no duty to treat you with special consideration?

If we needed proof that humans are essentially social creatures, the existence of friendship would supply all we could want.  As Aristotle said, "No one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other goods":

Friends give help, to be sure, but the benefits of friendship go far beyond material assistance.  Psychologically, we would be lost without friends.  Our triumphs seem hollow unless we have friends to share them with, and our failures are made bearable by their understanding. Even our self-esteem depends in large measure on the assurances of friends: by returning our affection, they confirm our worthiness as human beings.

If we need friends, we need no less the qualities of character that enable us to be a friend.  Near the top of the list is loyalty.  Friends can be counted on.  They stick by one another even when the going is hard, and even when, objectively speaking, the friend might deserve to be abandoned.  They make allowances for one another; they forgive offenses and they refrain from harsh judgments.  There are limits, of course: sometimes a friend will be the only one who can tell us hard truths about ourselves.  But criticism is acceptable from friends because we know that, even if they scold us privately, they will not embarrass us in front of others.

None of this is to say that we do not have duties to other people, even to strangers.  But they are different duties, associated with different virtues.  Generalized beneficence is a virtue, and it may demand a great deal, but it does not require for strangers the same level of concern that we have for friends.  Justice is another such virtue; it requires impartial treatment for all.  But because friends are loyal, the demands of justice apply less certainly between them.

That is why Socrates is surprised to learn that Euthyphro is prosecuting his father.  The relationship that we have with members of our family may be even closer than that of friendship; and so, as much as we might admire his passion for justice, we still may be startled that Euthyphro could take the same attitude toward his father that he would take toward someone else who had committed the same crime.  It seems inconsistent with the proper regard of a son.  The point is still recognized by the law today.  In the United States , as well as in some other countries, a wife cannot be compelled to testify in court against her husband, and vice versa.

Why Are the Virtues Important?

We said that virtues are traits of character that are good for people to have.  This only raises the further question of why the virtues are desirable.  Why is it a good thing for a person to be courageous, generous. honest, or loyal?  The answer, of course, may vary depending on the particular virtue in question. Thus:

Looking at this list suggests that each virtue is valuable for a different reason.  However, Aristotle believed it is possible to give a more general answer to our question: he thought that the virtuous person will fare better in life.  The point is not that the virtuous will be richer--that is obviously not so, or at least it is not always so.  The point is that the virtues are needed to conduct our lives well.

To see what Aristotle is getting at, consider the kinds of creatures we are and the kinds of lives we lead.  On the most general level, we are rational and social beings who both want and need the company of other people.  So we live in communities among friends, family, and fellow citizens.  In this setting, such qualities as loyalty, fairness, and honesty are needed for interacting with all those other people successfully. (Imagine the difficulties that would be experienced by someone who habitually manifested the opposite qualities in his or her social life.)  On a more individual level, our separate lives might include working at a particular kind of job and having particular sorts of interests.  Other virtues may be necessary for successfully doing that job or pursuing those interests--perseverance and industriousness might be important.  Again, it is part of our common human condition that we must sometimes face danger or temptation; and so courage and self-control are needed. The upshot is that, despite their differences, the virtues all have the same general sort of value: they are all qualities needed for successful human living.

Are the Virtues the Same for Everyone?

Finally, we may ask whether there is one set of traits that is desirable for all people.  Should we even speak of the good person, as though all good people come from a single mold?  This assumption has often been challenged.  Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, did not think that there is only one kind of human goodness. In his flamboyant way, Nietzsche observes:

There is obviously something to this. The scholar who devotes his life to understanding medieval literature and the professional soldier are very different kinds of people.  A Victorian woman who would never expose a knee in public and a modern woman on a bathing-beach have very different standards of modesty.  And yet all may be admirable in their own ways.

There is, then, an obvious sense in which the virtues may be thought of as differing from person to person.  Because people lead different kinds of lives, have different sorts of personalities, and occupy different social roles, the qualities of character that they manifest may differ.

It is tempting to go even further and say simply that the virtues differ in different societies.  After all, the kind of life that is possible for an individual will depend on the society in which he or she lives.  A scholar's life is possible only in a society that has institutions, such as universities, that define and make possible the life of a scholar.  The same could be said of a football player, a priest, or an interior decorator.  Societies provide systems of values, institutions, and ways of life within which individuallives are fashioned.  The traits of character that are needed to occupy these roles will differ, and so the traits needed to live successfully will differ.  Thus the virtues will be different.  In light of all this, why shouldn't we just say that which qualities are virtues will depend on the ways of life that are created and sustained by particular societies?

