What do we owe the manifold people in our lives? And what normative theory actualizes what is owed? I argue, most basically, for the principle of not harming, which is actualized by endorsing moderate virtue ethics. To make my case, I will first explain virtue ethics, then argue for endorsing it, as well as the principle of not harming. Following this, I entertain the objection that virtue ethics is, by definition, immoral.
To begin, virtue ethics is an ancient tradition often associated with eudaimonism. Most ancient traditions claimed that whether one pursues pleasure, status, or understanding, or even money, it is for a flourishing life “on the whole.”[1] While traditions argued for different means, most converged on the importance of virtue. The principle difference between Stoicism and Aristotelianism, if we limit our analysis to these two, is the degree of importance they place on virtue. For the Stoics, virtue is sufficient and external goods like wealth and friendship are “preferred indifferents.”[2] In contrast, Aristotle argues that virtue, in conjunction with friendship, a moderate amount of wealth, and just political conditions are all necessary for achieving a full-flourishing life.[3] As Aristotle writes, the flourishing life “evidently also needs external goods to be added … since we cannot, or cannot easily, do fine actions if we lack the resources.”[4] On this view, if one lacks friends, is impoverished, or lives under a dictator, they cannot achieve eudaimonia regardless of how virtuous they are. Therefore, while the stoics claim that virtue is enough, Aristotle argues that while virtue is ranked the highest, some external goods are also necessary, which is why Aristotle’s account is known as moderate virtue ethics and what I argue for here as the normative theory that actualizes what others are owed.[5]
To further understand why this is the case, it is necessary to sketch Aristotle’s account further. What is crucial is virtue being the golden mean between extremes.[6] Given the circumstances, the prudent individual, Aristotle reasons, can deliberate and decide what the virtuous action is in that specific instance. By cultivating the capacity to deliberate or prudence, one can more easily determine what particular contingent circumstances call for. Thus, prudence allows the golden mean, the virtuous action relative to some context, to be identified. This ultimately comes down to responding to the natural feelings that affect us, given our animal instincts.[7] The virtuous act is “having these feelings at the right times, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way,” which is “not the same for all.”[8] What temperance or courage is for one individual will not be the same for all.[9] Justice, too, like all virtues, depends on particular circumstances. Thus there is no universal rule, although rules or principles help determine what is called for.[10] That is, in formulating one’s response to their natural feelings, one must rely on their rationality, which will inevitably require invoking reasons to act one way or another.[11]
Depending on how one responds, they will, over time, come to develop habits or habitual responses, which come to define their character. As Aristotle writes, “we are what we repeatedly do” and “become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, and brave by doing brave actions.”[12] Hence, virtues like justice, temperance, and courage are actualized through practice guided by prudence.
Now an outstanding reason for endorsing this theory when posed with the question “what do I owe others?” is that it does not abstract away the agent and focus merely on isolated acts.[13] Given that what is right shifts depending on the context, as well as the individual. This tradition, and normative reasoning in general, if it is realistic, is only operative when one does not abstract away the agent, as they play the central role in the deliberative process. By decomposing normative theory into ethics and morals, which I relate to the subjective and objective, respectively, the reason for virtue ethics becomes clearer. The problem with bracketing the subjective element and focusing almost exclusively on the objective element, as is the case in modern normative theory, is that the theoretical constructions, the moral principles sought after, do not guideand only govern with rules.[14] In contrast, virtue ethics acknowledges the centrality of subjectivity and simultaneously satisfies the need to clarify what to will by its value judgments about what is necessary for a flourishing life. It also satisfies the objective relation with others by reminding the agent that the end is only achieved by upholding duties. Virtue ethics is analogous to gameplay insofar that the goal players seek is only possible if they play by the rules.
The duty is, most generally, not to harm others. This is the moral first principle, which is distinct from the ethical first principle of eudaimonia. Lebar, a constructivist, writes that we get to principles by inducing from the materials of some domain, which then become our grounds when determining what to do in an actual circumstance. Lebar contends principles like eudaimonia and prudence follow from the materials of what people actually do in practical reasoning,[15] which is why Annas writes that Aristotle’s account is not an argument but rather an “an explication of what we do do.”[16] I extend this reasoning to the principle of not harming.
