[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
temptation in the midst of carrying out the plans? Perhaps not; but an
ideally virtuous person would not suffer from weakness of the will and
could make plans with others without fear of ruining everything by
giving in to temptation at just the wrong moment. In this sort of case
a person should precisely not do what an ideally virtuous person
would do, because that would in a way be to pretend that he or she
had the sort of character that he or she does not have.
Doing What a Virtuous Person Would Advise One to Do
One might try to modify the account of what a not wholly virtuous
agent ought to do by saying that an agent ought morally to do what a
virtuous person would advise the agent to do. This would be to move
some distance from the original version of virtue ethics in the direction
of a critic-centered or spectator-centered moral theory, and it has its
own problems. A morally virtuous agent might think that he or she
ought not to give another person advice about certain matters, perhaps
because it would be better for the other person to figure things out for
him or herself, or for other reasons. Furthermore, an agent who is good
at acting virtuously might not be good at advising others what to do,
just as some people are good at giving advice but not good at doing
the right thing themselves.12
Objection to Reliance on Character Traits
A less obvious but in my view more important objection to any appeal
to what an ideally virtuous person would do comes from current social
psychology. It seems that, when people attribute robust character traits
to other agents, they do so on the basis of minimal evidence and tend
completely to overlook the relevance of features in agents situations
that help to explain why they act as they do. And, although people rou-
tinely explain the actions of others by appeal to robust character traits,
there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the sorts of traits that
122 Gilbert Harman
people standardly attribute to others. What a person with a seemingly
ideal moral character will do in a particular situation is pretty much
what anyone else will do in exactly that situation, allowing for random
variation.13
This is not to deny all individual differences. People have different
innate temperaments, different knowledge, different goals, different
abilities, and tend to be in or think they are in different situations. All
such differences can affect what people will do. But there is no evidence
that people also differ in robust character traits or that differences in
goals, knowledge, etc. are to be explained by differences in robust char-
acter traits.
People unfamiliar with social psychology find these conclusions
incredible, just as psychoanalysts find it incredible when they are told
that there is no evidence that psychoanalysis has therapeutic value. But
our ordinary convictions about differences in character traits can be
explained away as due to a fundamental attribution error together
with confirmation bias. I have discussed this elsewhere and won t
try to say more here.14
Similarly, there is no evidence that moral education via character
development is required for ordinary moral behavior or indeed that
it ever happens. The thought that such training is necessary is similar
to the thought that children normally have to be taught their first
language.15
Thomson s Version of Virtue Ethics
To appreciate Thomson s approach, it is important to observe, first, that
we use the terminology of particular virtues and vices not only to
specify character traits but also to describe particular acts. A person
who is not generally honest or dishonest may yet act honestly or
dishonestly on a particular occasion. Similarly, someone may act
generously on one occasion only, or be conscientious on one occasion
only, or be unkind on one occasion only. In developing her account,
Thomson starts with a person s acting virtuously or viciously rather
than with a person s possessing one or another character trait.
Second, Thomson distinguishes moral virtues, properly so-called,
from all-purpose virtues, like courage, industry, prudence, and loyalty,
that are useful for both moral and evil purposes. An evil act might be
courageous. A villain can be prudent and industrious. One can be loyal
to bad companions. Such courage, industry, prudence, and loyalty are
not by themselves moral virtues.
Thomson suggests that the proper moral virtues fall into two groups.
Reliance virtues include justice and honesty (at least if honesty is not just
Virtue Ethics without Character Traits 123
a sheer unwillingness to lie, come what may, which is a peculiarly
unattractive form of self-righteousness, and thus a minor vice .)16
Virtues of concern include generosity, kindness, and considerateness.17
Courage, industry, loyalty, and prudence can be morally praise-
worthy if they are exhibited in conduct that is virtuous in one of the
basic senses, but not otherwise. Praise of courage, industry, loyalty, and
prudence in action is parasitic on there being other grounds for wel-
coming the act. 18
Thomson flirts with a utilitarian virtue ethics in suggesting that the
true moral virtues might be distinguished from the all-purpose ones
like courage in that the fact of there being people who possess the
virtues is good for us. 19 It is good for us that there are kind and just
people. It is not in the same way good for us that there are courageous
people, unless those people are also kind and just.
The next point is to specify what morality requires. On the supposi-
tion that for each true moral virtue there are corresponding moral vices
that are contraries of the virtue, such as being unjust, mean, cruel, etc.,
Thomson proposes that we identify what morality requires with the
avoidance of these contraries. Morality requires us to do a thing if and
only if not doing it would be unjust, or mean, or cruel, and so on.
Morality requires us not to do a thing if and only if doing it would be
unjust, or mean, or cruel, and so on. 20
How Thomson s Version Avoids Problems for Standard Versions of
Virtue Ethics
Thomson s version of virtue ethics is concerned in the first instance
with virtuous action rather than virtuous character traits. Her version
is compatible with the existence of robust character traits, but it does
not require that people actually have robust character traits.
It is true that she says she is tempted to identify the virtues by noting
that it is good for us that there are virtuous people. So, her idea may
be that the virtues are those robust character traits that it is good for
us that people have. But the point is really that it is good for us that
there are people who act virtuously. It is compatible with this that
people do not and maybe even could not have corresponding robust
character traits.21
Thomson s way of explaining moral requirement also avoids the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]