To this it may be countered that there are some virtues that will be needed by all people in all times.  This was Aristotle's view, and he was probably right.  Aristotle believed that we all have a great deal in common, despite our differences.  "One may observe," he said, "in one's travels to distant countries the feelings of recognition and affiliation that link every human being to every other human being." Even in the most disparate societies, people face the same basic problems and have the same basic needs. Thus:

This sort of list could--and in Aristotle's hands it does--go on and on.

To summarize, then, it may be true that in different societies the virtues are given somewhat different interpretations, and different sorts of actions are counted as satisfying them; and it may be true that some people, because they lead particular sorts of lives in particular sorts of circumstances, will have occasion to need some virtues more than others.  But it cannot be right to say simply that whether any particular character trait is a virtue is never anything more than a matter of social convention.  The major virtues are mandated not by social convention but by basic facts about our common human condition.

SOME ADVANTAGES OF VIRTUE ETHICS

As we noted above, some philosophers believe that an emphasis on the virtues is superior to other ways of thinking about ethics.  Why? A number of reasons have been suggested.  Here are three of them.

1. Moral motivation. First, virtue ethics is appealing because it provides a natural and attractive account of moral motivation.  The other theories seem deficient on this score.  Consider the following example.

You are in the hospital recovering from a long illness.  You are bored and restless, and so you are delighted when Smith arrives to visit.  You have a good time chatting with him; his visit is just the tonic you needed.  After a while you tell Smith how much you appreciate his coming: he really is a fine fellow and a good friend to take the trouble to come all the way across town to see you.  But Smith demurs; he protests that he is merely doing his duty.  At first you think Smith is only being modest, but the more you talk, the clearer it becomes that he is speaking the literal truth.  He is not visiting you because he wants to, or because he likes you, but only because he thinks it is his duty to "do the right thing," and on this occasion he has decided it is his duty to visit you--perhaps because he knows of no one else who is more in need of cheering up or no one easier to get to.

This example was suggested by Michael Stocker in an influential article that appeared in the Journal of Philosophy in 1976.  Stocker comments that surely you would be very disappointed to learn Smith's motive; now his visit seems cold and calculating and it loses all value to you.  You thought he was your friend, but now you learn otherwise.  Stocker says about Smith's behavior: "Surely there is something lacking here--and lacking in moral merit or value."

Of course, there is nothing wrong with what Smith did.  The problem is his motive.  We value friendship, love, and respect; and we want our relationships with people to be based on mutual regard.   Acting from an abstract sense of duty, or from a desire to "do the right thing," is not the same.  We would not want to live in a community of people who acted only from such motives, nor would we want to 'be such a person.  Therefore, the argument goes, theories of ethics that emphasize only right action will never provide a completely satisfactory account of the moral life.  For that, we need a theory that emphasizes personal qualities such as friendship, love, and loyalty--in other words, a theory of the virtues.

2. Doubts about the "ideal" of impartiality.  A dominant theme of modem moral philosophy has been impartiality--the idea that all persons are morally equal, and that in deciding what to do we should treat everyone's interests as equally important. (Of the four theories of "right action" listed above, only Ethical Egoism, a theory with few adherents, denies this.)  John Stuart Mill put the point well when he wrote that "Utilitarianism requires [the moral agent] to be as strictly impartial as a benevolent and disinterested spectator." ... 

It may be doubted, though, whether impartiality is really such an important feature of the moral life.  Consider one's relationships with family and friends.  Are we really impartial where their interests are concerned?  And should we be?  A mother loves her children and cares for them in a way that she does not care for other children.  She is partial to them through and through.  But is there anything wrong with that? Isn't it exactly the way a mother should be?  Again, we love our friends and we are willing to do things for them that we would not do for just anyone.  Is there anything wrong with that?  On the contrary, it seems that the love of family and friends is an inescapable feature of the morally good life.  Any theory that emphasizes impartiality will have a difficult time accounting for this.

A moral theory that emphasizes the virtues, however, can account for all this very comfortably.  Some virtues are partial and some are not. Love and friendship involve partiality toward loved ones and friends; beneficence toward people in general is also a virtue, but it is a virtue of a different kind.  What is needed, on this view, is not some general requirement of impartiality, but an understanding of the nature of these different virtues and how they relate to one another.

3. Virtue ethics and feminism.  Finally, we may notice a connection between the ethics of virtue and some concerns voiced by feminist thinkers.  Feminists have argued that modern moral philosophy incorporates a subtle male bias.  It isn't just that the most renowned philosophers have all been men, or that many of them have been guilty of sexist prejudice in what they have said about women.  The bias is more systematic, deeper, and more interesting than that.