We move to the principle of not harming as the duty one has to others by examining the moral “matters” frequently encountered. Ancient or modern, secular or religious, the throughline, the form, of distinct normative theories is not harming others. In other words, many moral traditions converge on not harming. Just consider Kant’s principle for respecting a person’s autonomy, Sidgwick’s notion of rational benevolence, and the contemporary notion of constraints on harming to see how many are in some sense derivations of this underivative principle. Examine the essence of medical ethics in the Hippocratic oath, or the core of religious norms – some variation of the golden rule – and the principle of not harming is basically there. Therefore, this is what we most basically owe to others across the board, regardless of who someone is. To return to the above analogy, when someone breaks this rule, say by stealing or assaulting, they are penalized, they are locked up and unable to pursue the goal of the game.
The objection levelled against virtue ethics, which is associated with eudaimonism, is that it is immoral because it is self-centred. As Annas writes, “modern moral theories … often begin by specifying morality as a concern for others; morality is often introduced as a point of view contrasting with egoism.”[17] To many modern theorists, virtue ethicists are egoists as their pursuits are always a means, a tool, to their own end. The final end of eudaimonia is the only thing or act with intrinsic value that is not an instrument. The principle of eudaimonia that exists within the grounding set of such individuals conflicts with the modern definitions of morality. If others’ interests are not given as much significance as one’s own, the position is not a moral point of view.[18] Thus, virtue ethics is not a proper moral point of view.
This first point about virtue ethics being egoist is mistaken as it is clear that virtues like justice are continually sought after.[19] For Aristotle, this is the highest of virtues, as we are social animals. So the moderate virtue ethicist will deliberately respond such that the most basic moral duty of not harming is habituated for interpersonal justice and further contribute to the concerns of others as just political conditions are a necessary external condition for a flourishing life.
Furthermore, the modern definition of morality disregards the nature of practical reasoning. Conversely, the claims about human nature that virtue ethics is based on, namely that we are self-interested and actualize theoretical ideals through practice, are borne out empirically, consider the consensus amongst social scientists or the neuroscientific research on the brain’s plasticity, which is why Annas insists that “core of the virtues emerges from important facts about the way we normally are, our moral psychology.”[20] Disregarding our psychological starting points and assuming we are other-interested or that our actions can radically shift with minimal practice is naïve. Practical reasoning hinges on a unique view, a human subjectivity. While the view from nowhere, the objective ideal, serves a purpose in political theory, in normative theory, it fails as our instincts or emotions skew our practical reasoning in the concrete circumstances we can never escape. We can change how we feel; we can become more other-interested, but only through much practice as we are going against our basic self-interested instincts.
Another response is that we need egoism because contemporary Western constitutions are grounded on liberalism, which gives rise to the valuation of individuality and thereby promotes self-centeredness. Virtue ethics is a better wager as modern political constitutions and their environments promote narcissism, and so virtue ethics is more likely to get people to buy in initially as it frames “moral” conduct in a way that is in their best interest. Over time, as the individual learns more about the theory through practice, they realize that their interests are deeply tied to others’ and promote their interests too. In contrast, modern normative theories demand too much other-interested behaviour too soon and thus do not successfully do away with the worship of the self.
To recap, I contend that moderate virtue ethics is the most plausible normative theory, when paired with the principle of not harming, to actualize what others are owed most basically because taken together, they do not disregard subjectivity nor the centrality of practice and, in most cases sufficiently satisfy objective morality by establishing moral parameters that govern what we owe to others. As this paper comes to a close, I acknowledge that this account is limited in that some cases call for additional principles to determine what the situation calls for. Given this, future research demands inquiring into what other principles are necessary for the grounding set to resolve these other, less basic, cases.
[1] Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin, (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), 1095b 15 – 1096a 10; 1097b 5; Julia Annas, “Making Sense of My Life as a Whole” in The Morality of Happiness, (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2003), 31.
[2] Julia Annas, “The Virtues,” in The Morality of Happiness, (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2003), 122.
[3] Ibid., 123.
[4] Aristotle, 1099b.
[5] Annas, 47.
[6] Aristotle, 1107a.
[7] Mark Lebar, “Aristotelian Constructivism” in Social Philosophy and Policy 25, no. 1 (2008), 198.
[8] Aristotle, 1106a 30, 1106a 20.
[9] Ibid., 1104a5 10-20.
[10] Aristotle, 1094b 15.
[11] Lebar, 197.
[12] Aristotle, 1103b.
[13] Annas, 124.
[14] Ibid., 125.
[15] Lebar 202
[16] Annas, 32.
[17] Ibid., 127.
[18] Ibid., 128.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Annas, 115.