To see the bias, we need first to notice that social life has traditionally been divided into public and private realms, with men in charge of public affairs and women assigned responsibility for life's more personal and private dimensions.  Men have dominated political and economic life, while women have been consigned to home and hearth.  Why there has been this division would, in a different context, be a matter of some interest.  Perhaps it is due to some inherent difference between men and women that suits them for the different roles.  Or it may be merely a matter of social custom.  But for present purposes, the cause of this arrangement need not concern us.  It is enough to note that it has existed for a long time.

The public and private realms each have their own distinctive concerns.  In politics and business, one's relations with other people are frequently impersonal and contractual.  Often the relationship is adversarial--they have interests that conflict with our own.  So we negotiate; we bargain and make deals.  Moreover, in public life our decisions may affect large numbers of people whom we do not even know.  So we may try to calculate, in an impersonal way, which decisions will have the best overall outcome for the most people.

In the world of home and hearth, however, things are different.  It is a smaller-scale environment.  In it, we are dealing mainly with family and friends, with whom our relationships are more personal and intimate.  Bargaining and calculating play a much smaller role.  Relations of love and caring are paramount.

Now with this in mind, think again about the theories of "right action" that have dominated modern moral philosophy--theories produced by male philosophers whose sensibilities were shaped by their own distinctive sorts of experience.  The influence of that experience is plain. Their theories emphasize impersonal duty, contracts, the harmonization of competing interests, and the calculation of costs and benefits.  The concerns that accompany private life--the realm in which women traditionally dominate--are almost wholly absent. The theory of virtue may be seen as a corrective to this imbalance.  It can make a place for the virtues of private life as well as the rather different virtues that are required by public life.  It is no accident that feminist philosophers are among those who are now most actively promoting the idea of a return to the ethics of virtue.

THE INCOMPLETENESS OF VIRTUE ETHICS

The preceding arguments make an impressive case for two general points: first, that an adequate philosophical theory of ethics must provide an understanding of moral character; and second, that modern moral philosophers have failed to do this.  Not only have they neglected the topic; what is more, their neglect has led them sometimes to embrace doctrines that distort the nature of moral character.  Suppose we accept these conclusions.  Where do we go from here?

One way of proceeding would be to develop a theory that combines the best features of the right action approach with insights drawn from the virtues approach--we might try to improve utilitarianism, Kantianism, and the like by adding to them a better account of moral character. Our total theory would then include an account of the virtues, but that account would be offered only as a supplement to a theory of right action.  This sounds sensible, and if such a project could be carried out successfully, there would obviously be much to be said in its favor.

Some virtue theorists, however, have suggested that we should proceed differently.  They have argued that the ethics of virtue should be considered as an alternative to the other sorts of theories--as an independent theory of ethics that is complete in itself.  We might call this "radical virtue ethics." Is this a viable view?

Virtue and Conduct

As we have seen, theories that emphasize right action seem incomplete because they neglect the question of character.  Virtue theory remedies this problem by making the question of character its central concern.  But as a result, virtue theory runs the risk of being incomplete in the opposite way.  Moral problems are frequently problems about what we should do.  It is not obvious how, according to virtue theory, we should go about deciding what to do.  What can this approach tell us about the assessment, not of character, but of action?

The answer will depend on the spirit in which virtue theory is offered.  If a theory of the virtues is offered only as a supplement to a theory of right action, then when the assessment of action is at issue the resources of the total theory will be brought into play and some version of utilitarian or Kantian policies (for example) will be recommended.  On the other hand, if the theory of virtue is offered as an independent theory intended to be complete in itself, more drastic steps must be taken.  Either the theory will have to jettison the notion of "right action" altogether or it will have to give some account of the notion derived from the conception of virtuous character.

Although it sounds at first like a crazy idea, some philosophers have in fact argued that we should simply get rid of such concepts as "morally right action."  Anscombe says that "it would be a great improvement" if we stopped using such notions altogether.  We could still assess conduct as better or worse, she says, but we would do so in other terms.  Instead of saying that an action was "morally wrong" we would simply say that it was "untruthful" or "unjust"-­terms derived from the vocabulary of virtue.  On her view, we need not say anything more than this to explain why an action is to be rejected.

But it is not really necessary for radical virtue theorists to jettison such notions as "morally right."  Such notions can be retained but given a new interpretation within the virtue framework.  This might be done as follows.  First, it could be said that actions are to be assessed as right or wrong in the familiar way, by reference to the reasons that can be given for or against them: we ought to do those actions that have the best reasons in their favor.  However, the reasons cited will all be reasons that are connected with the virtues--the reasons in favor of doing an act will be that it is honest, or generous, or fair, and the like; while the reasons against doing it will be that it is dishonest, or stingy, or unfair, and the like.  This analysis could be summed up by saying that our duty is to act virtuously--the "right thing to do," in other words, is whatever a virtuous person would do.

The Problem of Incompleteness

We have now sketched the radical virtue theorist's way of understanding what we ought to do.  Is that understanding sufficient?  The principal problem for the theory is the problem of incompleteness.

First, consider what it would mean in the case or a typical virtue--the virtue of honesty.  Suppose a person is tempted to lie, perhaps because lying offers some advantage in a particular situation.  The reason he or she should not lie, according to the radical virtue ethics approach, is simply because doing so would be dishonest.  This sounds reasonable enough.  But what does it mean to be honest?  Isn't an honest person simply one who follows such rules as "Do not lie"?  It is hard to see what honesty consists in if it is not the disposition to follow such rules.

But we cannot avoid asking why such rules are important. Why shouldn't a person lie, especially when there is some advantage to be gained from it?  Plainly we need an answer that goes beyond the simple observation that doing so would be incompatible with having a particular character trait; we need an explanation of why it is better to have this trait than its opposite.  Possible answers might be that a policy of truth-telling is on the whole to one's own advantage; or that it promotes the general welfare; or that it is needed by people who must live together relying on one another.  The first explanation looks suspiciously like Ethical Egoism; the second is utilitarian; and the third recalls contractarian ways of thinking.  In any case, giving any explanation at all seems to take us beyond the limits of unsupplemented virtue theory.

Second, it is difficult to see how unsupplemented virtue theory could handle cases of moral conflict. Suppose you must choose between A and B, when it would be dishonest but kind to do A, and honest but unkind to do B.  (An example might be telling the truth in circumstances that would be hurtful to someone.)  Honesty and kindness are both virtues, and so there are reasons both for and against each alternative. But you must do one or the other--you must either tell the truth, and be unkind, or not tell the truth, and be dishonest.  So which should you do?  The admonition to act virtuously does not, by itself, offer much help. It only leaves you wondering which virtue takes precedence.  It seems that we need some more general guidance, beyond that which radical virtue theory can offer, to resolve such conflicts.

Is There a Virtue That Matches Every Morally Good Reason for Doing Something?

The problem of incompleteness points toward a more general theoretical difficulty for the radical virtue ethics approach.  As we have seen, according to this approach the reasons for or against doing an action must always be associated with one or more virtues.  Thus radical virtue ethics is committed to the idea that for any good reason that may be given in favor of doing an action, there is a corresponding virtue that consists in the disposition to accept and act on that reason.  But this does not appear to be true.

Suppose, for example, that you are a legislator and you must decide how to allocate funds for medical research--there isn't enough money for everything, and you must decide whether to invest resources in AIDS research or in some other worthy project.  And suppose you decide it is best in these circumstances to do what will benefit the most people.  Is there a virtue that matches the disposition to do this?  If there is, perhaps it should be called "acting like a utilitarian." Or, to return to our example of moral conflicts--is there a virtue connected with every principle that can be invoked to resolve conflicts between the other virtues?  If there is, perhaps it is the "virtue" of wisdom--which is to say, the ability to figure out and do what is on the whole best.  But this gives away the game.  If we posit such "virtues" only to make all moral decision making fit into the preferred frame­work, we will have saved radical virtue ethics, but at the cost of abandoning its central idea.

Conclusion

For these reasons, it seems best to regard the theory of virtue as part of an overall theory of ethics rather than as a complete theory in itself.  The total theory would include an account of all the considerations that figure in practical decision making, together with their underlying rationale.  The question, then, will be whether such a total view can accommodate both an adequate conception of right action and a related conception of virtuous character in a way that does justice to both.

I can see no reason why this is not possible.  Our overall theory might begin by taking human welfare--or the welfare of all sentient creatures, for that matter--as the surpassingly important value.  We might say that, from a moral point of view, we should want a society in which all people can lead happy and satisfying lives.  We could then go on to consider both the question of what sorts of actions and social policies would contribute to this goal and the question of what qualities of character are needed to create and sustain individual lives.  An inquiry into the nature of virtue could profitably be conducted from within the perspective that such a larger view would provide.  Each could illuminate the other; and if each part of the overall theory has to be adjusted a bit here and there to accommodate the other, so much the better for truth.